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Why Humour is Important for Males
Many teachers and, indeed, many women throughout the centuries have wondered about the immaturity of males, particularly when it comes to humour. The word puerile, meaning juvenile, silly, and childish actually comes from the latin word meaning "boy". As with the other places boys go to learn, it may not be immediately obvious how this can help anyone learn, but his funny bone is a powerful tool that can be used to engage and deepen his learning.
It is a form of indirect communication
Like movement and games, humour is an indirect communication tool for boys. In the same way playing a game allows boys to together develop friendship, and build camaraderie while focusing on the activity, so rendering something a silly or making a joke about it provides a "safe" place to explore male bonds and emotions.
Research has demonstrated that boys emotions are processed initially in the more primitive parts of the brain and come more indirectly to the speech centers. That's why it's so hard for many boys to express orally the complexity of their thoughts. A crude joke may be used by boys to achieve the same benefits that a "heart to heart" chat about feelings gives to girls: It means "We understand each other in this moment."
Even more powerfully, because laughter releases endorphins, humour can bathe classroom work in a sense of fun and make boys more open to engaging in study.
It engages boys in the moment
Slapstick and ridiculous physical comedy stimulate the right brain neural wiring boys have for movement; their enjoyment of cartoonish and violent humour appeals to this sense.
Yet there is more to it. Evolutionary theorist Alastair Clarke argues that the recognition of patterns was essential to ancient survival, and that humour was developed to process the surprise that occurs when a pattern is interrupted. When we expect something to happen (because it usually happens that way) and it doesn't--it's funny. For males, whose neural wiring is designed to help them percieve changes in their environment, the surprise inherent in humour can re-engage them in a situation where their interest was flagging.
It's a tool for self-esteem in challenging situations --like school!
In KEEN For Learning I wrote about how boys who struggle in class often take a "fight or flight" mentality into the classroom. This survival mechanism is triggered by the Amygdala and it can prevent learning by overwhelming the more rational frontal lobes in a male. Humour is a technique for resisting or channeling that mechanism, by turning a perceived danger into a momentary unreality by laughing about it.
Beyond that, when boys feel powerless in a situation, they turn to humour to preserve their sense of self, signalling "You may have power, but you're not better than me." Finally, it can be a parallel form of expressing understanding, even though it's focus may be more towards impressing peers rather than the teacher.
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An ongoing series sharing with you exciting findings from the research on my new book to help you get the boys in your class to reach their true potential!
