Inside the double life of Adelaide teacher and stand-up comedian Taylor Goodwin

He’s swapping the classroom for a surprising stage but what do students think about their teacher’s unconventional after school activities?

Taylor Goodwin says teaching is just like stand up comedy, but “the only difference with teaching is you get heckled more”.

The Charles Campbell College teacher and stand-up comic will perform in front of audiences of thousands around Australia and New Zealand when he jet-sets off on tour in September.

His stand-up routine, which mostly focuses on classroom-related humour, will hit stages in cities such as Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne on tour with international comedy brand Bored Teachers, which has a combined 10m followers across social media platforms.

When the teacher told his students he was going on the comedy tour, they joked “really Mr Goodwin, is this your peak?”.

“They’ve got a really sarcastic sense of humour,” the 33-year-old said.

“The Gen Z language is always a funny one to unpack with students.”

Charles Campbell College student Owen Wilkinson, 17, with teacher and comedian, Taylor Goodwin, and classmate Lynette Taylor, 17. Picture: Matt Loxton

Mr Goodwin, from Athelstone, had been balancing comedy and education since after he achieved his world record feat of telling 571 jokes in an hour in 2014, which attracted attention from television producers.

But he after he finished university and started teaching at Mount Barker High School in 2018, he fell in love with education and refused to give it up.

“A lot of the time I think teachers try to shut down humour or that leadership or that creativity but for my part it was ‘how can I embrace this?’,” he said.

While at the school Mr Goodwin started a comedy club and integrated humour into his classroom approach.

His philosophy, which he had practised at Charles Campbell College in Paradise since 2022, is comedy can “disarm difficult conversations and build rapport”.

“You have students who have barriers to learning which can sometimes impact behaviour and a way to navigate the class is sometimes to use humour,” Mr Goodwin said.

“Some the students have really complex backgrounds and through that vehicle they start to share what’s happening in their lives and you can apply resources to that need.”

The teacher, who has been performing his sets at the Adelaide Fringe Festival for a decade, often draws inspiration for his sets from his students.

Charles Campbell College student Owen Wilkinson, 17, with teacher and comedian, Taylor Goodwin, and fellow students Lexie Corcoran and Lynette Taylor, both 17. Picture: Matt Loxton

Year 12 students at Charles Campbell College Lexie Corcoran, Owen Wilkinson and Lynette Taylor, all 17, had been providing their teacher with material for the upcoming tour.

“Not a lot of teachers can take a joke, but he can take jokes,” Lexie said.

“We’ll tell him schoolyard stories and he’ll make them funnier.”

Owen said his classmates “always make fun of him and he (Mr Goodwin) takes the mick”.

Lynette believes Mr Goodwin strikes “a good balance of humour and helpfulness” in the classroom.

Later this year, Mr Goodwin will attempt to break another world record, with the longest comedy set.

But he says “it’s going to be tough” to beat the current record at 40 hours.

Originally published as Inside the double life of Adelaide teacher and stand-up comedian Taylor Goodwin