Choosing To Teach With Humor

Why should educators choose to integrate humor into all aspects of their teaching?

Within the last 5 years there have been numerous brain science studies that show a direct correlation between the emotions and memory. If you think about what you remember from grade school, chances are your strongest memories are tied to very strong emotional events. Fear is one of our strongest emotions for a very good reason. It protects us from harm. Excess fear can cause stress. Unfortunately this stress has been shown to inhibit learning (Sapolski 1998).

On the other hand. research on the positive emotions is pretty compelling. Barbara Fredrickson from the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill developed the Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions to explain the mechanics of how positive emotions were important to survival. According to this theory, the positive emotions expand cognition and behavioral tendencies. Several other studies indicate that strong positive emotions facilitate the learning process- again, we remember that which has a strong emotional context.

Several additional studies show that humor is a great vehicle for nurturing the positive emotions and helping to put information into the long-term memory.

Another fascinating development from brain science indicates l other factors that are impelling reasons to integrate humor in the learning process.
1. We learn with our entire bodies—not just with our ears. The traditional auditory lecture is not a very effective way to facilitate learning. Purposeful games, directed play and physical activity are much more effective ways to aid memory and learning. The trick is to engage students in the learning process. We learn much more when we are actively involved because the brain is firing on many levels.
2. We cannot learn if we are not paying attention. A joke, laughter and fun are attention getters. Humor wakes up the brain!
3. Humor creates a relaxed learning environment. Fun is actually conducive to creating a stress-free learning environment.
4. The number one characteristic that students want in a teacher is a sense of humor

Never take life too seriously, you won’t get out alive.