Sense of humor: a need for teachers

March 18, 2017 Educator's Corner Opinion

Rick Warren in his book, The Power to Change Your Life, wrote about how someone once asked Lincoln (the American president during the Civil War) on how he handled all the stresses. He said, “If it hadn’t been for laughter, I could not have made it”.
Teaching is somewhat related to a battlefield. Some teachers would sometimes say, “Let’s go to war”, before going to their classes. It is a reality that teachers don’t wage war against the students as individuals but it is also a fact that this generation of youth we have now has unacceptable attitudes and habits. Laziness, disrespectful to others, passive or uncooperative, undisciplined students are reasons teachers burst in anger at times leading them to physically or verbally hurt students, which of course is unacceptable.
It’s a good thing that nowadays teachers are guided by so many other people who are trained, experienced and are worthy of giving advises. Warren’s book, mentioned earlier, advises that each one can make life fun by laughing at our circumstances and ourselves. True! We can either choose to react in a certain circumstance in a positive or a negative way. Will we choose to respond in a beast mode when terrible circumstances arise or will we keep our dignity by being cool? No matter how terrible a situation is, we teachers can emulate famous comedians who grew up in poor neighborhoods with lots of problems but they coped with their troubles by learning to laugh and making others laugh. (Please scrap their green jokes.)
It is possible to have teachers who make teaching and learning fun despite of so many problems and objections. How wonderful it is to see students who have burdens in their young life learn while smiling or laughing due to a funny or a motivational teacher. When teachers spark joy in the classroom, hunger can be forgotten, difficulties can be temporarily erased, even burdens can be eased. If teachers learn the art of making their students laugh in the midst of so many troubles they create a child friendly environment that leads to having a quality education. The greatest King who ever lived described our Creator in Psalms 2:4, he said, “The One who is enthroned in heaven laughs.” The Author of life has an awesome sense of humor. How about us His creations? Andre Paolo C. Galong, Pines City National High School