With a smile and a microphone in hand, Rob Durham, language arts teacher, stands in front of the Creative Writing class, cracking and riling up the crowd with a load of jokes.
But Durham’s comedic platform extends beyond his classroom.
Durham has been working in stand-up comedy for 24 years and does professional shows. He headlines the Funnybone Comedy Club and performs at bars, charity events, corporate events and Elk Lodges all year long.
For the semester final of Creative Writing, Durham had his classes perform stand-up comedy. Each student took turns at the front of the classroom, performing at least two jokes. At the end of the show, everyone voted for the winner who would win one of Durham’s books. Durham has published two novels, “Around the Block” and “Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.”
“I used to give a standard final or test, but with Creative Writing, it’s not like we need to remember,” Durham said. “Finals are there to engrave that knowledge into your long-term memory, and creative writing isn’t that kind of academic thing.”
Durham said his goal is for his creative writing students to make writing a habit and to improve creativity.
After being exposed to this type of work, some of Durham’s students have pursued it as a career.
“I have two students professionally opening for me: Ryan Berger and Austin Woods,” Durham said. “Another student, Aaron Grossman, is pursuing it in Washington D.C and Nick Brooke does stand-up comedy in the St. Louis area.”
Seeing his students perform a stand-up comedy show brings Durham solace.
“It’s neat to see. Not just the success of the show, but the struggle. My students now have a deeper appreciation for comedy. And maybe a little respect to my other career because it is a very misunderstood thing,” Durham said.
Kabir Ghura, senior, won the semester final stand-up comedy performance and was awarded “Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage,” one of Durham’s books.
“It felt great to be on stage,” Ghura said. “At first I didn’t have high hopes for the performance, but it turned out to be really fun.”
Ghura prepared for the performance and thought of his jokes when he was playing video games with his friends.
“I was on a call with my friends, and as I was saying jokes., They told me to write it down because it was funny,” Ghura said.
Ghura said he was surprised he won the performance and is proud of what his work achieved. A piece of advice Ghura gives to the students next semester is to “not be scared’ and to “just do it.”
Ghura said he developed a new respect for stand-up comedians and sees himself pursuing it in the future.
At first, Anya Kurz, senior, was disappointed to hear about the assignment, but her mind changed quickly after a couple of performances.
“When Mr. Durham told us what the assignment was going to be, I didn’t really like it,” Kurz said. “I don’t like to perform, but I eventually found myself enjoying being on stage. I was genuinely laughing at everyone’s jokes.”
Kurz suggests other teachers implement a creative form of a final instead of a traditional paper and test.
“A standard final in American education is about memorization and not actually learning anything,” Kurz said. “I think if we put creativity in our finals, then we would see a lot more learning and growth than just memorization of a list of vocabulary words.”
Kurz was grateful for the final assignment as it was not just a task, but a great wrap-up of the classes and semester.
“We all needed to laugh,” Kurz said. “There’s a lot of pressure during finals week, and this show took the pressure off of a lot of people.”
