My English Paper

STIMULATING TEACHING LEARNING PROCESS BY USING LAUGH: ALTERNATE METHOD TO ACHIEVE THE HAPPINESS OF MATHEMATICS LEARNING

Seto Marsudi
Yogyakarta State University

Introduction

There are so many inventions about how to teach mathematics to students so that they will understand the material. There are so many teaching methods, teaching media and aids that are involved in order to get this goal. However, the mission has not accomplished yet. Mathematics is still assumed as the object that is scarier than Bali Bomb. 

Probably, the teachers forget about something that is so important in learning mathematics. The forgotten thing is fun. Fun brings happiness, and happiness brings an easiness to understand something, not only for mathematics material but also everything. Imagine that you enter the class where students are learning mathematics and laugh is occurred there. Do you think that a discipline is broke there? Or maybe you will think, “Oh, the mathematics learning process is going well.”

Peter Kline said some words that should be something to be concerned by any teacher in this world. He said in his book The Everyday Genius that learning was the most effective when it’s fun. Not only those words, but he also said that school had to be the most pleasure place in every town and children would learn so fast if they were guided to find the principles of learning by themselves.

Laugh is something that is fun and also make healthier. Laugh indicates that a pleasant condition is worked. Nobody will reject that assumption. Humor and jokes are not forbidden thing and even something that is needed to make a pleasant condition.

How do students see mathematics? Have students felt that learning mathematics is a pleasant activity? Mostly, students will assume that mathematics is the subject that has to be avoided because their assumption that mathematics is difficult to be understood, boring, and very hard. Being able to make a pleasant condition in learning mathematics is a challenge for every single mathematics teacher in this world nowadays.

A Traditional View about Mathematics

We think that mathematics is important. We know that mathematics is an important subject to be taught. However, only a few people among us who understand what is mathematics itself. We only think, “I will not ever be good at mathematics. “ How come that point of view happens in our society?

The answer of that question could be found at traditional approaching in teaching mathematics. Traditional teaching usually starts from the explanation about ideas that are on page that students learn then followed by showing students how to answer the questions on the book. The main focus of the teaching learning process is how to get the answer. Students depend on their teacher how to get the answer. Students who got this kind of experience tend to assume that mathematics is a subject that has no clear term, the only term is an abstract pattern that is brought by the teacher.  The result is, students become dependent and their rights to get really good learning sources are taken.

That kind of view is wrong view about what mathematics is actually and how mathematics should be taught in the class. They who are learning about terms will get a good score, but they are not good thinker in the class. Traditional view gives students a good chance to learn mathematics through terms that are brought by teacher, but torture them from the freedom to think in learning mathematics.

Why Laugh?

Everybody loves to laugh. Laugh is something that is natural, universal, and gives good effect both physically and psychologically. Laugh brings some kind of hormone like endorphin and serotonin which made a person feels better. Laugh also brings a positive side into any kind of condition. Melting the hardiness at a social condition where a lot of people involved.

Junior High and Senior High students who are youngsters also love to laugh. They love to make any jokes that make them laugh. It is natural for their age. It is so pleasant for them to laugh together with each other. How if whenever students learn mathematics they can laugh together in class? How pleasure can it be for them? Is the success of teaching mathematics probability high?

Learning mathematics is an activity where emotion is fully involved. In learning mathematics, we can bring up motivation, self confidence, frustration and happiness. Mathematics teaching learning process is not a strict activity, full of laws, and soulless, but it is something brought up the strongest emotion at the soul like depression or even anger. This condition often occurs whenever learner faces something that is difficult like integral and concept of limit. On their cognitive scheme, they tend to think that they will not ever understand the material even whenever they have not studied it yet! Teacher has to be more aware from this kind of their scheme in order to help their students to get out from this condition and change that kind of cognitive scheme.

The usefulness of laugh is not only for killing the torturing condition or maybe only for filling up the spare time in the middle of teaching mathematics but moreover it also the effort to gain joy and attraction of learner into the material that is taught. By the resurrection of attraction, the next process will lead to make a learning condition that is full of happiness.          

Bring Up Laugh into Classroom

Teacher ought to understand about the basic concept in learning mathematics. The basic law in learning mathematics is that mathematics is understandable and it makes sense! Teachers have to stop their traditional way in teaching mathematics by informing all of the information to students and teachers have to start giving chance to students to understand the mathematics that they learn.

 Teacher should start from their own lesson plan on teaching mathematics. Teacher should start involving humor, jokes, or any stimulation that can bring laugh inside classroom. When the planning is well-prepared then the teaching learning process will go well also. Because the lesson plan is teacher’s detailed description of the course of instruction for one class, the lesson plan between each class will vary. Although that is not easy to determine the set, the instructional component and maybe the time requirement for involving the humor or jokes inside the class, it will be a good challenge for every teacher so they can develop a well-prepared lesson plan on teaching mathematics which is included laugh inside of it.

The next step is how to manage the class. It requires various interaction by teacher when faces various condition of the class. Interaction among whole class, small group of students and individual are different. We know that by ordinary teaching learning process, the interaction among these conditions is not easy. How if we add some laugh inside of it? Well, it is not easy too but it will bring another pleasant interaction between teacher and students. The jokes or humors for whole class may be different for small group and individual learner. Teacher can manage the jokes or humor and still stand at a goal of the effort, to bring joy.

Humor or mathematical jokes are another various teaching method so that student can think individually and then find the meaning of the jokes. Teacher has to be more aware of this. A joke can not be funny if we can not understand the meaning inside the joke, what that joke wants. Students are asked to find the meaning by themselves so they can laugh together so teacher has to prepare jokes based on cognitive scheme of the students. The jokes have to be accepted by students’ apperception. The jokes have to be linked with students’ previous knowledge and experience. Teacher can not bring up the jokes about logarithm if students have not studied it yet.

Type the keyword “mathematical jokes” on Google and teacher can find a lot of jokes that are mathematical and also funny. Teacher should be more aware to choose the appropriate joke to be brought in front of class. Although there are only a few mathematical jokes from our country and based on our culture, teacher can modify the jokes into appropriate jokes for students. Here is an example:

A museum visitor was admiring a Tyrannosaurus fossil, and asked a nearby museum employee how old it was. "That skeleton's sixty-five million and three years, two months and eighteen days old," the employee replied. "How can you know it that well?" she asked. "Well, when I started working here, I asked a scientist the exact same question, and he said it was sixty-five million years old – and that was three years, two months and eighteen days ago."

The joke is that the employee fails to understand the scientist's implication of the uncertainty in the age of the fossil and uses false precision.

The other alternate jokes is question-answer form. This is really flexible form. Teacher can melt the situation and condition especially when students are feeling so bored about the course.

Q: What does an analytic number theorist say when he is drowning?

A: Log-log, log-log, log-log, ….

It is so useful to melt the condition in the middle of learning logarithm, which students think so hard to be understood.

There are also jokes based on logical expression. Be aware of this jokes because this form of jokes sometimes make students confused.

Theorem. A cat has nine tails.

Proof. No cat has eight tails. A cat has one more tail than no cat. Therefore a cat has nine tails.

Another method is by managing small group discussion. Teacher can ask students to make their own jokes based on the material that is previously or on going learned. Teacher can ask student to make presentation or reflection in front of class so that they can also learn how to make other people think and laugh. This method allows students to think creatively because making other people laugh is not easy task to do. Moreover it has to be expressed mathematically, it will bring challenge to students and they will think wildly. Whenever some students express their joke in front of class, ask other students to give their conclusion about what their friend’s said. It will make the situation of the class become life because other students must listen and comprehend what their friend’s said. 

As for student’s worksheet, teacher can also insert some puzzle about mathematics into the worksheet so that students can also do some pleasure work to solve the puzzle brought by teacher. It is not easy also for teacher to arrange such a kind of worksheet that included a mathematical puzzle inside of it. For answering the puzzle, teacher can give a gift or reward for this to every student who can solve the puzzle as soon as possible. It will stimulate them to pay attention to their worksheet.

Various teaching aids and media can be used in order to get the goal to show up laugh inside of class. For example calculator, there are a lot of jokes using calculator that can make student realize that learning by calculator can also be fun. Here is the example how to use calculator to make joke:

There are 15 burglars that is being chased by 2 polices. Twelve of them are successfully captured. Then one police asks, “Where are the other three?” Teacher can type this number 152121 : 3  which result is 50707. Turn the calculator upside down and that will be read as LOLOS (fly away).

Another media of teaching can also be used to bring the jokes inside of class. Teacher can use LCD projector or model tools to show the jokes, not only by teacher’s explanation. Teacher can also show various movie clips that include the mathematical jokes inside of it because students love to watch movie. It will make the teaching learning process more attractive.

Teacher can make a good assessment about the progression of the class and every student. Creativity and participation of every student will change due the change of method from traditional one into laughing one. The assessment between both methods will be different. If there are no significant progressions or enhancement of students’ joy or activeness, teacher ought to make reflection to the learning process activity in the class. Whether the jokes are inappropriate? Whether students do not understand the jokes? All have to be recorded by teacher to make a good next move in teaching.

Conclusion

Leaning is a challenge. Teaching is also a challenge. Combine them effectively is a challenge. Being a humorous person is a challenge. However, laughing is simple and easy.

Mathematics is seen as boring, strict, and even torturing kind of subject. A really hard subject added with being taught by really weird people. Change those assumptions by various ways and one of them is including humor and jokes into classroom by any creative activity which can make teacher and learner laugh together. The goal is to make the mathematics teaching learning process becomes more attractive, understandable and bring happiness for all.