Chapter 6: Harnessing Humor

Running head: CHAPTER SIX “THEY SNOOZE YOU LOSE”



Chapter Six “They Snooze You Lose”
April Canales-Perez
EDTC 6340.66 Applications of Technologies
Linda Newell





Running head: CHAPTER SIX “THEY SNOOZE YOU LOSE”
Harnessing Humor

Chapter six informs the reader how humor can be worked into a PowerPoint and presentations. Lumbark gives an example where a teacher used a joke to teach the concept of paragraph construction and topic sentences by having the students rearrange the sentences in order for the joke to be funny. Students were able to learn the process through humor and laughter.

She talks about different elements of humor such as neoteny, surprise, and historical perspective. Neoteny is the childlike characteristics that will help us understand students’ mentality. Research done by Dr. Humor states that Preschool children laugh or smile on average over four hundred times, while adults over thirty-five only fifteen times per day. Surprise is the next important part of humor because surprises cause funny detours. Historical perspective will allow a person to remember a moment in life where they can now laugh at that experience.

Connecting humor with content allows presenters to grab the audience’s attention and connect the humor to the content of the presentation. Humor will allow listeners to connect in a positive way and will remember the information for years to come. Lumbark tells presenters to start off with a joke so the crowd can warm up to you, feel comfortable, and enjoy the information you have to offer.

Adding humor to an educational PowerPoint would be hard for me to try. Teaching math is a very rigorous and needs the attention of all students. I do however joke with the students to lighten the room’s atmosphere and so students can be comfortable with me. I do feel that I must draw the line at some point because I don’t want my students to think my whole class is a joke. I have seen it before where a colleague would joke around with the students too much and when the students weren’t taking the class seriously he wondered why. His PowerPoint would be filled with animations, random noises, and funny pictures, which in my opinion was too much. Don’t get me wrong I love to laugh, smile, and have a great time with my students but I must keep it professional and keep my students on task. I think for my age group (11-14) teaching through humor would be hard to achieve.


Burmark, L. (2011). They snooze you lose: The educator’s guide to successful presentations.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass