Humor – Week 19

Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma.

-Robin Williams

For an in-depth overview of each weekly slide presentation, please skip below to your specific grade level.

• To see the 1-page Humor Character Card and share it with your students’ families, click here.

• For the P2 Reflection Journals, used by all elementary students at the end of the week, click here.

Starting Monday, Partner Schools nationwide will begin learning about humor. Humor is a sense of playfulness and lightness. It is a way of looking at and describing the world that brings laughter to people. A person with the strength of humor is skilled at seeing at the funny side of things, bringing smiles and laughter to others, and identifying and communicating the absurdities in life. People with this strength don’t specifically need to be joke tellers, although many are.

Humor can have a dark side, depending on how it’s used. Some humor is mean-spirited and bullying. The strength of humor that the character strength focuses on is that which raises the spirits of other people.

This week’s character strength example is Robin Williams. He was an all-time great comedian who loved to make other people smile. In the below video, from the movie Patch Adams, Williams plays the real-life character of Dr. Hunter “Patch” Adams. In this clip, Patch is using his character strength of humor to lift the spirits of children in the hospital.

For individuals, humor has important health benefits, both mental and physical. Humor stretches the mind to look at things from different perspectives, keeping people mentally agile and alert. Making people laugh also produces positive emotions and happiness for the initiator. And, when people are on the receiving end of humor, they also receive many benefits. Scientists have shown that laughter reduces stress, promotes connection with other people, and can even improve focus. Laughter is contagious and bonds us to other people.

Humor plays an important role in helping groups of people rise above difficult circumstances and boost moral. It removes us from our present difficulties by easing tension and making life more fun. This is why athletic teams often need a jokester to help them get through tough losses and early morning fitness sessions. On a larger societal level, humor often helps downtrodden groups find cohesion and strength. This is why Simon Wiesenthal said, “Humor is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people who are oppressed smile at the situation that pains them.”

And, as a reminder, you can find all of our weekly slide presentations on our website’s Resources page. Enjoy the slides — and please be sure to let us know how it’s going by posting to Twitter and using the #PositivityInAction hashtag!