Humorous learning cultures

Humour is a fundamental part of our everyday lives and is a shared characteristic across all cultures. We enjoy the playful humorous interactions that we have with others and we actively seek humorous stimuli in a variety of forms. Humour can act as a social lubricant and has been associated with improvements in a number of cognitive functions. However, humour tends to get little attention within the education sector and is rarely mentioned explicitly in educational policy. I am presenting this article to encourage other education professionals to think more seriously about the socio-cognitive benefits that humorous learning cultures can provide. Ex-teacher comedians A member of my family is a stand-up comedian, and over the years I have met many professional and amateur comedians. Through general conversation, I noticed that a significant number of these comedians had previously been teachers. As a teacher myself, I became intrigued by this apparent link between teaching and comedy.