Laughter The Best Medicine?

Cross posted on educatorslog.in
Exams have just got over for most of the children around the country. And what a load off their shoulders!! What serious faces! And on the last day of the exam? PHEW! IT'S OVER!! I wonder how many teachers noticed that.

It made me wonder at the enormous stress our children carry on their shoulders. How much they are subjected to varies from one school to the other, and also from one child's ability to take stress to the other, but we as teachers could consider the possibilities of making our classrooms considerably stress free. Seeing sunny , cheerful faces is a pleasure. Here we can say that, we cannot ignore encouraging sobriety, reserve, and somberness among children. How much of humor is to be brought in and when, is for the teacher to decide. The teacher must consider making the classroom moderately stress free. Some heavy subjects/lessons can be made interesting/palatable by adding a dash of humor. We all know that laughter, humor reduces tension, and a tension free mind is more receptive to learning, therefore it does make sense to incorporate humor in the classroom.

Educationists, psychologists, and experts have given this area a thought, and feel that a laugh or two in the class does have its place in the classroom. I read somewhere that humor in the classroom:

a) increases learning speed

b) facilitates retention of novel information

c) improves problem solving

d) relieves stress

e) reduces test anxiety

f) increases perceptions of teacher credibility.

Therefore developing a healthy sense of humor goes a long way as we can see. It can as a side effect facilitate better adjustments of the child at home and in school among peers. So heres to some lightheartedness in our classrooms...

Don't miss reading the first paragraph given in the book that I have put up in the link. You'll see how societies in the world take laughter so seriously :):)


Related link : http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0897898923/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link