Season 7, Episode 2
Building a Playful Classroom: Learning through Improvisation and Humor
humor is not necessarily about telling jokes. It’s about creating an environment where people feel good.
– Izzy Gesell
Hosts & Guests
Izzy Gesell
Cyndi Burnett
Matthew Worwood
Resources
Episode Transcription
Building a Playful Classroom: Learning through Improvisation and Humor with Izzy Gesell
Izzy Gesell [00:00:00]:
Begin to recognize what your blocks are, what are you afraid of? And then recognize that humor, for example, is not about necessarily telling jokes. It’s about creating an environment where people feel good.
Matthew Worwood [00:00:14]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Werwood.
Cyndi Burnett [00:00:17]:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.
Matthew Worwood [00:00:19]:
This is the fuelling creativity in education. Podcast.
Cyndi Burnett [00:00:23]:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the fields of education.
Matthew Worwood [00:00:29]:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.
Cyndi Burnett [00:00:37]:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.
Matthew Worwood [00:00:49]:
So let’s begin.
Cyndi Burnett [00:00:51]:
Today. We welcome to the show Izzy Cassell, who is an organizational alchemist. He was a special education teacher in New York City before becoming a stand up comedian, an improviser, and then a professional speaker and facilitator. Through keynotes breakouts, coaching, and facilitated sessions, izzy offers imaginative, intuitive, and immediately useful insights and programs. Among the first to use improv theater concepts as tools for personal and organizational learning, he is the author of Playing Along Group Learning Activities Borrowed from Improvisation, Theater, and Instructional Moments, Facilitating with Applied Improv. He has video courses for LinkedIn learning. Check those out. They’re called leading with applied improv humor in the workplace and building your team. And interesting, Matt Izzy has engaged in many of our conversations on LinkedIn about our podcast. So when he reached out about being a guest on our show to talk about humor, creativity, improv, and education, I jumped at that opportunity because that’s not something we’ve spoken about before. So, Izzy, welcome to the show. Let’s begin at this intersection of improvisation, creativity, and humor. How do you see them connected and how are they different?
Izzy Gesell [00:02:05]:
Well, essentially, they are if we think about the end result of the creative experience, there are certain ingredients that go into it similar to the way a recipe builds something to eat in the kitchen. So what I found is humor is essentially a mindset with a result where people feel happy or joyful. But what I’ve learned in my work over the past 25 years is that people use humor for different reasons. So it’s a structured event. You can create humor. I studied humor when I was learning to be a stand up comedian. Improv, on the other hand, is not even though humor comes out of it, it’s a result. The process that improvisers use to bring that outcome is really what interests me. Improv, what’s related to educators or creativity, is that improv is all about restriction. And it’s the restriction in the improv game that fosters the creativity. Because if you think about how improv is presented, there are endowments. There are two people. Who are they? Their brother and sister. Where are they? They’re in an elevator. And what’s the problem. They’ve just met themselves for the first time. So that’s the restriction. Within that restriction comes the creativity. So the improv piece is about letting go of our blocks around being creative, which is about spontaneity telling the truth. We have all this self talk going on. The humor is a way of looking at the world in terms of perspective and how we see things. There’s always some truth in humor, and the creativity is really about putting the pieces together in ways that are unexpected. So I think those three things come together for that Venn diagram.
Matthew Worwood [00:04:00]:
I absolutely love this, and the reasons why I love this is that we quite often talk about the classroom environment as a space or an environment to which there are lots of constraints. We speak about a rigid curriculum. We speak about the number of students, the lack of resource, the technology, infrastructure, time as being a restriction. And there you are talking about the fact that when we’re engaged in improvisation, there are typically constraints, right rules. You’re this character, you’re that character. You’ve got five minutes to deliver your story. Now, I think in a classroom environment, we might get frustrated, we might have a fear of failure, we may feel powerless to act. But when we look at it, this idea of constraints within the model of improvisation, we’re actually being encouraged to laugh about it, find the humor in the situation, and more importantly, just go with it. Sydney I don’t know if you want to build on some of the things that I’ve said, but I am pumped with the connections that’s being made here to the extent that I’m planning on introducing a lot more improvisation in the.
Izzy Gesell [00:05:09]:
Summer with my teachers.
Cyndi Burnett [00:05:11]:
So I’m curious about that playfulness piece because I speak with a lot of educators, and naturally, I think I’m a very playful person, and I come from a theater background as well. So being playful and doing improvisation in the classroom has always come very natural to me. But I know for a lot of educators, it doesn’t come natural. And they’re afraid to bring in humor and playfulness into the classroom, and they’re afraid to bring in improvisation because they lose a little bit of control. So what are your recommendations and tips for teachers who want to bring this into the classroom?
Izzy Gesell [00:05:42]:
The attitude starts with recognizing yourself. I used to teach in the graduate school at Hunter College and the Graduate School of Education while I was studying to be a stand up comic. And what I realized very early when I was teaching the practicum course, the field study, the field place, and people would come in once a week, and they talk about not so much about pedagogy or curriculum, but dealing with people. Kids are making me nuts. The parents, the school board, just what Matt, you referred to. The restrictions are not only in the classroom. There are restrictions in the hierarchy, in the status, the expectation on teachers is really hard. Fix everything in the 6 hours. And yet the status that we give teachers is very low. You’re not getting paid enough. We’re not going to listen to you. Parents can do whatever they want in your classroom. So there’s this muddy ability to how do I navigate these log jams? And I think, like, with creativity, humor and playfulness has to start with yourself by recognizing not only what your skills are, but what are you doing to keep yourself from being that way. So, for example, Matt, you mentioned fear of failure as a teacher. When one of the students does something that is not, let’s say, correct, we encourage them to look at that and say, where did you go left instead of right? Yet with ourselves, because our position, our status, the way we show ourselves to the world is very muddled. We don’t give ourselves that same leeway. So my first answer is practice. Take an improv class, honor your own creativity. What do you do? I mean, we’re in education. The word recess is built into education with a recognition that play and unstructured time or minimally structured time is key to learning. Is key to education. Let’s say learning evolvement intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual evolvement. So the first thing that I would recommend people to do is begin to recognize what your blocks are, what are you afraid of? And then recognize that humor, for example, is not about necessarily telling jokes. It’s about creating an environment where people feel good. So the things you put up on the board I’m thinking back when I was at Hunter, and one of the things I realized was that successful teachers are performers. Teaching is a performing art. You’re on a stage. There’s multiple levels of interest from an audience that may or may not be interested. You’re putting out material that you’ve done over and over again. So how do you keep it interesting? And you yourself are being judged at every moment by every person. That’s a performance aspect. That’s what stand up comedy is about. And like teaching, stand up comedy is about energy, movement. We are managing energy just to build on that.
Matthew Worwood [00:08:42]:
Storytelling, I think, is part of the performance that teachers often are tasked with doing, packaging the curriculum and the instruction in the form of storytelling to build those connections and make it relevant to the students. I just think how many times I’ve told a story that is basically improvisation. A student has kind of asked a question or a student has introduced a discussion. And then I find myself making a connection to something in my life, something in the past, perhaps something that occurred with a previous group of students. And then you tell a story around that. I’m just wondering, is there certain strategies or tips that you could offer for that storytelling piece that can make it more engaging, particularly when they’re off the cuff stories, not stories that you’ve planned to tell, stories that you suddenly find yourself telling in response to something that you wasn’t expecting occurring.
Izzy Gesell [00:09:35]:
Yeah. Like so many other creative aspects, the preparation you do before you need it is key. And if the listeners can recognize that, the more they train themselves as storytellers, the more available the material will be to them. So the idea might be to take a storytelling session. And there’s something called a story spine where you lay out a story in the steps that are logical because the brain processes information through cause and effect. Like when we’re watching a movie or a TV show, if there’s a story that we’re interested in, the plot goes on, and then something happens that doesn’t resonate. We don’t see, how could that happen, given this story? It’s the plot hole. It loses the energy. So stories have a certain cause and effect and momentum. And one of the things I realized when I was doing teacher education program, not working with teachers on improv and humor in the classroom, I’d ask them, what is the teacher that you remember? And most, if not all, tell the story of a teacher who was some kind of a performer a little larger than life, the one who come in and act out a history of class or the one who would be very happy or the one who would be a little bit out of the ordinary, even in a negative way. The ones who are very strict, the ones who would hang children. I remember a first grade teacher many years ago who was called The Hook because she would take the kids who were talking out loud, put them in the coat closet, and this is the first grade and hang us in the closet on the coat hook. I remember that from 60 years ago. That’s my story. So the idea is that stories are what make teachers memorable. And I think what I would say for the people listening, just learn a bit more about stories. You love stories. You know stories, you watch stories, you have stories, put them in a way that you can relate to them. So one example is you could show your students your vulnerability. If they make a mistake and feel upset, you say, oh, let me tell you a story about what happened to me when I was in school or when I tried this. So that would be my recommendation.
Matthew Worwood [00:11:55]:
And just to connect back to one of our big Ten Tips or Ten Actions that Cindy and I have been promoting and working on from episodes of the Fueling Creativity and podcast, we talk about building relationships. And in an episode titled My Favorite Failure, we spoke about the importance of sharing our favorite failures with our students to kind of, like, encourage them to identify and share their failures as well. And again, it’s about packaging those stories when you was talking, I found myself thinking about all of the stories that I actually could tell and don’t tell that might be make believe or made up, a made up scenario that better packages a topic like artificial intelligence, for example. But there’s also the piece of storytelling where you’re sharing stories about yourself, stories about your failures, stories about your vulnerabilities. So there’s kind of two different types of storytelling here, and I think this conversation is reminding me, again of the tremendous creativity that exists within the teaching profession.
Izzy Gesell [00:12:56]:
Yeah, and the creativity piece, you have the story connection, but then you also have to work on the delivery to make it impactful. So the creativity is not just in the outline of the story, the three parts, the setup, the problem, the solution, but also understanding the power of the pause, for example, which is timing, understanding that you’re going to give three examples about what she looked like, not 15 examples. So there’s a craft to telling a story. There’s also a craft to pulling a story together from your experiences, and then there’s the courage to put yourself out there. And that’s what builds the rapport generally.
Matthew Worwood [00:13:47]:
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Cyndi Burnett [00:13:55]:
Curiosity to Create is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging professional development for school districts and empowering educators through online courses and personal coaching.
Matthew Worwood [00:14:06]:
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.
Cyndi Burnett [00:14:21]:
To learn more, check out Curiositytocreate.org or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. So we talked about storytelling. I’d love to talk a little bit about improvisation and the principles behind improvisation, which I think blends so beautifully into creativity. So can you tell us a little about those principles, the work that I’ve.
Izzy Gesell [00:14:44]:
Been doing in improv and what I found for myself when I was doing stand up comedy, I learned a lot of lessons about being vulnerable and alone on a stage and about the way people respond. So I remember asking my comedy writing teacher, how do you overcome your fear of becoming, of going up on stage? Because I was a good writer. I was in a group. I didn’t want to perform. I was afraid. He said, you don’t overcome your fear. You bring it with you. That’s what people are interested in. In other words, be real. When I got into Improv, I realized that there were certain skills I was learning that led to the outcome. And it wasn’t that anyone was smarter, quicker, or more creativity than someone else. It’s that we were in a practice. And the three things that I take away from improv that I think are relevant about their success is there are three skills? Well, the first is presence. Improvisers are always in the moment. The past is gone. The future is unknown. Now is the only time to act. And they act. They don’t think, they don’t judge very long. They don’t weigh options. They act. The second skill is acceptance, improvisation. Understand the difference between acceptance and agreement. They may not like what they give. They may not like may not be their choice. They deal with it. That’s the yes and improvisers owers in a real situation. And the third is they trust process. Improvisers are able to suspend judgment about whether things are good or bad in the moment. And the creativity aspect allows them to say, okay, I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but I am going to remain curious and keep within the restrictions to keep moving forward and see where it turns out. So that’s where that interception is. And very often it’s funny because humor comes from reality.
Cyndi Burnett [00:16:36]:
So do you have any examples of improv games that educators could bring into the classroom?
Izzy Gesell [00:16:42]:
Yeah, let’s do the one for the three of us. Okay, let’s play a game called one word story. We’re all going to together build a story that’s never been told before, and we’re going to do this one word at a time. My experience is that we won’t really know where it’s going to end up. And any of us could use period, question mark, exclamation point to indicate the end of a sentence, but we can’t use that as our turn. In other words, we can’t abdicate adding a word to build the story. Why don’t we do I can start, then Matt, then Cindy, and we’ll keep going around that way. And why don’t one of the two of you make up a title of a story that’s never been told before? Don’t think too much.
Matthew Worwood [00:17:25]:
Exploding Rocket.
Izzy Gesell [00:17:27]:
The exploding rocket. I’ll begin. There was a crazy scientist, but determined to invent the gigantic rocket ship to fly down the whole period. The rocket exploded before it could fly. Period. The end. Let’s pause it right here. All right. So Cindy is applauding. Matt’s smiling. I am enthusiastic. So that’s the game. The education part, the learning part, now comes into, what was that like for you? The open ended question. What was that like for you?
Matthew Worwood [00:18:20]:
The two things that I took away was there were times where I felt that I could throw in a word that was unusual or perhaps not what was expected. And then there were other times where I felt that it was the setting up Cindy to take that. So I felt connected to everyone. I felt like there was a partnership. And sometimes I was setting somebody up or taking charge of where we might go with the story. And I wasn’t expecting that. And that’s probably the two pieces of.
Izzy Gesell [00:18:52]:
Takeaways that I got. One of the things you learn about improv is that in improv, which is a goal oriented group activity where each person is at various times leader and follower. You have to be able to experience and live with both leading whatever you say, we will follow in. And when it’s not your turn, whatever someone else says, you have to accept. Remember the difference between acceptance and agreement. So that was a very concise understanding. Cindy, what was your experience?
Cyndi Burnett [00:19:24]:
Just that it was playful. And I knew that whatever words came out of my mouth, aside from the fact that Matt and I didn’t get the instructions correct to start off with, that it was going to be okay, that it was a game. Of play. And there was really no right or wrong way to do it other than to say one word, which we didn’t get right, but that was still playful and funny.
Izzy Gesell [00:19:47]:
Two things I want to point out. One is I noticed at the end, since I can see you, that you applauded. What was the applause about?
Cyndi Burnett [00:19:54]:
That we did it, we accomplished something.
Izzy Gesell [00:19:56]:
Yeah. So both Matt and you, Cindy, you both referred to the fact that within this 92nd to two minute activity, three people have this is almost like a hero’s journey. We start out on this adventure to tell this story. We stumble a little bit and then we get on. And then we arrive at our goal, the unexpected outcome. So the applause is for we’ve done this together. Matt, you refer to feeling connected. Cindy, you refer to that. So what I’ve come to understand from doing this many times is what we feel is that this was a story. That’s not your story or my story. It was our story. It’s not your struggle or my struggle. It’s our struggle. And it’s not your success or my success. It’s our success. So there’s a feeling of connectivity and community. So if we’re in a classroom together, then right away, on some conscious or unconscious level, we have a connection, partly because we empathize with each other’s struggle. And what I’d like to ask you then is let’s go back to the beginning when we had a few bumps. What’s your takeaway on the value or the result of that?
Matthew Worwood [00:21:12]:
Well, my initial thoughts, I mean, Cindy, you had referenced about us not getting it right and failing, but we got it right after a couple of times, and we kind of just went with it and what was it, 20 seconds, 30 seconds. We mastered it. So I think there’s going back to whenever you try something new, you’re going to make errors. Errors are associated with learning and eventually you mastered the game or able to participate in the game. And I think that reminds us that when we do try something new, we need to be open to the fact we might not get it right at first, but we need to keep going. And I think that could be applied to using new technology, it could be applied to trying a new activity out, as well as, know, a team building activity like this.
Cyndi Burnett [00:21:56]:
It also reminded me of our episode we did with Dr. Edward Clapp, who comes out of Harvard Zero, who talks about participatory creativity and how it’s not just about one person. It’s a collaborative process, and the creative process is a collaborative one. And I think this exercise really brought that to light, that when you’re working together, it felt very collaborative. I felt like I wanted to support both of you. I wanted to be a good team player. I wanted it to work out for all of us. So I loved that aspect of it.
Matthew Worwood [00:22:27]:
And just want to build on. One more thing is going back to the idea of the constraint piece at the very beginning that I referenced. Been reading a little bit about constraints recently, and there’s kind of the suggestion that there is a certain amount of constraints. You don’t want to have too little or too much. But the kind of delicate balance of having just enough constraints can really be conducive for creativity. And I think about when you first said to me, you’re only allowed to say one word, I was like my brain really immediately said, I don’t know if I like that rule. But then once I participated in it, I realized it was a very effective rule for group creativity. I was probably upset because I felt a little bit restricted as an individual. So building up on what Cindy said about the participatory culture, that rule, or that constraint facilitated the need for this to be about a group project.
Izzy Gesell [00:23:20]:
Yeah, when it’s your turn, you’re in control, you’re in charge. When it’s somebody else’s turn, you have to follow. So this is the difference. You described it very clearly, Matt, the difference between acceptance and agreement. You didn’t agree. Once you accept it, you played along. It’s always so interesting to see the balance of how a unit, a team, a classroom, a group of people come together by each person being able to deliver, contribute to their ability. And the other thing I noticed, this will be the last thing, just on this one for me, is that when the beginning happened and we were stumbling a little bit with the project, there was no blame, there was no shame. There was no somebody being called out for making a mistake. What we did as a group is we took it, we started again, we kept going, and we realized that like in a dance, when you’re dancing with someone you’ve never danced before, it takes a little while to get into the rhythm, because we all have different internal rhythms. So that’s true in group creativity also, that we all have different rhythms. And that was a really powerful example of how we allowed each other to catch our own rhythms. And by the end, we told a pretty interesting story that was applaud. That was joyful. I call that the joy of cocreation.
Matthew Worwood [00:24:45]:
So, Izzy, first of all, before we go into our last question, thank you so much for sharing that activity, because it’s an activity that I feel I mean, Cindy and I one of the goals of setting up the podcast is to try and offer teachers now listeners something that they can immediately take away and typically think about, but sometimes execute in the classroom environment. And I can just think of so many different environments to which teachers can either engage students or colleagues in that activity. I certainly know that over the summer and in the fall, I will be thinking about how I can bring more improvisation into the classroom because of the activity that you shared today. So thank you so much for that. In terms of finishing up the podcast episode, we ask all of our guests to provide three tips that they can give to teachers when it comes to promoting creativity in the classroom.
Izzy Gesell [00:25:34]:
Take an improv class or take a class where you are a bit uncomfortable about your confidence in your creativity. People tend to mix up safety zone and comfort zone. So go into your comfort zone or your discomfort zone with improv or a creativity class. The second is to notice where creativity happens to you each day. In other words, when your routine is upset when something happens that you have to change your expectation. Take note of that and see how you are processing that different path. I call it the GPS of the mind. How do you reroute yourself when either crisis or unexpected events happen? And third, look for the creativity in others. Notice how the people you’re working with, living with teaching, are being creativity in solutions to their own problems and build on that. Go to where the student is to build on their inherent creative skills and give them the confidence to be in situations where they may not know the outcome.
Cyndi Burnett [00:26:44]:
Izzy, thank you so much for those tips and for those of you listening, if you want to learn more about Applied Improv and the classroom, I would check out Izzy’s books, Playing Along Group Learning Activities Barred from Improvisation Theater, and his other book, Instructional Moments Facilitating with Applied Improv, which has lots of activities. You can also check out Izzy’s website, which has some resources as well. So Izzy, thank you so much for sharing your expertise today on improvisation, creativity and humor.
Izzy Gesell [00:27:14]:
This was really time just flew by and thanks for the opportunity to play.
Matthew Worwood [00:27:20]:
Cindy and I are back to offering a giveaway. So all you need to do is post a review on your favorite podcasting platform, screenshot that review and send it to Cindy and myself via the email address questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com. And Cindy and I will give you an option of a Fueling Creativity in Education mug or one of our books. My name is Dr. Matthew Werwood.
Cyndi Burnett [00:27:44]:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. This episode was produced by Creativity and Education in partnership with Warwoodclassroom.com. Our editor is Dina Youssefside.
How might improvisation set up open and playful experiences in the classroom?
In this episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, hosts Cyndi Burnett and Matthew Worwood welcome Izzy Gesell, an organizational alchemist and expert in humor, creativity, improv, and education. Izzy shares his insights on the connections and differences between improvisation, creativity, and humor. He explains that humor is a mindset that creates joy, while improv is a process that fosters creativity through restrictions. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing personal blocks and fears in order to cultivate playfulness and humor in the classroom.
Matthew and Cyndi discuss the role of constraints in the classroom environment and how improvisation can help teachers embrace and navigate these constraints with laughter and flexibility. They also touch on the fear and resistance that some teachers may have towards incorporating humor and improvisation in their teaching. Izzy offers recommendations for teachers, including practicing improv, recognizing personal blocks, and understanding that humor is about creating a positive environment rather than telling jokes.
The episode highlights the parallels between teaching and performing arts, both requiring energy, movement, and storytelling skills. The hosts and guest discuss the power of storytelling in engaging students and making curriculum more relevant. Overall, this episode offers practical insights and strategies for infusing humor, creativity, and improvisation into the classroom, giving teachers the tools and confidence to create a more playful and enjoyable learning environment.
Guest Bio
Izzy Gesell is an “organizational alchemist” He was a special education teacher in NYC before becoming a standup comedian and improvisor and then a professional speaker and facilitator. Through keynotes, breakouts, coaching and facilitated sessions, Izzy offers imaginative, intuitive and immediately useful insights and programs. He delivers meaningful material in an enjoyable way. Among the first to use Improv Theater concepts as tools for personal and organizational learning, he is the author of Playing Along: Group Learning Activities Borrowed From Improvisation Theater & Instructional Moments: Facilitating with Applied Improv. His video course for LinkedIn Learning, “Leading With Applied Improv,” was their first on the topic . His other LinkedIn courses “Humor in the Workplace” and “Building Your Team.” He has a BA in Psychology, an MS in Education and a P… that’s 1/3 of a PhD and now lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Debrief Episode
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