Humourlearning-glossary | New School Futures

Humour can catalyse learning

(see notes on holistic learning and other key terms)

Stand-up comedy

I try to practice what I preach (and to preach what I practice) as a stand-up comedy vicar

Listen to - and purchase - the recent Christmas single released by Fretsore Records in November 2025.

One of a quartet

The idea of HUMOUR is offered alongside three other categories intended to define (in a rudimentary way) a holistic learning agenda:

An umbrella term

We use the notion of HUMOUR as a memorable way to discuss different aspects of learning:
The following examples are by no means exhaustive. They are offered as a way to open up discussion and action:

A means of achieving - or a byproduct of - collaborative innovation (see bisociation)
Possibly, part of a change strategy at the level of paradigms
Some social aspects of co-creative teamwork (see sympoiesis)
Conflict and contradiction
Cognitive dissonance (see the WikiWand entry)
Emotion

Likely HUMOUR activities

Creativity workshops (see bisociation)
Clowning and learning to fail
Exploring contradiction / cognitive dissonance
Joke telling (see catalysis)

Creativity that surprises

In his theory of bisociation, Arthur Koestler argued that the core principle of being creative is the process of forcing seemingly incompatible notions into the same conceptual space. What results, he claims, is either something new, or spontaneous laughter.
A Nobel-prize winning chemist has cited the art of joke-telling to how catalysis works.