ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the principle cognitive elements of learning. The impact of teaching with humor on affective dimensions of the learning process either has not been considered or has been given overly meager attention. Many of the claims by teachers for direct benefits from using humor in the classroom have been evaluated in the crucible of empirical evidence. Clear evidence supporting several of these claims has been discovered. Humor helps reduce tension, enhances student-teacher relationships, helps create warmth, and makes school fun. It eases the burden of daily study and occasionally provides a moment of deep, interpersonal communication between a teacher and a child. Terry and Woods prepared humorous and non-humorous versions of test materials comprised of two math problems, a reading comprehension item, and a sequential ordering problem. Humor can be used to help correct reading problems, control behavioral disorders, build vocabulary, teach foreign languages, and integrate social isolate.
