Smita Pani: [World Malayali Club] When children laugh learn more and better

Friday, 13 May 2016

[World Malayali Club] When children laugh learn more and better

When children laugh learn more and better

Education is a serious thing. Or so we thought. So in most schools children they should be properly sitting at their desks, serious and attentive to the lesson being taught. However, we are perhaps mistaken, or we are not doing as well as we should. Maybe learning should be more fun, perhaps between data and data would not hurt a smile.

Laughter is a serious thing, especially for young children

Recently a team of French psychologists from the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense found that humor, in addition to being an excellent medicine for the soul and body, also helps young children learn new tasks.

These psychologists devised a simple experiment to evaluate whether the use of humor could benefit learning capacity of children. They worked with young 18 months. First , these children were limited to watching an adult who was trying to get a toy out of reach, using a tool.

In the adult group simply play with the toy when he had in his possession but in the other group the adult toy immediately threw to the ground making comical faces, which made half the children laugh. Then, children were urged to reach the toy themselves.

Could be appreciated 93.7% of children had laughed at the antics of the adults were able to repeat the action for themselves, using appropriate tool to reach the toy. However, only 25% of the children who did not laugh or were part of the control group in which there was no hilarious situation were able to reach the toy, which shows that very few learned to use the tool.

Why laughter stimulates learning?

Probably the explanation is found in the brain. In fact, positive emotions, such as laughter, increase dopamine levels in the brain, activating the reward system. This means that laughter helps us motivate, which has a positive effect on learning.

In fact, it has also been appreciated that laughter enhances memory facilitating the integration of new information as it makes it more memorable. Adults usually best to remember the details of those news presented to us hilariously, compared to the same news read in the mainstream press.

An experiment conducted at Sam Houston State University in University students proved this fact. Young people could remember better statistical data and study material when the conference included Professor sense of humor.

However, beyond its effect in the brain, the sense of humor is also useful for learning as it helps to create a more relaxed atmosphere, taking away stress and anxiety at the time of the lesson. In addition, there are few things more effective to capture the attention that the sense of humor.

Babies learn the sense of humor of their parents

Teach fun is not an exclusive task of teachers, parents also have their share of responsibility. This is demonstrated by a study conducted at the University of New Hampshire in which it was revealed that between six months and one year of life children learn what is funny and what is not observing the reaction of their parents.

In practice, from 6 months babies begin to look at their parents in search of clues about how to react to different situations, to see if it is a threat or can be calm.

From that moment the parents become a source of emotional information for their children, are a kind of advisers sense of humor, so a year of life, if parents laugh often and face bad weather with a smile, it is likely that their children have already learned to react in the same way.

Everything in moderation

Of course, it is not about turning schools into classrooms for comedians. In fact, too much humor can interfere with learning becoming an unnecessary distraction that causes children to lose the thread of the content and are not able to separate the essential from the inconsequential.

However, when the mood is used in perspective it is an excellent tool to make learning a truly enjoyable experience.