Students will profit from a little laughter.

Byline: Chalk Talk by David Mandelblatt and Robert Rubinstein For The Register-Guard

THIS IS SERIOUS! Bad news is everywhere: crowded classrooms, program cuts, costly testing, budget shortfalls. Those who are involved in public education - and that definitely includes the kids - are only too aware of the problems.

How can students, teachers and parents keep from sinking into a pit of negativity and losing the excitement and joy of learning that should come with being involved in a school?

Try a smile and a little laughter!

Humor is a critical - and frequently overlooked - tool in maintaining an optimistic outlook on life and learning. Research points out the benefits of laughter. Many business organizations schedule seminars on using laughter to reduce stress and improve the workplace atmosphere.

Continued stress produces health problems that range from rashes to accidents, from baldness to high blood pressure.

Overly stressed people have difficulty with clear thinking, effective learning, enjoying life and decision-making. Instead, they may smoke, abuse drugs, have violent outbursts of temper, overindulge in alcoholic beverages, eat poorly and suffer from depression.

Young people struggle with stress every bit as much as adults. Students today have fewer outlets for safe and legal stress relief. Due to the much reduced staffing in schools, they have less access to counseling or guidance. Within this framework, they may not even express their concerns or find help to deal with their personal lives and learning problems.

Humor is a life skill, especially in challenging times. Laughter relieves depression and anxiety, relaxes muscles, reduces pain, enhances the flow of blood through the body and even provides exercise for muscles. Humor provides other ways to view life situations. Looking at the lighter side can literally be a life-saver!

Adults can demonstrate coping skills to kids by finding the humorous side of today's challenges. In the process, both kids and adults can enjoy expressing themselves, thinking critically, discussing real situations, sharing and, most of all, just being together.

Try this: Look at headlines in the sports section of today's newspaper. Visualize what some of these headlines would mean to a person who understood English only in a literal sense. Find anything funny? How about "Ducks make strong closing argument," or "Maple Leafs stifle Avalanche."

Take a look at questions in the advice columns in today's newspaper. Now look at the horoscopes. Sometimes (but not always) you can answer the requests for advice with the "fortunes" in the horoscopes. This occasionally makes some pretty funny matches: "My sister is driving me crazy! What should I do?" "Get your chores out of the way and get out of that house!"

Find photographs in a newspaper or magazine. Now, pretend you just came from another planet and this is what you see. Write a detailed description with dialogue from an alien's point of view of what's happening in that picture.

Humor can help students and teachers relax together, develop trust and build willingness to cooperate and learn. Life lived with a smile is smoother and happier for everyone and results in more effective learning.

To graduate from high school, Oregon students must meet academic benchmarks and earn certificates of mastery. Can we help students meet these stressful requirements and still feel good about their educational experience? The answer is an unqualified yes, if we include humor in the process.

In the classroom, we can help our students feel a sense of control over their lives by encouraging them to practice humor while they master communication. Educators can include humor across the entire curriculum. Every area of study will profit from occasional light-heartedness, just for perspective.

Let's remember to share humor with each other and with kids. As Arnold Glasow said, "Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects."

And that great philosopher, Anonymous, stated: "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people."

David Mandelblatt, a teacher at Roosevelt Middle School in Eugene, and Robert Rubinstein, who retired from Roosevelt last June, have more than 60 years of combined experience as teachers in the Eugene School District. They have presented workshops on using humor in the classroom at two national conferences.