Using Humor to Maximize Learning






 * "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." (E.E. Cummings; American poet; 1894–1964.)

Morrison, Mary Kay (2008). Using Humor to Maximize Learning: The Links Between Positive Emotions and Education. (Book Excerpt) Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education.

This excerpt is posted here in the IAE-pedia with the permission of the author given via email on 4/23/2008.

Introduction
What is humor exactly? How do you get a sense of humor? Once you find yours, how do you use it to maximize learning? If it is so important, why is it rarely mentioned in teacher preparation without some clues for finding and using it?

The purpose of this book is to affirm, sustain and encourage educators in the practice of humor not only as a personal tool to optimize a healthy life style, but to maximize the benefits of humor in education. These benefits include current research-based data on the use of humor to nurture creativity, to increase the capacity for memory retention, to support an optimal learning environment and to build safe communities that reflect the relational trust necessary for collaborative learning. Educators value humor. References to the importance of having a sense of humor are liberally sprinkled throughout the school-based literature. It is usually mentioned as a factor to look for when hiring, as well as one of the qualities of effective teachers. High school students will tell you humor is the trait they value most in a teacher. It is without a doubt the one quality that most of us agree is needed in education. However, the study of humor as a practice in education is rare.

What a healthy dose of humor might do for you
Just take a peek at what a healthy dose of humor might do for you!

1. Contributes to Mind/Body Balance
 * “Worrying is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere.”

A sense of humor can create a remarkable feeling of control over one’s life. Learning to use humor as a lens for life challenges can increase confidence in one’s own internal ability to adapt. The optimistic energy that comes from humor enables individuals to embrace difficulties with resilience. Some individuals purposefully use laughter to ease pain and promote physical healing. There is some experimental research indicating that laughter/humor might actually cure illness and may provide effective therapies for numerous disorders. Some claim that laughter relieves pain, reduces stress, and improves the immune system response. (Harvey, 1998) Although these studies are preliminary, and no firm conclusions can be made as yet, many of the findings are encouraging as to the benefits and applications of positive humor.

Got stress? The purposeful use of humor can help you feel more optimistic about your life, knowing that you can choose how to respond to stress. Humor elevates mood and has been known to be a deterrent to depression. Stress reduction is considered to be one of the most important benefits of humor. A little humor will go a long way in helping educators balance the current focus on accountability, testing, standards and unfunded mandates.

2. Maximizes Brain Power
 * “If you haven’t got a sense of humor, you haven’t any sense at all.” Mary McDonald

Humor has the ability to capture the attention of the brain. “Emotion drives attention and attention drives learning.” (Sylwester 1995)  Our brain cannot learn if it is not attending. The surprise elements of humor alert the attentional center of the brain and increase the likelihood of memory storage and long term retrieval. Humor has the potential to hook the students that are easily bored and inattentive. It can help the stressed or shy student to relax. As brain food, humor can’t be beat. Word plays, puns, stories, jokes and riddles all involve the creative use of language. Maximizing our capacity to use language through the skillful use of humor will increase the number and speed of the neural connections in the brain. Humor is often used as an indicator for the identification of gifted students. Just how effective can humor be? The marketing industry gives us an indication. I must confess that I usually watch the Super Bowl just to see the commercials. The money that is spent for air-time is mind-boggling. Advertisers have less than 2 minutes to get your attention and put their product into your long-term memory. Zillions of dollars will be spent to capture the attention of this large viewing audience. Not only do people watch these commercials, but the next day animated discussion about the favorite super bowl commercial takes place around office water coolers. There is a good reason for humor in advertising. An analysis of the retention rate for commercials found that there was the highest rate of recall when humor was used. (Stewart and Furse, 1986)

3. Enhances Creativity
 * “Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them." Bill Cosby

Creativity is the ability of the brain to bring together diverse ideas that will generate the thinking necessary for complex problem solving. Humor and creativity are great companions, each a perfect compliment for the other in nourishing thinking. Risk-taking is the nucleus of creativity and of humor. The freedom to express wild ideas will activate spirited conversation and spark the imagination. The creative process flourishes when accompanied with a sense of humor. Humor increases the potential for divergent thinking and the ability to solve complex problems. By linking previously unconnected areas of the brain, humor forges new associations involving existing concepts. Viola. Creativity flourishes.

4. Facilitates Communication “The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed." Bennett Cerf

Using humor to build and maintain relationships is an invaluable skill. Emotional intelligence (EI), the ability to perceive assess and influence one’s own and other people’s emotions is essential for knowing when and how to use humor effectively. (Goleman 1998) The ability to use humor as a part of interpersonal dialogue requires confidence in one’s own humor strengths, a fun-loving playful spirit and the willingness to risk the extraordinary.

Humor generates trust among colleagues and can facilitate a reduction in tension, fear and anger. Leaders who have the ability to assist others in seeing the “humor” in difficult situations can nurture communication and ease tense situations. Exaggeration, puns, and self-deprecating humor are tools of the trade. Humorists are able to use reframing (example: the ridiculous or exaggeration) as a devise to facilitate a shift in context. This shift encourages both individuals and groups to think creatively through shared humor. Laughter can quickly dispel tension and increase the capacity for dialogue.

The use of humor as a tool in communication is rarely taught. It is a skill requiring multifaceted levels of knowledge and ability. Purposeful humor integration provides a distinct advantage in conversation.

5. Supports the Change Process
 * “Nothing new should be done for the very first time.” Unknown

There are volumes written about change. Organizational change is a hot topic for school leaders. Whether we encounter everyday small disruptions or a major crisis situation, the way we respond to change varies greatly among individuals and organizations. Humor can be an indicator of how we are responding to change. It is similar to taking the temperature of an individual or an organization. Our belief systems, our evolved coping skills, our physical being, our temperament, our experiences, our culture and gender all combine within our individual neurological system and are all involved in generating our individual response to change. The humor response of any group is a reflection of organizational thinking and can reflect the ability of that culture to adapt.

Our brains crave familiar patterns. We recognize what school bells mean. We understand report cards and grading systems. We are used to a certain structure, procedure and routine in education. However education has faced increasing pressure from a variety of stakeholders. The demands for accountability have challenged the very core of our system. Change happens frequently. Teachers have an amazing ability to find humor when faced with adversity. Here are some humorous responses from teachers to difficult situations:


 * All teachers must now stay in their rooms until 4:15 p.m. Teachers caught leaving early will be trained in CRAB (criteria referenced abstract bologna).
 * In order to combat obesity, the amount of food in the school lunch will decrease. A price increase of $2 is necessary to implement this change.
 * Research shows that students need more sleep, so homeroom teachers are asked to monitor the amount of sleep of their students. Several teachers are volunteering to sleep during their class period.

Most of us experience unexpected change, suffering and loss in our lives. When we are able to find the humor in a situation, we can begin to heal and move ahead. Painful experiences, if met with hope and optimism can produce remarkable growth opportunities. In fact, humor frequently emerges from the down side of our lives. Laughter and tears are closely related. Many comedians began their careers by laughing through the tragedy in their lives. This ability for humorous optimism in the face of difficulty is truly a miracle tonic. Change is good-you go first.

6. Creates an Optimal Environment for Teaching and Learning
 * “You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.” Will Rogers

Look for laughter, joy, spirit and enthusiasm in both the school and in the classroom and you will find an environment in which learning thrives. Humor contributes to that optimal learning environment. It is brain compatible both in creating an enriched context for learning and for assisting individuals in the learning process. This is described in depth in chapter three. When you find fun, laughter and teachers with a sense of humor, learning thrives.

Leadership is correlated with building relationships based on trust. Trust is considered to be the basis for creating successful learning communities. It facilitates teamwork and is the foundation for cultivating relationships. A strong bond of trust among members of the school community is essential for school improvement. In Trust in Schools: a Core Resource for Improvement, University of Chicago professors Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara Schneider reiterate the importance of improving the quality of instruction, measuring student performance, and reshaping education governance. In this groundbreaking study, they cite trusting relationships among teachers, principals, parents, and students as a critical component for success.

Stress and learning
Excess fear causes stress. There is mounting scientific evidence that suggests that excess stress has an adverse impact on learning. Yet, according to many teachers, we are exposing our children to stress at escalating rates. There has been increased high stakes testing in our schools. Many districts have implemented paper and pencil testing for students as young as 4 and 5 years old. There has been an increasing pressure to focus on what is tested (reading and math) at the expense of the arts, physical education and play. Grades are considered extremely important and actually drive most students learning instead of the desire to learn. A look at some of the research heightens our awareness of the possible dangers that excess stress creates for our students. Although no firm conclusions have been made, here are some of the recent theories on the relationship between stress, depression, memory and learning.

An impoverished and stressful childhood may diminish learning by having a negative impact on the medial temporal memory of a child. Prenatal stress and the stress that comes from living in poverty have been found to have a negative impact on the neurological development and subsequent ability to learn (Farah, 2005). Excess fear might lead to actual memory loss. Robert Sapolsky conducted a fascinating study examining the brains of World War II veterans who had survived intense trauma during the war. It was found that the hippocampus of these men was usually smaller than non-veterans in same age category. He noted an actual loss of part of the hippocampus in these veterans as well as a resulting memory loss. (Sapolsky, 1999) Current studies corroborate this relationship between excess stress, damage to the hippocampus and subsequent memory loss, but no firm conclusions can be made as of yet.

Overuse or misuse of the reflexive response system can escalate simple anger and assertiveness into reflexive physical aggression. Some students constantly live in an insecure fearful environment producing a learned helplessness response (Sylwester, 2005). Often students just give up when they feel they have no control over their environment. “A reflexive stress response occurs unconsciously, and so reduces our ability to create factual memories.” (Sylwester, 2005)


 * “Before giving anyone a piece of your mind, be sure you have enough to spare.”

Humor in creating an optimal environment for learning
The Value of Humor in Creating an Optimal Environment for Learning.

If you walk into your neighborhood school, do you find happy children, teachers and administrators? Is the emotional climate one of trust and positive energy? Schools can be measured by cultural indicators that are evident in looking at a framework that examines the where, how and what of learning. The belief systems of educators impact their emotional contribution to the level of happiness found in a school culture. The level of humor, laughter and fun will be evident in schools that have high levels of trust.

Humor; A Vital Tool for Educators.

The study of humor provides new perceptions into critical issues facing educators. It allows the freedom to not only think “out of the box” but to have fun while doing so. Significant areas of impact include the ability of humor to:
 * ☺ Define the ability of a leader to build a culture of trust
 * ☺ Maximize the capacity of individuals for effective communication
 * ☺ Create an optimal learning environment
 * ☺ Capture the attentional center of the brain
 * ☺ Plant information into the long-term memory
 * ☺ Reduce stress
 * ☺ Promote a healthy positive lifestyle

Pump up your humor practice by purposefully increasing your awareness of the benefits of humor in your life as an educator!

Riddle: Longest English Word
Riddle: What is the longest word in the English language?

Answer: Smiles, according to an old riddle, may be considered the longest word in English, as there is a mile between the two s's. However, beleaguered is longer still, since it contains a league, and a league is about three miles in length.

Perspectives on Aging
Two elderly women were out driving in a large car – they could barely see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to an intersection. The stoplight was red but they just went right on through. The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself “I really must be losing it, I could have sworn that was a red light”.

A few minutes later, they came to another intersection and the light was red again and again they went right through. This time the woman in the passenger seat was positive the light had been red but thought, ‘maybe there’s something wrong with ME!”. She was getting nervous and decided to pay very close attention to the road and the next intersection.

At the next light, sure enough, the light was definitely red and again, they went right through. She turned to the other woman and said, “Mildred! Did you know we just ran through three red lights in a row! You could have killed us!”

Mildred turned to her and said “Oh! . . . Am I driving?”

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying." Woody Allen.

Computer-Generated Jokes
See http://www.abdn.ac.uk/jokingcomputer/home.shtml. Quoting from the page:


 * Welcome to the Joking Computer


 * The Joking Computer can build millions of new jokes such as:


 * "What do you get when you cross a frog with a street? A main toad."


 * But some are not very funny! In this website, you can discover why we are interested in studying computers and jokes, see what the software can do and how jokes are built, and explore the related science. You can also help us improve the joke building.

Bumper Stickers

 * Get a New Car for Your Spouse. It'll Be a Great Trade.
 * I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather... not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
 * If at First You Don't Succeed, Skydiving Isn't for You.
 * If we are what we eat, I'm cheap, fast, and easy.
 * Old Age Comes at a Bad Time.
 * Sometimes I wake up grumpy, other times I let him sleep.

Interview with Father Guido Sarducci
Five minute video of Father Guido Sarducci. The transcript is given below.


 * I find that education, it don’t matter where you go to school, Italy, America, Brazil, all are the same—it’s all this memorization and it don’t matter how long you can remember anything just so you can parrot it back for the tests.


 * I got this idea for a school I would like to start, something called the Five Minute University. The idea is that in five minutes you learn what the average college graduate remembers five years after he or she is out of school. It would cost like twenty dollars. That might seem like a lot of money, twenty dollars just for five minutes, but that’s for like tuition, cap and gown rental, graduation picture, snacks, everything. Everything included.


 * You know, like in college you have to take a foreign language. Well, at the Five Minute University you can have your choice, any language you want you can take it. Say if you want to take Spanish, what I teach you is “Â¿Como estÃ¡ usted?” that means, “how are you”, and the answer is “muy bien,” means “very well.” And believe me, if you took two years of college Spanish, five years after you are out of school “Â¿Como estÃ¡ usted?” and “muy bien” about all you’re gonna remember. And Latin! Forte Dux Fel Flat in De Guttor means forty ducks fell flat in the gutter. Forte Dux in Ero means forty ducks in a row. So in my school that’s all you learn.


 * You see, you don’t have to waste your time with conjugations and vocabulary, all that junk. You’ll just forget it anyway, what’s the difference. Economics? “Supply and Demand.” That’s it. Business is, “you buy something, and you sell it for more.” Theology, I’m gonna have a theology department, you know, since I’m a priest, and what you have to learn in theology is the answer to the question, “Where is God?”, and the answer is, “God is everywhere.” Why? “Because he likes you.” That’s kind of a combination of the Disney and Roman Catholic philosophy. It’s just perfect for the late 70s or early 80s you know, just perfect.


 * Well, after the courses are all over, then it’s time for a little Easter vacation. No time to go to Fort Lauderdale, only lasts for like twenty seconds. But what I’ll do for you, I like to turn on the sun lamp you know, give you a little glass of orange juice, that’s for the snack part, orange juice, and then after vacation it’s time for the final exams. I say to you, “Â¿Como estÃ¡ usted?” you say “muy bien,” “Where is God?” “God is everywhere,” Economics, “supply and demand,” Biology, God made the universe, no hastle over intelligent design or evolution, then you put on a cap and a gown, I get out my Polaroid camera, you know, make a little snap flash picture for you, I give you the picture, you give me twenty dollars, I give you a diploma, and you’re a college graduate, ready to go.


 * I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure, right next door to the five minute university, I might open up a little law school. You got another minute?

Those of you who appreciate the humor in the five minute college education idea may need to pause for second thoughts as you read about one-minute college lectures at http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i26/26a00102.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Mary Kay Morrison's List of Quotable Quotes
"Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth." Victor Borge.

"A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road." Henry Ward Beecher.

Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end. Sid CaesarYou can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it." Bill Cosby."

"The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes." William Davis.

"Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain." (Edward de Bono; Maltese physician, author, inventor, and consultant; 1933–.)

"Humor is nothing but extreme positive thinking." Ronald J. Fields, grandson of W.C. Fields.

"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." William James.

"If you could choose one characteristic that would get you through life, choose a sense of humor." Jennifer Jones.

"Humor is the affectionate communication of insight." Leo Rosten.

"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." Peter Ustinov.

"The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance." Peter De Vries.

"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." E. B. White.

Humorous Academic Phrases</Center>
Th following is the first part of a blog posting on Academic Phrases and Meanings available at http://www.digitaljournal.com/blog/9386.

These special phrases are also applicable to anyone working on a Ph.D. dissertation or academic paper anywhere!


 * "It has long been known"... I didn't look up the original reference.


 * "A definite trend is evident"... These data are practically meaningless.


 * "While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to the questions"... An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.


 * "Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study"... The other results didn't make any sense.


 * "Typical results are shown"... This is the prettiest graph.


 * "These results will be in a subsequent report"... I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.

Other Quotes</Center>
"Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you." (Langston Hughes, American Poet.)

"Laughter is by definition healthy." (Doris Lessing, Nobel Prize in Literature recipient.)

"Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people." (Robert Benchley, American humorist.)

References and Resources
AATH (n.d.). Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor. Retrieved 4/24/08: http://www.aath.org/. Here is a definition of Therapeutic Humor quoted from this website:


 * Any intervention that promotes health and wellness by stimulating a playful discovery, expression or appreciation of the absurdity or incongruity of life’s situations.


 * This intervention may enhance health or be used as a complementary treatment of illness to facilitate healing or coping, whether physical, emotional, cognitive, social or spiritual.


 * Officially adopted by the AATH Board of Directors on June 1, 2000.

BBC Video. ''My Blackberry Is Not Working! - The One Ronnie, Preview - BBC One.'' Retrieved 2/19/2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI. Part of the humor in this 3-minute video is based on the computer term dongle. A dongle is hardware device that plugs into a parallel or a USB port, acting as copy protection for a particular software application.

Berk, Ron, et al. (2008). What everybody should know about humor & laughter. Retrieved 4/24/08: http://www.aath.org/documents/AATH-WhatWeKnowREVISED.pdf.

Cham, Jorge (2010). Piled higher and deeper. Retrieved 9/4/2010 from http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive_list.php. Quoting from the website:


 * Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) is the comic strip about life (or the lack thereof) in academia. The author, Jorge Cham, got his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, and was a full-time Instructor and researcher at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 2003-2005.

Here is a sample, Copyright (c) jorge cham, originally published 9/3/2010.



College Humor. http://www.collegehumor.com/.

Flood, Alison (3/13/09). Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book. guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 4/2/09: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/13/roman-joke-book-beard. Quoting from the article:


 * Celebrated classics professor Mary Beard has brought to light a volume more than 1,600 years old, which she says shows the Romans not to be the "pompous, bridge-building toga wearers" they're often seen as, but rather a race ready to laugh at themselves.


 * Written in Greek, Philogelos, or The Laughter Lover, dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes which Beard said are "very similar" to the jokes we have today, although peopled with different stereotypes – the "egghead", or absent-minded professor, is a particular figure of fun, along with the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath.

Henderson, Bobby (2006). Open Letter to Kansas School Board. Retrieved 12/26/08: http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/. Quoting the first two paragraphs from the Website:


 * I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.


 * Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

Marvel Digital Comics.


 * Marvel saw its core audience of youngsters moving online, so it brought comic books online. It makes available its entire collection of thousands of Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, Silver Surfer, and more comics for $10 per month. But it also offers 250 free comics at a time.

Johnson, Jerry (n.d.). MathNEXUS humor of the week. Retrieved 2/12/2009: http://mathnexus.wwu.edu/humor.asp.

Morrison, Mary Kay (n.d.). Humor Quest. Retrieved 12/27/08: http://www.questforhumor.com/.

Morrison, Mary Kay, et al. (3/13/09). How Humour Affects Learning.(Video talk.) tvo Parents.com. Retrieved 3/13/09: http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/tvoparents/index.cfm?page_id=483&event_id=2267&sitefolder=tvoparents.

Morrison, Mary Kay (12/2/20-13). Humor: Take daily, as prescribed. SmartBlog on Education. Retrieved 12/15/2013 from http://smartblogs.com/education/2013/12/02/humor-take-daily-as-prescribed/?utm_source=brief.

Moursund, D.G. (2007). College Students Guide to Computers in Education. Chapter 9, On the Lighter Side. Eugene, OR: Information Age Education.

Speech Bubbbler (Comic book covers.) Retrieved 8/19/08: http://www.coverbrowser.com/bubbler. See Batman example to the right.

Stone, Alex (1/4/2013). A Motherboard Walks into a Bar... The New York Times Sunday Review. Retrieved 1/19/2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/can-computers-be-funny.html?_r=0. Quoting from the article:


 * Though it’s not quite Louis C. K., the Standup program, engineered by a team of computer scientists in Scotland, is one of the more successful efforts to emerge from a branch of artificial intelligence known as computational humor, which seeks to model comedy using machines.


 * As verbal interaction between humans and computers becomes more prominent in daily life — from Siri, Apple’s voice-activated assistant technology, to speech-based search engines to fully automated call centers — demand has grown for “social computers” that can communicate with humans in a natural way. Teaching computers to grapple with humor is a key part of this equation.


 * “Humor is everywhere in human life,” says the Purdue computer scientist Julia M. Taylor, who helped organize the first-ever United States symposium on the artificial intelligence of humor, in November. If we want a computational system to communicate with human life, it needs to know how to be funny, she says.

Wolk, Steven (September 2008). Joy in school. Educational Leadership. Quoting from the article:


 * The second quote comes from John Goodlad's A Place Called School (1984). After finding an "extraordinary sameness" in our schools, Goodlad wrote, "Boredom is a disease of epidemic proportions. … Why are our schools not places of joy?" (p. 242). Now, a generation later, if you were to ask students for a list of adjectives that describe school, I doubt that joyful would make the list. The hearts and minds of children and young adults are wide open to the wonders of learning and the fascinating complexities of life. But school still manages to turn that into a joyless experience.

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The original version of this Page was written and contributed by Mary Kay Morrison.