When a law professor receives student feedback that his class is boring, should he care?  I once had a discussion with a colleague about this topic who was insistent that students care too much about being “entertained” in class and too little about actually learning the material that is conveyed to them.  While I agree that the ultimate measure of a successful class should be whether the students have learned (and can apply) the material, we shouldn’t downplay the importance of entertainment in facilitating that learning.  Indeed, I think it is wrong to think that our job description does not include “entertainer” almost as much as it does “teacher.”  (If you don’t believe me, try sitting through a colleague’s 75-minute class, as I recently had to do for evaluation purposes.  While time seems to fly as the professor, it moves at a decidedly slower pace when you are in the student’s shoes.)      

    But what does it mean to be an entertainer in class?  Must the professor tell jokes, sing songs, or swallow fire?  While I have no doubt that this would help, of course not.  Students will learn the material better when they are interested and engaged, and being an entertainer is simply shorthand, in my view, for creating a classroom environment that facilitates student interest and engagement.  Such entertainment might include problem sets, hypotheticals, simulations, or flipping the classroom.  But it would incorporate simpler devices too, such as humor, personal stories, or even just changing inflection on key points. 

    One doesn’t have to entertain every second of every class, of course, as sometimes the material is just boring and there isn’t much that can be done with it (believe me, as I teach some UCC classes).  But it is wrong, in my view, to think that our role as a teacher doesn’t include a role as an entertainer.  Students will learn better when we present the material in an interesting and engaging manner, and that means that we need to think about entertaining as part of our efforts to be an effective teacher.  Fortunately, entertaining does not require one to be a showboat in the classroom, or to have a stand-up comedy routine on a daily basis.  But it does require a consistent effort to think of our job description as something more like “facilitator of student learning” than “conveyer of useful information.”  So while it is true that some students care too little about learning the material, it is also true that we as law professors need to think about how entertaining might make that material easier to learn.  

    And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my fire-swallowing trick . . . .