In this article, the author shares his fear that students will become accustomed to an educational experience that lacks joy and fun as a result of the changes made to education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He and his teaching colleagues have noticed that when students are learning virtually, they act much more as receivers of knowledge than…

In the summer of 1950, teenagers Elvira Businelli and Delfina Tomassini embarked upon a teacher training course at the Italian university for foreigners, in Perugia, Italy--taught by Maria Montessori. Kn 2020, Elvira and Delfina, now in their 80s, spoke with Montessori Life in the interview presented in this article about their recollections of…

In this article I try to conceive a new approach towards laughter in the context of formal schooling. I focus on laughter in so far as it is a bodily response during which we are entirely delivered to uncontrollable, spasmodic reactions. To see the educational relevance of this particular kind of laughter, as well as to understand why laughter is…

We humans laugh often and it is not always because something is funny. We laugh in the face of the pathetic or the powerless; sometimes we laugh at our own powerlessness or pathos. In short, we laugh at both the comical and the difficult. Here I am especially interested in the laughter that is sparked by what is difficult and how that…

Search the Internet for the qualities of a good teacher and you'll find that an entire range of ideas are offered. Having spent half a working life as a science teacher and the remainder as a science education consultant (and, for a period, an Ofsted team inspector!), the author would like to attempt to tease out what makes a "good science…

Inconsistencies within the literature result in teachers not having sufficient guidance to develop their humour use in support of learning without risking their professionalism. This article argues for more comprehensive evidence to guide teachers' use of humour, based on mixed methodological approaches. The case is also made for the Interpersonal…

Discusses Jan Mark's "Thunder and Lightnings" and offers the teacher various approaches to teaching the book in the classroom. (HOD)

The appropriate use of humor is a powerful tool that can help adult educators positively affect changes in people's knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations and the didactic process. (JOW)

Provides tips for integrating appropriate humor in teaching and when not to use humor. (SK)

Demonstrates the impracticality of imposing rigorous definitions on the various stages of the writing process and the ineffectiveness of requiring students to adhere to strict writing strategies. (SRT)

A mild satire on a part of the English teacher's occupation. (Author)

Argues that humor is one means of appealing to young people and helping them to search out truth. Explains how the author, who writes young adult fiction, uses humor to approach weighty subjects. Provides several examples from her fiction. (TB)

Humorously advocates the revival of "clotheiognomy", the art of discovering temperament and character from apparel.(EL)

Argues that round robin reading is valuable because it prepares students for "the real world" by exposing them to boredom, teaching them to look alert when they are not, teaching the skills of oneupmanship, and teaching inference skills (since it often obscures the story line of a work). (FL)

Shows that while student humor has definite pedagogical usefulness in teaching the conventional academic modes of discourse and language, it also can become a vehicle of subversion. (TB)