The fact that laughter is an important part of psychological and physical wellbeing should not be a surprise: for many teachers, having a laugh with colleagues is the only thing that gets them through a tough week.

And we know that laughter is just as crucial for young people: it is a marker of how comfortable they feel in their environment.

Yet, studies show that laughter and humour are important for other things, too: they may tell teachers a great deal about child development, they give us an insight into childhood relationships, and there is a good argument that humour has several other important roles in the classroom.

So do you need to break out the joke book, dust down your slapstick routines and embrace surreal, Stewart Lee-style monologues in your teaching?

Not exactly - you can put away your impression of Alan Partridge or Mr Gilbert (of The Inbetweeners) for now, too.

But a greater appreciation of the role that humour can play in learning and what it can tell us within education would be advisable.

Playing for laughs

The first thing to note is that humour comes early: from infancy, children share laughter with their caregivers by clowning, teasing, and playing peekaboo.

As children develop, their humour becomes increasingly varied and complex. Toddlers playfully bend the rules, mislabel objects (calling a dog a cat), play with concepts (making a cat say “woof” ) and say nonsense words (“Googoobajoo” ).

In a study I co-wrote that was published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, we showed that, in middle childhood, young people demonstrated an even larger repertoire of humorous acts. They played with sound by speaking in silly voices and rhyming, they lightheartedly teased one another and they particularly delighted in sharing taboo themes (“Did you just do a little [raspberry noise]?” ).

Children also commonly played with words, told made-up stories and made absurd announcements to one another (“I’ll let you in on a little secret. I have cheese in my pocket” ).

Basically, the sort of things that can wind teachers up when they are trying to teach times tables or get everyone dressed after PE.

But if you actually spend time listening to these exchanges, they can help you begin to build a picture of where a pupil is in their development of language and in their ability to perceive the world around them.

We have to recognise that making jokes isn’t easy: humour involves a great deal of cognitive and social skill.

For example, humour requires the ability to appreciate and share a difference between what is expected and an absurd reality. Therefore, sharing humour requires the ability to manipulate language and concepts, to understand the minds of others (having a “theory of mind” ), and to think in inventive, imaginative and creative ways. Children’s shared humour can also aid their engagement in learning by enabling them to playfully practise concepts they have recently learned in a more enjoyable way.

Humour can also be a fantastic learning tool. Distinguished professor of educational psychology Doris Bergen noted that teachers could foster humour in the classroom in different ways: by enabling children to discover incongruous events (“Hey, Mrs Lee is swinging” ), by performing incongruities (wearing a moustache cut from paper), or by describing impossible events or actions (“A fly is in the soup doing the backstroke” ).

Research shows that educators who share humour and laughter can better initiate and sustain children’s interest. And material that is communicated in a humorous way may be more easily learned and recalled than material communicated more seriously.

A few jokes also go a long way towards helping to form bonds: evidence shows that children who share humour may be able to understand and get along with others, are viewed as more popular and cheerful, and are also described as leaders by other children.

Finally, encouraging children to use humour can be key to setting the tone of a nurturing learning environment. Humour can help children to cope with fear, anxiety and current worries by supporting them to re-evaluate experiences in an optimistic way. This can make the school environment less threatening and stressful, increasing children’s confidence and fostering positive attitudes towards learning.

Silliness is serious

In short, humour is not just children “being silly”. Admittedly, it can be a tool of destruction, too - just look at certain brands of comedy that work through negativity.

Humour that is aimed at making others laugh and building friendships (affiliative humour) and humour used to maintain a positive outlook (self-enhancing humour) are associated with beneficial outcomes, such as higher self-esteem.

However, negative types of humour, such as aggressive humour that is used at the expense of others and self-defeating humour, where humour is used at the expense of the self, are linked with depression and anxiety.

Teachers often fear that this negative form of humour will win out, or that introducing humour could lead to a deterioration of behaviour standards. In reality, this is all about how the individual teacher manages humour, rather than something intrinsically wrong with humour itself.

In a review published in Communication Education, Dr John Banas and his colleagues recommended that educators should use humour only in ways that they felt comfortable with. They added that humour should be socially positive and appropriate for both the context and the individual educator.

But while we do have to be cautious - more work is needed to understand the role and function of humour in children’s close relationships as well as the pedagogical implications - noticing, valuing and encouraging humour in the classroom can help teachers to learn a great deal about children’s cognitive and social development.

Trying some for yourself is always recommended: it’s important that teachers have some fun, too - and when it comes to fostering happiness in the classroom, a little silliness could go a long way.

Dr Amy Paine is a postdoctoral researcher of developmental science at Cardiff University

This article originally appeared in the 29 March 2019 issue