A collection of humorous anecdotes, poems, and essays written by M. Dale Baughman, who is retiring as editor of "Contemporary Education," focuses on a variety of topics including: (1) humor and the child; (2) the school's role in community life; (3) school administration; and (4) educational research. Also included is an editorial about…

A classification of students according to their written explanations as to why they enrolled in an English class on writing research reports. (RL)

Satirizes the teaching of basic skills in isolation and the placing of test results above true learning. (RL)

Describes the development of an index to measure elementary school children's comprehension of humor. (FL)

College teachers were evaluated as to appeal, competence, delivery, and teaching effectiveness and their presentations were analyzed to identify features of humor usage. Correlation coefficients were computed between frequency of use of various types of humor and students' evaluations of their professors. Results indicated differences between male…

Described is a "joke center" where elementary school students not only learned about various kinds of humor and practiced language skills but had a terrific week of laughter as they shared favorite jokes and made up new ones. (Author/KC)

Measures of anxiety and achievement were obtained on a sample of undergraduate students. Highly anxious students had lower achievement on humorous tests. Students with low anxiety had higher achievement on humorous tests. Results indicate that humor is not a positive factor in reducing high anxiety associated with academic evaluations. (Author)

Suggests 12 activities to make humor an integral part of the reading/language arts curriculum. (MKM)

Recounts what happened when a night school teacher thought creativity meant Joyce, Porter, and Frost, while the students thought it meant cocktail napkins, cereal boxes, and sexy stories. (RL)

Describes poetry programs presented to children by a troupe of performers who incorporated music, humor, and audience response in their performances. Lists qualities of the shows that contributed to their success with children. (HOD)

Demonstrates how education can be studied through folk literature and humor, using Seba Smith's folk hero, Major Jack Downing. Illustrates a broadened conception of what constitutes education and contributes to education other than schooling. (Author/CK)

Results provide little support for viewing decentering ability as the major cognitive skill underlying developmental trends on tasks of cognitive perspective taking, peer description, humor understanding, and causal attribution. (Author/BH)

An investigation was made of the structure of riddles, riddle content, and the function of riddling among children ages 5 to 14. Interaction data and 1195 items were taped and hand-recorded during riddle sessions with 101 children from kindergarten, second, fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth grades. (MS)

The author tells how he began storytelling to teen audiences, how fairy tales were originally geared toward adult audiences, and highlights some of his favorites. Violent, gory, and humorous stories appeal to teens but invoke discussion and promote reading. Provides a list of storytelling hints and finding, learning, and practicing the story. (LAM)

A study investigated the ability of 8 adolescents with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism to pick funny endings for cartoons and jokes. The adolescents with autism had significantly poorer comprehension of cartoons and jokes than age-matched controls. Both subjects and controls had more difficulty with the joke task. (Contains…