Humor in the Classroom Will Help You Become a Great Teacher!!

Humor in the classroom and laughter in the classroom are two things that I find to be very important when I teach.

Obviously, there are many characteristics that make a great teacher. I believe that two key ones are flexibility and a sense of humor.

Just recently, award winning humorist Linda Edgecombe spoke at a Federation Conference. She was quoted as saying, "Learn, love, laugh. If you are not laughing, you are not learning. All successful people in the world have a great sense of humor."

She reminded the teachers that life's ultimate goal is happiness and encouraged all teachers to spread the happiness around.

Linda also stated that "Life is about what you give to people around you. Give off the energy to get it back."

I was always a hyper energetic person (my family says I still am) - a "morning person". Almost every morning I had a lot of enthusiasm and was full of energy - constantly ready and able to enpower my students.

I started to peter down around 2:00 PM. Lucky for me, school finished at 3:30 PM, with an afternoon recess, so it wasn't so bad.

Try not to take yourself too seriously. Teacher humor is important when you are with your students. That's why I thoroughly enjoyed teaching in the junior division, grades 4 -6. They got my humor (my humor went right over the heads of the primary students). There was always humor in the classroom.

At the same conference, comedienne Meg Sope stated, " What counts is not what happens to us, but how we react to what happens to us. You choose to have a good day or not. You can shift your perspective, find humor."

We, as teachers, can make a difference in our students' lives, especially building their self esteem and self confidence during the whole school year. Adding humor in the classroom, is a nice change and relieves any stress.

A third presenter, Sue Stephenson, believes that laughter is a choice. She is quoted as saying, "Laughter prevents hardening of the attitudes, focus on the positive." And that is what I truly believe as well.

Every Friday afternoon after recess, there was only 30 minutes left in the day, so I held one of my favorite classroom activities, that I called "Special Talk and Student of the Week".

One thing we did during this time was tell jokes - "knock knock jokes, jokes from books, and some budding comedians in my class made up their jokes. It was a wonderful way to end the hectic week and start the weekend.

You can find humor in almost anything. However, you may say to yourself, "I don't have any teacher humor" and you may begin to stress over it, which is exactly the opposite of what the goal is.

All you want is to create a very positive, caring, and of course, a learning environment, where your students feel safe, secure and happy.

There will always be one or two kids in your class with a fun sense of humor (I don't mean being a clown). Don't let things get out of hand - just go with the flow - humor in the classroom is a wonderful thing!

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