January Jones welcomes
Mary Kay Morrison, Quest For Humor
About Mary Kay
Humor Quest founder Mark Kay Morrison, a consummate education professional, believes learning needs to be engaging and fun. She has taught kindergartners up to college students and loves learners of all ages.
After decades in the classroom and as an administrator in a regional office of education in northern Illinois, Mary Kay expanded her pupil list to include professionals and other educators all over the world with her humor-in-education series of lectures and workshops.
Through her research into cognitive learning and humor, Mary Kay teaches the current generation of teachers and education professionals about healthy humor using the positive energy of humor – or “Humergy” – to promote balance and to reduce stress.
For more than 20 years she has been providing keynote presentations and breakout workshop sessions internationally. She organized, developed and continues to teach the first International Humor Academy for The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH).
Her keynote address at a Humor in Education Conference in Izmir, Turkey was televised, as was an interview on “Your Voice,” a Canadian TVO segment. She has been a keynote speaker for the International Society of Humor Studies, for the Illinois Principals Association and for numerous education and medical associations. She has been interviewed by PBS in Alaska and was featured in an article on Humor and Healing in the Rockford Registar Star.
Author
Mary Kay Morrison’s lessons are available in two books and several scholarly publications.
Using Humor to Maximize Learning: Exploring Links between Positive Emotions and Education is the text for humor studies courses at several universities. It affirms, sustains and encourages educators in the practice of humor not only as a personal tool to optimize a healthy lifestyle, but to maximize the benefits of humor in education. These benefits include current research-based data on the use of humor to nurture creativity, to increase the capacity for memory retention, to support an optimal learning environment and to build safe communities that reflect the relational trust necessary for collaborative learning.
An environment of fun is an indicator of a culture of trust. Each chapter of this book includes a study group format and powerful practice ideas for leaders. These tools can facilitate creative data analysis for educational leaders interested in understanding the relatively new field of positive psychology and how it can contribute to a joyful learning environment that promotes collaborative relationships.
Purchase Using Humor to Maximize Learning at the Rowman & Littlefield Educators site.
Using Humor to Maximize Living is Mary Kay’s second book and will be published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, an academic press based in Maryland, in March 2012 in hardback, paperback, and electronic forms.
Mary Kay will be doing a book signing at the international Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH) conference April 19 through 22, 2012, at the Chicago Westin O’Hare and will use the text for the conference’s Humor Academy, a three-hour graduate college class. All are invited to attend this fun and informative conference, with continuing education (CE) credits available for nurses, counselors and social workers and CPDU credits for teachers.
Purchase Using Humor to Maximize Living at the Rowman & Littlefield Educators site.
The Top Ten Reasons Why Humor is FUNdamental to Education
At the invitation of author, Robert Sylwester, Mary Kay’s Article “The Top Ten Reasons Why Humor is FUNdamental to Education” was published in IAE newsletter and will be included in a e-book on Creating an Appropriate 21st Century Education.