The Essential 21st Century Skill Nobody is Talking About
There is a lot of talk among educators about developing in young people the skills of collaboration, creativity, curiosity, resilience, critical thinking, empathy and complex communication — skills that are hardly unique to a contemporary education, but have gained popularity. Personally, I’m all for schools spending less time on content and knowledge and more time developing integrated human beings who can connect with themselves and with others.
But I can’t help but feel like a vital skill is missing from the 21st Century skill list, and its palpable absence is supported by the number of young people, who seem to have nothing but a bright and promising journey ahead, experiencing everything from general malaise about their futures to serious depression. That skill that seems to be missing, the one we don’t put on the list, is a sense of humor.
You might know about this skill or mindset. It brings laughter and camaraderie and lightness to our lives — in times of challenge, failure, and darkness or in good times of great success and winning, having a sense of humor about ourselves and others and the absurd world in which we live is both healthy and joyful. Remember that scene in Singing in The Rain when Donald O’Connor sings “Make ’em Laugh.” (If you have never seen it, watch it now!) He sings “You can study Shakespeare and be quite elite. You can charm the critics and have nothing to eat. But step on a banana peel the world’s at your feet. Make ’em laugh, make ’em laugh, make ’em laugh.” That’s what I’m taking about!
Please don’t interpret this post as a call for every school to explicitly teach “humor” like we might teach collaboration or creativity. That would almost negate the whole idea. If suddenly students were taking “humor” classes, then inevitably there would be AP Humor and it would then become just another course to put on college applications. Can you imagine. . . “I took AP Humor. That was a tough class. So stresssful. I had to pulled three all-nighters studying for the AP exam and now I can’t think of anything funny to say… but who cares because I got a 5 on the exam! Yale, here I come!” I would, however, support the idea that “Shouts and Murmurs” be required reading for high school juniors.
But what I want is for schools and parents to make time and space for young people to develop a sense of humor. Our over-scheduled, over-parented children are so driven to take things so seriously, that they forget (or perhaps were never told) that the reason we play sports, musical instruments, dance and act is for fun — not so that we have something to put on our resume. Who has time to laugh and play when we are busy performing and perfecting? Parents and schools, in their efforts to produce high-achieving, excellent intellects, athletes, musicians and artists of all kinds, are literally robbing children of all joy and laughter.
There is plenty of research dedicated to humor — my favorite, HuRL (the Humor Research Lab at University of Colorado, Boulder) Someone with a well-developed sense of humor probably has developed most of the other 21st century skills — with empathy and resilience at the top of their honed skills. People with a good sense of humor are attractive to others — they draw people to them and they work well with others because they are fun to be around. There is a lightness and a warmth to these people. They bring out the best in their team-mates. Humor is often a selfless and humble skill because you are often lowering your own status as part of a joke and raising someone else’s status — making them feel good about themselves. There is an optimism to people with a good sense of humor which actually makes them more successful because they usually see solutions to challenges and they don’t give up. I’m certain that brain research points to all sorts of health benefits to laughter and the amount of good chemicals that are released when we laugh. But I don’t need that research to know that possessing a sense of humor is simply a good thing.
My children attend a wonderful school, Hillbrook School in Los Gatos, CA, where play, getting messy, running from class to class through a muddy creek, and telling jokes — these things are all valued and celebrated. I hope that this school never caves to stressed-out, misguided, Silicon Valley parents who may think that these activities are a waste of time or a distraction to learning and achievement. But for now, the whole Hillbrook community gathers every Monday for “Flag” — a time for announcements and student presentations. Every Flag ends with students and teachers telling jokes. As far as I know, the school has not produced a single, world-famous stand-up comedian. The school offers no awards for “Best Joke Teller.” There is no test at the end of the year to measure a student’s ability to be funny. But there is something to be said about a school that makes the time and space for a community to laugh together.
