Education and Humor

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Education and Humor

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'Humor can foster analytic, critical, and divergent thinking; ... Laughter and Tickling as Social Bonding.' Unpublished ENG 414 PowerPoint, Tempe, AZ: ASU, 2009 ... –

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Title: Education and Humor

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Education and Humor

by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen

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What is education?Mark Twain gives us the answer

Education is the path from cocky ignorance to
miserable uncertainty.
--Mark Twain

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The Effects of Education
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Education Point of View!
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Cats and Children Reading
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Books vs. Texting
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Children Laughing Playing

Has the fun
gone out of
school?
With all the
pressures
for higher test scores, adults
are struggling to balance
the value of play vs. work.

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Humor is an Interactive Social Phenomenon
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Our earliest social interactions might be with
animals
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3-Year Old Jonathan Conducting Beethovens 5th
Symphony

http//www.youtube.com/watch?v0REJ-lCGiKU

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Childrens Laughter
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7-YEAR-OLD PLAYING BEETHOVENS RAGE OVER A LOST
PENNY

http//www.youtube.com/watch?v0CED7cijODg

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On the side of play and humor people argue that
humor

Fosters analytic, critical, and divergent
thinking,
Catches and holds students attention,
Increases retention of learned material,
Relieves stress and builds rapport between
teachers and students,
Builds team spirit among classmates and smooths
potentially rough interactions,
Promotes risk taking while getting shy and slow
students involved in activities.

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Suggestions for having fun while promoting
critical and divergent thinking

In social studies classes, research and report
on ludicrous laws, such as the one saying that
no birds are allowed to defecate in the downtown
area.
In science classes, discuss famous bad
predictions such as Heavier-than-air flying
machines are impossible.
In history classes, make WANTED posters for
notorious villains.
In music classes, dissect song lyrics and decide
which ones are realistic vs. which ones are
fantasies.

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Dia de Los Libros 2012at Arizona State
UniversityDon and Alleen Sharing Books
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Dia de Los Libros 2013Don as Lemony Snickets
Count Olaf
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Teacher burn-out is a serious issue because if
the teacher is stressed, the students will also
feel tense.

Survival Rules cited by John Morreall
Try hard to see the absurdity in difficult
situations.
Learn to take yourself lightly while taking your
work seriously, and
Develop your sense of joy and being alive.

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Good Teachers
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Bad Teachers
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HUMOR IN EDUCATION

James Gordon, a professor at Brigham Young
University says that when students are having
fun, the class time virtually flies by, and the
50 minutes of class seem like a mere 48.
Sometimes he tells students that the days topic
is so boring that it fits Mark Twains
description of chloroform in print.
Then he turns away for a minute and reappears in
a simple disguise.

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Putting Excuses in Their Place

Teacher Bill Haggart has noticed that students
are really good at thinking of excuses for being
absent or for not doing their homework
assignments. He accepts only written excuses,
and when students bring them to him he has the
student place their note on a bulletin board
under one of the three following categories
Helpless,
Hopeless, or
Not in Control of the Body.
The activity brings a light touch to the moment,
while also making students think twice about
whether they want to bring in an excuse.

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Teachers Miss an Opportunity if They Do Not Make
Humorous Books Available

SOME FAVORITES
Roald Dahl
Jack Gantos
Gary Paulsen
J. K. Rowling
Louis Sachar
Shel Silverstein
Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler)

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With Older Students, Teachers Can Use Childrens
Literature to Teach the Following Literary
Concepts

Exaggeration
Anti-Authority Humor
Comedies of Manners
Intellectual Play, including fantasy and wordplay
Parody
Surprise, Incongruity and Scary, Shocking or
Verboten References

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ANTI-AUTHORITY HUMOR

Alison Lurie in her Dont Tell the Grown-Ups Why
Kids Love the Books They Do conjectures that one
of the reasons children love the Winnie the Pooh
books is that they identify with Christopher
Robin, who gets to be an all-powerful, beneficent
dictator, or at least the parent figure, for
Eeyore, Kanga, Baby Roo, Owl, Piglet, Pooh,
Rabbit and Tigger .
COMEDIES OF MANNERS
One of the most entertaining comedies of manners
is Barbara Robinsons The Best Christmas Pageant
Ever in which the worst kids in town, the
Herdmans, who have even been known to smoke
cigars and to steal stuff from the Sunday School
cupboard, are assigned the best parts in the
Christmas program.

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EXAGGERATION

The greedy children who get their just desserts
in Roald Dahls Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
make readers feel superior as do the characters
in Harry Allard and James Marshalls The Stupids
Have a Ball, The Stupids Step Out, and The
Stupids Die.
LANGUAGE PLAY
One of Judy Blumes strengths in such books as
Are You There, God? Its Me, Margaret, and Tales
of a Fourth Grade Nothing is the witty dialogue
of her characters.
EMOTIONAL MATURITY
Judith Viorsts Alexander and the Terrible,
Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day makes readers
laugh while lending reassurance that people do
survive bad days.

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David after Dentist

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vtxqiwrbYGrs

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SHOCKING AND SURREALISTIC INCONGRUITIES

Maurice Sendak has created such imaginative books
as Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night
Kitchen.
Sendaks dream sequences are as creative as the
ones in Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland or
Through the Looking Glass, and they are
accessible to much younger children.
Neil Gaimans The Graveyard Book is an especially
intriguing and rich book that both children and
adults enjoy.

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Maurice Sendak
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Convergent thinking Not So Good
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Divergent Thinking Much Better

Somebody once said
When everybody is thinking alike,
Then nobodys thinking.

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Three-fourths of the time in what used to be
called Grammar School is spent on language
skills.

Walter Redfern, in his Puns says that children
play with words much like they do with toys.
Without humor, they would lack practice in the
art of thinkingthe most complex and powerful
survival tool that humans have.

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Students enjoy drawing cartoons to illustrate
different meanings of words. These were modeled
after Fred Gwynnes picture book A Chocolate
Moose for Dinner.

Daddy said that he works at the plant.

Daddy says we have the right to bear arms.

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Fred Gwynne Peggy Parish
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The puns and double meanings in nursery rhymes
and nonsense verse get children ready for the
double meanings of words in the Amelia Bedelia
books that you probably remember from grade
school.
Amelia is a housemaid who takes everything
literally.
When she is told to put out the lights, she
hangs the light bulbs outside on the clothesline.
When she is told to dress the chicken, she puts
ruffles and a skirt on it.
When she is told to draw the drapes, she gets
out a sketch pad and makes a picture.
DO YOU REMEMBER ANY OF HER OTHER PUNS?

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This little boy leaving the public library in
Provo, Utah plays a joke by sharing his book with
the bronze statue boy.
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Young children can be shocked and amused by very
simple allusions.
For example, kindergartners eyes grow big when
they imagine Hans Christian Andersens Emperor
without his clothes, and they giggle at the sight
of holey socks, boxer shorts, garter belts, and
bras in Karla Kuskin and Mark Simonts The
Philharmonic Gets Dressed.
For a similar reason, kids love Dave Pilkeys
Captain Underpants books.

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Karla Kuskin Dav PilkeyTwo Books for Younger
Children
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Harve and Margot Zemachs Duffy and the Devil is
for slightly older children.
It is a Cornish version of Rumpelstiltskin, in
which a frustrated devil turns Squire Lovels
newly knit clothes to ashes leaving the squire
out on the moor naked except for his boots and
the hat he clutches in front of his genitals.

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Suspension of DisbeliefDon and Alleen as Mr.
and Mrs. Santa Claus
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Roald Dahl is even more shocking in writing about
his Big Friendly Giant who thinks whizzpopping
farting is a sign of happinessmusic to our
ears.
In Dahls The Twits, Mr. and Mrs Twit are two of
the grossest characters in all of childrens
literature.
Mr. Twit is repulsive and hairy and has a
disgusting beard that is a smorgasbord of moldy,
rotten leftover bits of food stuck to his
whiskers.

Mrs. Twit is ugly mainly because she is filled
with ugly thoughts.
In one scene she drops her glass eye into Mr.
Twits beer so that when he gets to the bottom of
the glass he is amazed to see it staring up at
him.
I told you I was watching you, cackled Mrs.
Twit. Ive got eyes everywhere so you better be
careful.

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David Wiesners Art Max is a clever book set in
an Arizona desert.

This bulletin board features printed and enlarged
copies of student comments.

The book can be enjoyed by adults as well as kids.

Wiesner said he created this story about WONDER
as a homage to all the artists he loves.
His work illustrates the idea that picture books
are really modern museums between covers.

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Art and Max
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PARODIES ARE INCREASINGLY POPULAR WITH MANY
STUDENTS EXPERIENCING THE PARODY BEFORE THEY MEET
THE REAL STORY

Among the most popular parodies are Jon
Scieszkas The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs,
The Frog Prince Continued, The Stinky Cheese Man
And Other Fairly Stupid Tales, and The Math
Curse.

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Jon Scieszka
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John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
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Jane Morris
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Susan Sherbert
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A Shout-Out for Riddles

Adults are always amazed at how young children
love the simplest of riddles and tell them over
and over again.
They are playing with language, which is their
key to adult success, much like small animals
play with chasing and fetching and falling all
over each other as they get ready for adulthood.

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Heres One of Our Favorites

A girl is locked in a room that is empty except
for a piano, a wooden table, a saw, and a
baseball bat. The door is locked and there are
no windows or other openings. How does she get
out?
She breaks out with the chicken pox.
OR
She uses the saw to cut the table in half. Since
two halves make a whole, she crawls out through
the hole.

OR
She plays the piano until she finds the right
key. Then she unlocks the door and lets herself
out.
OR
She runs around the room until she wears herself
out.
OR
She swings the baseball bat three times. Its
three strikes, and shes out.

Heres another one we like
What has 18 legs and red spots and catches flies?
A baseball team with the measles.

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These stages of riddle appreciation come from an
article by J. Kenneth Whitt and Norman M.
Prentice published in Developmental Psychology .

PRE-RIDDLE What did the big firecracker say to
the little firecracker?
Youre too little to pop!
HOMONYMIC NEUTRAL RIDDLE Why is a packed
baseball field always cool?
It has a fan in every seat!

3. HOMONYMIC SUPERIORITY RIDDLE Why did the
little girl eat bullets?
She wanted her hair to grow out in bangs!
IMPROBABLE RELATIONSHIP RIDDLE Where can
you find roads without cars?
On a map!
RIDDLE PARODY What do squirrels have that no
other animal has?
Baby squirrels!

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A MORE SOPHISTICATED RIDDLE PARODY

In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten tells about a
father who asks his son, What is it that hangs
on the wall, is green, wet, and whistles?
When the boy cannot guess, the father responds,
Its a herring.

But says the son, a herring doesnt hang on
the wall. The father responds, So hang it
there.
But says the son, a herring isnt green. The
father responds, So paint it green.
But says the son, a herring isnt wet. The
father responds, It is if its freshly painted.
But says the son in exasperation, A herring
doesnt whistle. Right, said the father, I
just put that in to make it hard.

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Points of View about Education
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The Teachers Perspective