How Can Teachers Use Laughter/Humor As A Teaching Resource?

The more students laugh, the more they enjoy. And the more they enjoy, the more they will learn. So, add humor to your lessons whenever you can.

Public speakers often begin with a joke or an amusing anecdote – and with good reason – to get everyone’s attention. A good laugh at the beginning helps set the tone and bring an audience together. A precise punch line – or subtle humor in the story – focuses everybody’s attention on the speaker.

Laughter stimulates creativity, reduces stress, and motivates students to perform. These are only some of the benefits that make humor a great tool for the classroom. Besides getting everyone’s attention, humor goes a long way towards fostering a healthy learning environment. For one thing, it’s an icebreaker. It can help open the floor up to a free-ranging, topic-oriented discussion in which students relax enough to seamlessly involve themselves in the lesson.

1. Make intentional mistakes: Mistakes can be turned into humor and at the same time test students’ listening ability. You can easily turn any statement into a mistake by changing one key word, then see how students respond.

2. Laugh at yourself: When you do something silly or wrong, mention it and laugh at it.

3. Ask crazy questions: An easy way to get students to laugh is to ask them very strange questions. Add one funny question to every test, every quiz, and every exercise. This ensures smiles and helps to break the tension.

4. Exaggerate – One way to exaggerate when teaching is with numbers. For example, students can learn to distinguish 15 from 50 if you emphasize the particular rhythm of 15 by writing it as “fifteeeeeeeeeeeen” on the blackboard. Students laugh at this, but they also remember and learn to give a little extra emphasis to the lesson.

5. Quotable quotes bulletin board in the classroom: Look for humor quotes and post them and encourage your students to do the same.

6. Cartoon file: Have an area where you can display one or two cartoons a day on a rotating basis, with students involving themselves.

7. Reserve a weekday: Ask students to bring in jokes to share, either to start the day on a selected weekday or at the end of the day.

8. Funny Hat Day: Have a funny hat day or mismatched socks day or some other funny dress-up time for students.

9. Get thinking: Build creative thinking by showing cartoons and pictures to which students can add captions.

10. Reading time: Ask students to bring in books they think are funny. Ask them to talk about fun parts, and to use examples from book.

With technology taking center stage in today’s learning environment, teachers can also encourage their students to use the following humorous apps for learning.

1. Humorous writing prompts at WriteAbout.
2. Fun comic creation tools like, Makebeliefscomix (web & iOS app), Toondoo (web)
3. Students can retell a past event, recreate a conversation between characters, share jokes, or animate a light interview with Goanimate, or apps like BuddyPoke 3D avatar.
4. Students can make their own drawings or images or historical figures talk using tools like Voki, Blabberize, Chatterpix Kids, and Tellagami.

Remember that it’s not all fun and games – humor can often misfire. Some things that you consider funny, others may not. To be effective in the classroom, humor must be constructive. Take care to place jokes and anecdotes within the context of the material being presented, and in a manner that supports the lesson being taught. Remember, you want to teach well, not be a stand-up comic. For maximum effect, humor should be employed deliberately and be very well thought out. Here are some things you need to understand.

1. Avoid hurtful humor. Don’t be hostile toward, or demeaning of, others.
2. Let common sense guide your subject selection, tone and intent.
3. Know your student/teacher dynamics and judge the joke climate carefully.
4. Make humor relevant by delivering on time, content-oriented material.
5. Don’t be afraid to “Act Out” concepts and content.
6. When appropriate, use your own funny life stories if they don’t involve anyone that the students could identify. It is critical to not embarrass others.
Note, it is best NOT TO USE students funny life stories unless the student is no longer in classroom and would be anonymous. One of the worst things a teacher could do is embarrass a student. I think a student in the current class can tell their own story IF THE STUDENT initiates it.

It’s time for educators to take humor more seriously. Let’s add some more enjoyment to school teaching.

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