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.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
