By Charles W. Henry Healthy Hawk reporters | “Laughter makes you feel very uplifted and filled with pure joy,” explained third-grade teacher Mr. Jackson. He describes things that make you laugh as “silly things, for example if I trip, I laugh.”
“Laughter can help you mentally and physically,” said Dr. Edward Creagan, from the Mayo Clinic, a medical and research center, in an article.
Laughter is effective for relieving stress from our body, and it also reduces pain, Dr. Creagan said.
Laughter can also bring people together and momentarily boost their sense of connections”, say researchers from the University of North Carolina in the article “How Laughter Brings Us Together”.
But humor hurts when it’s used to make fun of people, which isn’t funny, says Carl Jackson, Henry third-grade teacher. “When someone laughs at you, let them know it wasn’t kind and let them apologize,” he said.
Healthy Hawk reporters interviewed Mr. Jackson because he is known as a super funny person at school. Students love him because they say he is a great teacher and has a great sense of humor.
Needing humor is a way to make people smile. If you tell someone a joke, they might laugh and smile, but if you laugh at someone, they will feel hurt, said Mr. Jackson.
“But if someone laughs at you and you laugh, too, you will think you did something funny and clumsy,” he said.
Laughter and talking together bring joy to people’s day, said Mr. Jackson. He describes humor used in a negative way as “making fun of somebody, which is mean instead of funny.”
Advice Mr. Jackson would give to kids about using humor to connect with others is to “be yourself, be in the moment, and make light of it.”
A joke that Mr. Jackson had is: “What’s a good tip to give somebody? Answer the phone if somebody calls you.”
Illustration by Mia, 7th grade, MaST, 2025-2026.
