Learning is fun. Posters with this platitude are posted all over American high schools. Funny thing is not many people are having fun. During four years of matriculation a student may not ever remember seeing a teacher laugh with or share a joke with a class that isn’t followed by awed silence or misinterpretation. School is a serious matter those words are repeated ad nauseum. Education is a serious matter but the process of attaining knowledge should not be considered a form of torture. Teaching and learning should be fun. Optimum learning takes place in environments that nourish student creativity while maintaining a relaxed atmosphere. Now, that doesn’t mean that the students will be allowed to create chaos. A relaxed classroom is a room with rules and expectations. It is still a place where learning is put first. However, these classrooms also nourish student individual development while allowing students to produce work that is fun and enlightening while allowing them to laugh, chortle, giggle, and even snort.

Laughing

Laughter in the classroom can be a healing, creative, and loving experience that allows students to feel safe enough to learn. Laughter has been proven to alleviate stress as well as unwind the chords of tension that often produce physical ailments. With testing, impending future plans, and worrying about peer pressure secondary students should not have the added pressure of feeling “locked down” in their classes. School is not a prison. A classroom should be filled with colorful sights and sounds that pull a student in not push him or her away. When humor is used properly in the classroom, students will begin to blossom and realize that it is okay to speak up and ask questions.

Teacher

Teachers should not be afraid to have fun either. Essentially, they are the main attraction in a room full of disillusioned youth who would rather be texting or playing online that listening to the monotonous tones of Shakespeare and the like. Teachers should concentrate on classroom engagement and pulling students into the content. This begins with being his or herself. A relaxed secondary school classroom is run by a teacher who has a strong character and a calm exterior. These teachers know the content, know the students, and know who to enforce the rules in a matter that make the students feel like the young adults they are instead of unwanted inmates at a state run prison.

Studs

Students need to learn how to laugh in school. They need to know that the sound of their enjoyment will not be met with admonishment by the administration. Teachers need to be comfortable with themselves and the content they teach. Above all, all educators need to remember that students are people too. They need to be creative and given an opportunity to express their emotion. When individual classrooms become places of relaxed learning where the students feel comfortable to be themselves and teachers feel comfortable enough with their own methods and knowledge of the subject matter to allow students to be themselves then education will have truly met its zenith. But for now, we as a society still have a whole lot to learn about the process of learning.