Finding humor in play

by | Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Learning through play has been an important part of my philosophy of teaching (and learning). In fact I have argued that play is far more important than games (though games have been receiving a great deal of educational interest lately). [You can read a previous posting about the relationship between play and games here.

Play in my mind (and in my teaching) if often connected with humor. As it turns out, recent research indicates that this connection has an evolutionary history. As this article argues, humor is a part of our “mammalian inheritance, and [is] closely related to rough-and-tumble social play.”

As the article says:

Like children, apes laugh during chasing, wrestling and tickling games. Chimps and gorillas who have learned sign-language have used it for punning, incongruous word use and playful insults. Intriguingly, it seems that rats may laugh too. A team of researchers at Bowling Green State University reported in 2000 that rats produce an ultrasonic chirping during play and when tickled by humans. These chirps appear to be contagious, and young rats prefer older rats who produce more of them.

Surprisingly, jokes play a rather small role in humor, despite being the mainstay of most entertainment related humor. As it turns out, only a small percentage of daily laughter is actually occasioned by jokes. Most laughter (around 70%) arises spontaneously in social interaction!

A third element that seems to appear, at least in my mind, along with humor and play is the idea of creativity. Both humor and play (especially the open-ended kind) appear to value the creative insight, the ability humans have of seeing the world though skewed lenses, making the strange seem normal and the normal appear strange.

Topics related to this post: Biology | Creativity | Evolution | Fun | Games | Learning | Psychology | Teaching | Worth Reading

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Robert Pirsig, 1928 – 2017

Robert Pirsig, 1928 – 2017

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of those books that have influenced me deeply. I read it when I was in high school and read it again and again, almost obsessively for a while. It was my companion through college, graduate school and beyond. I...

iVideos from Australia, the 2011 edition

Last June I had posted a note (Teacher as filmmaker: An update from down under) about the iVideos created by students from the University of Technology, Sydney (under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Kearney). iVideos or "idea videos" are short films often 2 minutes (or...

TPACK Newsletter, Issue #15, March (Special Conference Issue) 2013

  TPACK Newsletter, Issue #15: March 2013 Special Spring 2013 Conference Issue Below please find a listing of TPACK-related papers/sessions that will be presented at the SITE conference in March in New Orleans, Louisiana; at the AERA annual meeting in April in...

Miami / Globe Video Update

Miami / Globe Video Update

I had posted earlier about the work our design initiatives team is involved with at Miami Junior-Senior High School. Essentially the entire faculty and leadership at the school have taken on the challenge of re-imagining the 7/8 curriculum through an integrated...

The tensions inherent in creativity

The tensions inherent in creativity

The next article in our series (Rethinking technology and creativity for the 21st century) for the journal Tech Trends is now available online. This article has an interview with Dr. Mark Runco, Distinguished Research Fellow of the American...

Personality analysis of my blog

As you know I am always intrigued by a new breed to personality analysis tools that are out there in the world (for instance see these prior postings: on PersonalDNA; on Color IQ; and browsing for gender). So here is this new website that seeks to analyze me by...

Mishra & Koehler, 2006

The Mishra & Koehler (2006) article is the first and somewhat definitive presentation of the TPCK framework. The complete reference and abstract are given below, as is a link to the original article [pdf format]. Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006)....

Using AI to digitally clone myself (AKA creating a Puny-Punya)

Using AI to digitally clone myself (AKA creating a Puny-Punya)

Note: The photo-manipulated image of me holding my own head was created almost 20 years ago by Paul Kurf, a student in my learning by design, class! Image design & layout, Punya Ethan Mollick is a professor at Wharton and he has been doing some of the most...

(de)Signs, a series on Slate

Slate magazine is running an interesting series by Julia Turner on signs and their design. Two articles are now up The Secret Language of Signs: They're the most useful thing you pay no attention to. Start paying attention. Lost in Penn Station: Why are the signs at...

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *