USA Today recently reported that a stand up comic/"laughologist" is on the lecture circuit, advocating that teachers make their students laugh as a form of stress relief. It's called "Laughter Therapy."

Although this "Patch Adams" approach to learning gives me pause, I agree that humor is very important in the classroom: it can keep students' attention, it can diffuse tense situations, it can encourage creativity, and it can call attention to absurdity (and sometimes absurdity deserves it, whether its a social phenomena or inherent to a student comment). I even make a number of wisecracks or sarcastic comments, which sometimes -- when I hear what I just said -- make me laugh out loud during lectures (this actually happened in my poetry class today...and the students kept laughing, which made me laugh even longer... you know how that goes). Laughter is contagious.

Beyond lightening up the stressful classroom environment, what does humor teach us? Is laughter the best education, as well as the best medicine? Perhaps it is, if handled smartly. It takes a certain objective distance to see the absurdity of things; it takes a very open mind to laugh at ourselves; it takes a degree of humanity to laugh at our human faults and move right along. Humor can hurt, of course: especially the kind that relies on stereotypes or heterosocial bonding. Insults in a classroom, through mockery or name-calling, even in jest, can only lead to hostility. But humor warms the classroom in a way that almost nothing else can. It communicates the idea that "Anything can happen" and it's okay, it's permitted, the barriers and fronts are down...go ahead and make a fool out of yourself in your quest to seek the truth, try on a new habit, or make an audacious claim. There's something revolutionary about humor; for all its transgression of the authority and sobriety, it's communal.

I like this advice on the "Funny Teacher Myth" from English Teaching Forum:

Teachers who naturally have a good sense of humor should use it, but that is not at all a requirement to be a funny teacher. You may not consider yourself a funny person, and still be classified as a "funny teacher." In other words, it is more important that the class itself be fun than the teacher be funny, since it is never a good idea to try to change one's personality traits.-- A.L. Tosta

Enough pontificating. You can visit Tufts University's page on Humor in the Classroom if you're interested in this. Otherwise, here are a small sampling of websites about the lighter side of education:

• Teacherzine: Funny Classroom Anecdotes
  
• Profquotes: Funny Professorisms
  
• Funnies for Teachers and Parents
  
• Education Jokes at About.Com
  

I'm sure there are lots of others... if you know of other humor and education sites, please add to this list by clicking on "comment" below. Or feel free to just post a joke...it's that time of year.

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