Humor as pedagogy: A geographical perspective
نویسنده
چکیده
This article explores the intersections between pedagogy, geography, and humor. I have had a long-standing interest in cultivating an environment in my classrooms that allows room for humor and laughter, and my background as a geographer has encouraged me to consider the geographic aspects of humor in the classroom. Furthermore, my ongoing training in pedagogy leads me to consider how humor functions as a form of pedagogy, and indeed whether humor facilitates or rather interferes with the learning process. Much of my approach to humor is personal, as I will discuss in more detail later. My first experience as a teacher was over 25 years ago as a preschool teacher in the U.S., working with threeto five-year-olds. Being humorous with this group was quite natural for me, but using humor in a university classroom is an entirely different thing. The relationship one has with a five-year-old is of course very different from that one has with a 25-year-old, from the teaching perspective. I have become increasingly aware of the need to critically reflect on the role of my humor in my teaching, so as to be clear about the risks and rewards of employing a “pedagogy of laughter” with my students. This article reflects the beginning of this process for me. I will begin with a review of the literature on the pedagogy of humor, with a focus on the university setting. I will then discuss my own personal experience with humor in the classroom, with a focus on the geographic aspects of teaching with and through humor. I will discuss both successes and failures from my own experiences. I end the article by raising some questions that are worth further exploration.
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