Opportunities for pupils to discuss with their teachers matters affecting their education are considered a positive step towards delivering a rights-based pedagogy. The suitability of this initiative may be questioned if pupils whose voice has been compromised are unwilling or unable to have their say. The substance of pupil-teacher dialogues will be reviewed in order to justify the inclusion of a radical supplement to existing speech-based engagements. Laughter's facility for transmitting information could be one way to avert some of the issues that may be holding back one or both parties in these conversational exchanges. Mikhail Bakhtin's work on dialogism, with its divergent and competing voices, and his interest in laughter, with its conflicting and ambiguous tendencies, provides the inclusive-exclusive theoretical grounding. The role played by teachers in attempting to make sense of their pupil's laughter behaviour is considered both in their capacity as front-line professionals and as parents/caregivers.