Humor and Laughter Article Review
After reading the articles Fun and the Immune System and Lighten Up please reflect on your thoughts and feelings.
The following questions were created to be thought provoking: ( you do not have to answer them all but they may aid you in your responses/reflections)
1) What were some of the AHA's that you encountered? (if any)
2) How can you utilize this information in your own personal life?
3) How can this information make you a more effective teacher/counselor/parent?
**Click on comments to read and leave your personal ideas**
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7 comments:
After reading these articles and the beginning of the book, the information makes a lot of sense and motivates me to take a step back and 'lighten up' a bit. I've become too serious and task oriented over the past several years and tend to get in the 'I have to get things done' mode. I use it as an excuse to skip exercise or something social/fun. As a result, I don't have as much energy, patience or light-heartedness as I used to have.
I could do the following:
1) my 8-yr. old loves reading joke books & we could do more of that together;
2) get out & play with my son & his friends more often (they love it when parents join the game and it's great exercise);
3) we love all kinds of music & often have it on - we could dance around & have fun with it (I think my husband & I were sillier like that when my son was younger & it was great fun). When I was teaching, I brought in music to my class and used it in different ways. The kids loved it;
4)when kids in the classroom or my son finds something funny, we could build on it and laugh w/them. It's so easy to squelch the fun by telling them to settle down when that can actually ruin a great opportunity to make a connection and build on the relationship! At the family dinnertable last week, my son started laughing about something & soon we were having a great time. It was wonderful & we need to do that more often;
5) I liked the ideas in the article. I already have pictures around the house of fun times but I plan to put more out. My son's 2nd gr. teacher does a great job connecting with her students by consistently talking about her family and kids. It impacts my son in a positive way.
It should be so simple to laugh & have fun but we all get in ruts. But by focusing on these two simple things, we obviously can be more energized or motivated, experience less stress, have more patience and creativity. This can only rub off on our students/children and build our relationships with them.
Laugther can be and should be contagious. I do believe people are happier when humor and laugther is involved in their everyday life. The concept of having fun, being good for you.....that should be a gimme.
I feel this way whole-heartedly, but I find myself not practicing what I believe often enough in my
classroom.
I read the articles and am plugging away on the book. There are so many AH-HA's that I'm think about while reading these pieces of literature. I want and need to put more fun, humor....laugther back into my teaching style. I'm excited about trying many of the different activities with my 5th grade students.
These two articles hit home with aging parents and with an aunt and uncle who have both had open heart surgeries. It would be great if we planned times to get together and laugh. When we are together, we always have a good time but it doesn't happen often enough. We need to have more frequent laughter-therapy times.
I liked the idea of pulling out pictures that make me laugh. I've decided to put a great big picture of my spoiled-rotten dog on my computer screen saver. He is so cute that he makes me smile just looking at him.
I tried to honestly evaluate how much I laugh at work. Now that I'm working in an office, I laugh a lot while conversing with coworkers but certainly not as often as I did while I was teaching. Those kids had me laughing all the time. One of the things that I started doing the last year I taught was to make up dances as warm ups. If it was near a holiday, it would include a Thanksgiving Turkey Gobble song and moves. After the initial groans, the kids learned the dances and the fun songs and they loved it! The dances always included some funny moves that we could laugh at ourselves. After we'd learn a dance, the kids would beg for them the next class and the next class after that. I also incorporated partner switching in the dances so kids would get to be with almost everyone else in the class at one time or another. I really felt this helped the class become a more cohesive group.
The two articles I read were quite interesting and they really hit home for me. A little over a year ago, my husband suffered a minor heart attack. He had a stent put in and the doctors warned him to change his lifestyle. A major change he had to do was with his eating habits, which he has done. We do, at times, laugh, but probably not as much as we should. After reading these articles, I see the importance of a nice, healthy laugh. I would like to get together with friends more often and play games such as charades. When we do play, there is usually a 100% chance that all of us will get a good chuckle. Another thing I like to do is to go bowling with our friends. None of us are any good, so it is pretty fun to laugh at each other!
As for in the classroom where I teach 5th graders, I would like to bring a lot more humor into the day. Don't get me wrong, I do joke around with my students quite a bit, but I am always looking over my shoulder to make sure no one is watching as I fear that people will think I am not doing my job. There is so much to teach in our curriculum that it almost seems as though administrators (and other teachers for that fact) think there is no time for fun. I really like some of the ideas in the textbook that we are reading and I would like to incorporate them into my teaching. I truly feel that students will learn much better being in a fun-filled classroom instead of a "sit in your desk and listen to me lecture" classroom.
The fact that laughter, humor, and fun are such stress relievers was not earth-shaking news for me. We all know what daily stress does to our bodies. Wear and tear and fatigue show up on our faces and in our attitudes everyday. So, hearing that laughter and humor does so much for us physiologically really makes a lot of sense. The concern is that we have to make such an effort to include them into our day.
I'm an example of the kind of person who, when they don't loosen up or get away from everyday concerns or stresses, gets really wound up and ends up with a "woe is me attitude". Fortunately, my husband is really good at lightening things up. He is also a teacher and has learned to leave school at school. He brings very little paperwork home and is able to relax in the evening, enjoying a tv show, working in the yard, or taking a motorcycle ride. When one of us notices that I'm getting in too deep, he helps me with a joke, or taking me with on the ride, or some way to relax. I don't know if he's really doing it for me or if it's just self preservation.
I am so thankful that there are so many breaks in the school year. They offer me something to look forward to when I'm in the middle of a hectic stretch of weeks. Those days or weeks off are times when I can have fun doing what I want to do or manage things on my own schedule. I also know that I am better able to see humor or the fun side of things when I get enough sleep.
I've tried to include more humor or fun in my classroom. Sometimes it's met with a laugh or chuckle. Sometimes they're too surprised to give a reaction. Being a science teacher allows me to have students do activities that can be really fun. They just enjoy being active and doing something different. That's not too much to give them. It helps their hearts and immune system too!
I think that may be the "AHA" idea for me. By doing things to include laughter, humor, and fun in my day, I'm including it in my students' or loved ones' day. (Heck, even my principal's day!) I'm helping myself and them as well! (Sorry this went so long!)
Laughter needs to be part of a healthy lifestyle. When I'm feeling down I try to talk to someone with a positive and humorous outlook on life.
My wife's uncle passed away a while ago and during the eulogies the speakers added humorous stories about his life. The funeral became an uplifting experience for me and my family. We will miss Uncle R. but we will remember the good times too.
Both of these articles just reinforced the old saying, "laughter the best medicine." There seems to be more and more support for the idea that stress will kill you and that laughter is one way to fight it. I also feel better about some of the corny things I used to do at work to help "lighten" things up.
One thing that I have tried at home is giving myself a news "break" and instead of being bombarded with bad news, I turn on a sitcom. I have also tried to sneak in some stand-up comedy for my husband and I when there isn't anything on T.V. It helps to just pop in a DVD of one of our favorite comedians and laugh.
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