Why Teachers Use Humor To Educate Young Generations

When a child joins the school environment, they become familiar with the functions of their institution. Gradually the first skills related to the cognitive development of the person’s age become stronger. Such skills initially are memory and metacognition. Memory is enhanced more by other functions through schooling. Of course, according to different points of view, it cannot be ensured that the school is the factor that causes memory to exist. However, it helps children develop specialized memorization strategies and gradually master knowledge.

Metacognition is a way to prevent, monitor, control, and evaluate cognitive function. The term metacognition is used to describe the collection of information concerning what a person feels and realizes at a point in time. It examines the design, monitoring, and evaluation of knowledge. 

The school will guide the student on what to learn and with what strategy. It will teach students about metacognitive strategies. Strategies that refer to how we learn, how we remember, how we organize, how we control, and how we think-a process that will help the student reach knowledge. In both cases, both in knowledge and metacognition, the school improves the individual’s already established cognitive ability and expands it. But how can we help children conquer all that?

Humor as an educational tool is considered by many experts to be a defining teaching technique. The concept of “educational humor” was introduced into the Education Sciences in 1964 by German teacher Bollnow. Through this concept, he wanted, as he claimed, to distinguish the other forms of humor from those that enhance the educational process. Educational humor’s benefits to the student are important as humor contributes decisively to their psychology. After all, humor as a tool is not only valuable for the field of education. It is a tool that contributes in its way to joy, development, and success not only in children but also in adults.

Humor as an educational tool and its benefits

To begin with, the educator who uses humor as a teaching practice makes the student more creative. It is scientifically proven that adrenaline increases and nerve cells are stimulated thanks to laughter. Through the humor a teacher uses, they can eliminate the students’ anxiety.

On the other hand, the trainee feels more relaxed to ask questions and queries and eliminates any fear. They cease to treat learning as a lackluster process. At the same time, students release their thinking and expand their mental functions, such as imagination and ingenuity.

Their creativity develops in a pleasant and original way, especially for students with learning difficulties. Using humor can actively help them participate in the lesson and more easily master knowledge. Scientific studies have proven that humor and, by extension, laughter releases dopamine and endomorphin. These two hormones help with the learning process.

But beyond the learning part, humor improves student and learner relationships. It makes the learning atmosphere in the classroom more light. Undoubtedly, humor is considered one of the most important factors of immediacy with the student. In a few words, it is a way to break the ice. In addition, it can help students become more forgiving and eventually be less strict with themselves. Comedians used to say that comedy is the big pot of forgiveness. All painful conversations can easily take place humorously without making anyone feel underestimated or guilty.

How humor is applied in education

The educator who uses humor as a reinforcing tool during teaching succeeds in many ways. Learning turns into a pleasant process with the help of technology such as animation, humorous videos, and comics promoting laughter. Especially in primary education, using humorous songs and clever jokes brings freedom. Also, in larger classes, organizing a project on the benefits of using humor in mental health becomes important.

Recapitulating humor can be a tool not only in education but also a means to deal with everyday problems. It is a key that unlocks human psychosynthesis. And as the English philosopher Francis Vachon used to say, “Imagination was given to people to compensate them for what they are not. Humor was given to compensate them for what they are.”

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