Category Archives: happiness

Laughter in the Classroom

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“You should be a comedian!!!!!”

Yesterday, a freshman told me in front of the class that I should be a comedian. I joke often that I am “the funny one” in the family. However, I never really thought about how often I actually do try to get a laugh out of students.

I don’t tell jokes, I don’t try to “roast” them, I don’t self-deprecate (too often), but I do try to be dorky, nerdy, silly, and laugh often to create a certain classroom feel. Research is somewhat inconclusive about the use of humor in the classroom. There are studies that show humor does not increase learning and I am okay with that because that is never truly my aim with class laughter. For me, laughter makes life better. For my students, I believe that laughter disarms them, makes them take a breath, relieves the pressure of their daily school grind, and makes my classroom a safe place.

For example, yesterday again (it was a pretty good Tuesday if I do say so myself), a student was sharing his prayer. He was talking about his family tradition of going to a pumpkin patch every Halloween and during his description of the patch he momentarily forgot who he was speaking to and commented about the “big a** pumpkins”. Almost immediately I gasped and then burst into laughter with all 30 juniors, including the student who said it, also breaking out into laughter. He immediately apologized with a giant smile, blushing only a little in embarrassment. We all gathered ourselves and he went on with his prayer and he received a great round of applause from his classmates. It is in these moments in a classroom that I love laughter. It never takes away from class rules and expectations, respect for one another, or sincerity, but keeps us all a little more relaxed and a little more human.

“Laughter has been implanted in our soul, that the soul may sometime be refreshed.”
— St. John Chrysostom

“It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.” — St. Thomas Aquinas

“Lord, give me a sense of humor so that I may take some happiness from this life.” — St. Thomas More

“Humor is the foundation of reconciliation.” — St. Francis de Sales

Retrieving Happiness

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Over the holiday break, I participated in an online conference Ditch Summit http://ditchsummit.com/.  They provide a  new practical presentation each day for 9 days. I did not participate in them all, but the ones I did participate in were well done, and had nice takeaways   Pooja Agarwal’s “ How to Make Learning Really Stick for Your Students” was my favorite.

I also got (sort of) caught up on one of my favorite podcasts –Ted Radio Hour. I made a connection between a podcast episode “Simply Happy” https://www.npr.org/2014/02/14/267188672/are-we-happier-when-we-stay-in-the-moment and Agarwal’s advice on learning.    

“Dog retrieving a ball” by Ian D. Keating is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Agarwal says, “The reality is that students that struggle to learn something will have more long-term learning… Retrieval practice is more challenging but has greater long-term benefits. Therefore, as teachers, we need to help students understand this reality and be ok with the idea that challenging our students is actually good for them.” She advises students be challenged to retrieve, not just review information.  She likes flashcards and flashcard programs but does not like the “I already know this” feature on flashcards as she feels students might overestimate their knowledge.  She mentions exit and entrance tickets, sketchnoting after note-taking and spiraling the curriculum.  The struggle and the focus to retrieve information lead to learning that sticks. She says we should consider methods of getting knowledge out of students’ heads as much as we do getting it into their heads.


In the Simply Happy podcast. Matthew Killingsworth presented data that indicated strongly that staying in the moment was a way to happiness.  His app “Track your Happiness” https://www.trackyourhappiness.org ( which I would never use as it seems like I would be giving TMI)  has given his organization lots of data on what makes people happy.  One finding – when people’s minds wandered, they were less happy. Staying focused and on task- even, it appears, an unpleasant task- produced more happiness than getting off focus.


I see connections between these two presentations.  It is good for our brain to be challenged and expected to retrieve information.  At least for me, to retrieve information successfully, I need to be focused on the retrieval. This can be challenging for me.  But if I stay focused on my task, even if it is challenging, I probably will be happier in that moment.  This seems like a win/win for me!  We can learn, remember, be challenged, and be happy.