Humor is among the many often overlooked aspects of being that affect learning. Addressing the whole person, in all the different modalities humans inhabit and live through…involves stepping out of conventional silos. We are, as a nation,
grasping some of the obvious…quality nutrition supports learning, lack thereof hinders it.
There are now calls for changing the time when school starts because studies show early morning is a bad time for kids to learn. (it’s convenient to start the day early for parents, who have to leave for work early, but it’s not the optimal biological clock time for kids in a classroom.)
We’ve learned that simply having confidence that one can learn often makes all the difference. That’s a psychological element, and there are others derived from the social learning construct…peer pressures…what is cool and uncool to care about in school, for example. Studies of STEM in US often make a point of the social costs to students of being successful in those “nerdy” subjects.
Humans learn better when they are focused, and they are breathing deeply and easily. How do we accomplish that? Lots of things to do for that, but one that helps in many holistic aspects is the above cited humor. But how does that work, and how do we “do it right”?
Here’s a series of reports on “The Laughter Effect” from the Center for Media and Social Impact at the American University in Washington DC. No doubt there is other research on humor and comedy and media and learning…but it’s one of those more intuitive areas of the holistic approach to learning…such as narrative…we know it “works” but how it works falls under the “more art than science” part of life.