JAMESTOWN, N.Y. (WKBW) — It's learning through laughter. Next fall, Jamestown Public Schools will be adding a new hometown flare to their lesson plans.
"In our community, we love Lucy, you know it’s her hometown and so we were interested to hear about the lessons," Tina Sandstrom, Chief Director of Jamestown Public Schools.
They're called 'Lucy lessons', it’s a new way to teach and learn using comedy, originated by Howling Hounds Entertainment.
"It uses the TV series 'I love Lucy' as the context, as the core, to build lessons that kids love," said Bonnie Kole with Howling Hounds.
JPS are the first in the country to implement this kind of learning. This week—Jamestown teachers trained as the pioneer group learning how to apply 'Lucy Lessons'.
One example is from the episode where Lucy and Ethel handle an out of control conveyor belt in a candy factory.
"So you have basic mathematics, you also have quality control. Another lesson is production, you saw we were tallying up what came off the production line," said Kole.
Teachers had to move quickly and work together to solve problems, something they'll teach the students this fall.
"It draws them in because of the silly parts if you will, the humor. With that it gets them to pay attention and then you get to ask questions like what problem did you see? How was it solved?” said Denese Sanders with Howling Hounds.
Teachers say this will be very important come September.
"I know there’s gonna be gaps in their learning and this Lucy program would be a great way to go ahead and motivate them," said Kelly Cardinale, JPS 6th grade teacher.
"In the future I’d like it to be a tool that across the country, teachers can say, I need to 'Lucy Lesson' that,” said Kole.
They hope this will not only help the learning process—but to give kids an opportunity to watch 'I Love Lucy' possibly for the first time, while sneaking in some Math and English here and there.
