Title:

Humor, learning, and socialization in middle level classrooms. By: Pollak, Judy P., Freda, Paul D., Clearing House,

00098655, Mar/Apr97, Vol. 70, Issue 4

When students are asked to identify characteristics that describe exemplary teachers, one of the first descriptors offered is, invariably,

a sense of humor. Students point to their favorite instructors as teachers who made them laugh in a variety of ways and made class

fun. Glasser (1986), who includes fun in his list of the five primary needs of humans, along with survival, belonging, power, and

freedom, indicates that all of our behavior is our constant attempt to satisfy one or more of those needs. He points out that a "good

comedian is always a good teacher." He reminds us that the clear, sharp, but unexpected insights of a comic like Bill Cosby are so

"filled with learning that we cannot fail to laugh" (29). Fun, according to Glasser, is difficult to define, but it is associated with laughter,

play, and entertainment. It is the part of the job of teaching that we don't have to do, but "doing it may be the best part" (28).

Humor involves more than jokes and laughter, however; it involves a positive spin on reality as opposed to a negative one. The

negative view deals with sarcasm and cynicism, but this negative side of humor is rarely appropriate in the classroom setting. Sarcasm

and cynicism diminish learning, enhance stereotypes, and actually limit a person's perspective. Negative humor is the antithesis of

learning; it is to remain close-minded. For example, the media often uses negative humor to portray characters as "cool," hip, above

the rest, or unaffected in order to provide a quick release mechanism for dealing with adversity. In the classroom, though, rather than

adopting the glibness of negative humor, teachers could model the positive aspects of the humor of everyday life as a better way to

deal with those adverse situations. If one of the tasks of adolescence is to achieve a balance between conformity and rebellion, then

the role of the teacher is an important one in assisting students as they attempt that process. Teachers can use positive humor to help

students to achieve that balance.

Humor is a social skill that helps a student to cope with stress, enhance his or her sense of well-being, alleviate unhappiness,

depression, and anxiety, and boost self-image. Humor affects students' physiology and psychology, stimulates creative and flexible

thinking, facilitates learning, and improves interest and attention in the classroom. Although humor-related behavior exceeds all other

types of emotional behaviors combined (Keith-Spiegel 1969), little research has been done into laughter in general and into the use of

laughter and humor in the middle level classroom in particular. The purpose of this discussion, then, is to examine uses of humor in

middle level classrooms and relationships between humor and effective teaching.

Building Rapport

Middle level teachers use humor in a variety of ways in their classrooms. Humor, for example, can be an extremely useful tool in

building rapport. If a teacher can laugh at him- or herself and laugh with (never at) students, that teacher is well on the way to

establishing a positive climate and eliminating much of the stress that is often present in classrooms today. Students may never give a

teacher the chance to share knowledge or brilliant insights if rapport is not established first. When teachers confront a negative

student with humor, they often find that this use of humor is an effective way to diffuse the student's anger and hostility. It is crucial,

however, that a student never feel that he or she is being made the object of ridicule. In such a situation, although the teacher may

dominate the student for the moment, often deep and strong resentments result that may last throughout the school year (Quina

1989).

It is instructive to look at the case of Sara, a middle level English teacher, who walked into her classroom one day and found that the

students had come in early and turned everything in the room upside down--from the furniture to the posters on the wall. Sara

laughed at the joke and told students that she "found it interesting to see life from a different perspective." For the remainder of the

year, she and the students joked about "different perspectives." Rapport was strong in Sara's class, and she credited the day the

students played a practical joke on her as the beginning of that rapport. According to Quina (1989), if a teacher and students can

laugh together, they can most likely work together and plan together as well.

Empowering Learners

Control is another area in which humor can serve teachers well. Middle school students are seeking independence and security

simultaneously, and the middle school is a place that can empower students to establish their independence as students in a safe

atmosphere. This atmosphere is greatly enhanced by the use of humor. Teachers who present themselves as continual learners help

students form a community of learners in the classroom, with the teacher as a member of the "learning team." The function of the

teacher, then, is not merely to teach, but to teach how to learn. Thus, the differences between teacher and learner are minimized and

the similarities are maximized, giving students a feeling of control. If a teacher cannot laugh at what he or she does not know, then

how can students be expected to recognize their own educational needs and be truly willing, even anxious, to learn? For example, if an

English teacher puts a sentence on the board to label parts of speech and a student points out a mistake the teacher has made in

labeling one of the more complicated components, that teacher has several options. One is to deny the mistake; another is to pretend

that the mistake was made on purpose; another is to own the error, thereby revealing his or her humanness and ability to recover.

Therein lies the humor, the ability to enjoy a joke at one's own expense. Students are endeared to that teacher because of the

willingness of the "authority figure" to dethrone him- or herself--to model the learning process in its reality. The reality of learning is

that trial and error, stumble and recovery, are not only inevitable but crucial for real learning to take place.

Thinking Creatively

Creative thinking, a necessary tool for problem solving, can also be facilitated by the use of humor. When employing brainstorming

techniques, for example, if a teacher offers a thought that is "incongruous or unexpected or incompatible" (Fry and Allen 1996, 247),

that input can help students see a situation in two very rational but drastically different perspectives. The essence of creative thinking,

therefore, is that ability to perceive situations from various points of view. The old adages "The grass is greener on the other side, but

pity the man who has to mow it" and "Every cloud has a silver lining, but unfortunately every silver lining comes with its cloud" are

examples of perspective. If students are to be problem solvers, they must be able to see mutually incompatible frames of reference.

Humor, particularly the use of unusual or even absurd examples, can accentuate those incompatibilities and insights.

Generating Interest

A light or humorous touch can also grab a reluctant student's attention. Students tend to remember teachers who take the trouble to

express their messages in unusual ways. Csikszentmihalyi and McCormack (1995) tell the story of a student who remembers his

teacher, Mr. C., because "he has a special way of thinking that catches your attention. He makes brains go, he makes brains think, and

he says things in a way that you just can't forget them"(6).

Enthusiastic teachers spend time thinking about ways to present information in positive ways that will be memorable for students.

Instead of merely reading the witch scene from act 4 of Macbeth as homework or having students read it aloud in class, the teacher

can select students to dress as witches and act out the scene, making the project interactive instead of passive. After all, it is funnier

to dress up as witches than to read about them. This light touch affects not only attention-getting goals, but also creativity, ingenuity,

participation, and pride of ownership.

Enhancing Self-Esteem

A successful learning process involves the assumption, "I can do it." Effective teachers begin from this premise--that the student is

able to master the subject. Humor, or taking oneself lightly, can encourage students in the learning process, which often involves risk-

taking, temporary setbacks, and embarrassing exposure. Low self-esteem limits a student in the ability to take risks beyond the narrow

role of perceived competency (O'Connell 1996). By using humor and the skill of laughing at oneself. a student can be more self-

forgiving, thereby allowing him- or herself to become lost in the learning process. A difficult part of the student role is to acknowledge

ignorance while simultaneously trusting in the ability to learn. This requires faith in oneself, an unshakable self-esteem that the

authoritarian role of teacher can sometimes undermine. By poking fun, at times, at their own frailties, teachers can show students that

being in the "one-down" position of the learner does not interfere with self-esteem. Only by admitting what they do not know can

students be open to learning what they need to know.

Emphasizing Socialization

A final aspect of humor in the classroom touches on socialization, one of the major functions of schools: to acculturate knowledgeable,

understanding, compassionate, and empathetic new members to our society (Callahan, Clark, and Kellough 1992). Effective teachers

are individuals, according to Hageseth (1995), who can "take themselves lightly but take their work in life seriously as they encourage

others to do likewise" (56). They are individuals who can modulate a tense, difficult situation into an intriguing challenge, who can

interject an uplifting gesture into a stressful moment. As teachers, we can encourage our students to appreciate the universality of the

human condition, that we are all here to make the world work by complementing one another. We can model achieving power through

knowledge and equality, not through exploitation, manipulation, and one-upmanship. As we teach our various topics, we facilitate

learning through our enthusiastic, generous sharing of what we know, our laughing at our own foibles, and our encouragement to take

risks in the safe environment of the learning situation. The socialization process involves learning how to be--with ourselves, with

others, with our students and our teachers, and with life's adversities and challenges. We teach our students how to learn this valuable

skill, using humor as a tool of growth and wisdom.

Conclusion

Part of the function of teachers is to assist students as they become active seekers of knowledge. One goal of a teacher is to have

students not only enjoy the class, but also to learn to enjoy the subject matter. Csikszentmihalyi and McCormack (1995) indicate that

only after a student has learned to love learning does education truly begin. A college student in an Introduction to Secondary

Education class, who has recently been observing two middle school teachers, attests to the importance of humor in this quest for true

education when he writes the following in his journal:

I have observed two teachers, Ms. X, an 8th grade geography teacher, and Mr. Y, a 7th grade history teacher. They differ greatly in

their teaching styles. Ms. X is very strict with her students. She will raise her voice at the slightest provocation, and she has no qualms

at all about telling her students to shut up. I have seen her write discipline reports on a lot of students. Mr. Y, on the other hand, is the

exact opposite. He plays with the students; he teases them and has fun with them. They respect him. When he says be quiet, they do

it. I have never seen him even come close to writing a kid up. His students work hard for him and they learn to love history. He's the

kind of teacher I would like to be.

With the incorporation of humor into the classroom to facilitate rapport building, student empowerment, creative thinking, attention,

self-esteem, and socialization, middle level teachers indeed have the power to become the genesis for real education and a life-long

love of learning.

REFERENCES

Callahan, J., L. Clark. and R. Kellough. 1992. Teaching in the middle and secondary schools. New York: Macmillan.

Clark, L., and I. Starr. 1986. Secondary and middle school teaching methods, New York: Macmillan.

Csikszentmihalyi, M., and J. McCormack. 1995. The influence of teachers. In Kaleidoscope: Readings in education, edited by K. Ryan

and J. Cooper, 2-8. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Fry, W., Jr., and M. Allen. 1996. Humor as a creative experience: The development of a Hollywood humorist. In Humor and laughter:

Theory, research, and applications, edited by R. Chapman and H. Foot, 245-58. New Brunswick: Transaction.

Glasser, W., M.D. 1986. Control theory in the classroom. New York: Harper and Row.

Hageseth, C., Ill, M.D. 1988. A laughing place. Fort Collins, Colo.: Berwick.

Keith-Spiegel, K. 1969. Preface to symposium proceedings. Social aspects of humor: Recent research and theory. Western

Psychological Association Meeting, Vancover.

O'Connell, W. 1996. "Freudian humour: The eupsychia of everyday life." In Humor and laughter: Theory, research, and applications,

edited by A. Chapman and H. Foot, 313-29. New Brunswick: Transaction.

Quina, J. 1989. Effective secondary teaching: Going beyond the hell curve. New York: Harper and Row.

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By JUDY P. POLLAK and PAUL D. FREDA

Judy P. Pollak, Ed.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Instructional and Curricular Studies, University of Nevada-Las

Vegas. Paul D. Freda. M.D., is a psychiatrist with the Mental Health Corporation of Denver, Denver, Colorado.