Laughing is good for learning.
That's the theory of Doni Tamblyn and Sharyn Weiss, authors of The Big Book of Humorous Training Games (McGraw Hill, 2000). Try the 10-minute “Brain Fry,” designed to warm up a group for brainstorming:
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Create teams of four. Tell each team to pick the first “target person.” Then ask them to quickly choose who will go second, third, and fourth.
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The first target person faces the rest of the team, lined up like a firing line. At your signal, the firing line shouts out single random words to the target in rapid succession. The target must immediately respond with another word (any word). Whenever a target says “um,” he must declare “I'm fried!” and take a place in the firing line.
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Continue the game until everyone has had a least one turn as the target.
If participants feel a bit crazier than they did 10 minutes before, their brains are ready for some creative thinking.
