Boredom

This is SOOOO boring. School is boring. Life is boring. It is the motto of adolescence.

I learned quite some time ago not to take the "this class is boring" comments overly seriously. After reflecting the first few times a teacher gets those comments, it is worth digging deeper with those students.

Teacher: So which of your classes are not boring.
Student: Actually, all of them are.
Teacher: So, you play soccer. That's not boring.
Student: Well, practice is boring, and I don't get to play often, so actually it is boring.
Teacher: What about video games, music?
Student: Yeah, that can be fun for a while. But that gets boring fast too.
(Photo is from "Eric Conveys an Emotion" at http://www.emotioneric.com)

OK, are we getting a clear picture here? One of my questions to students at the beginning of a new class is what is their favorite thing in life so far? I have yet to have a class where at least one person, perplexed, simply answers: nothing. Nothing interesting!

I'm certainly not justifying everything that happens in a classroom. Some things are boring. Some are boring out of necessity--that is, it is important knowledge and information, but not "fun". That's the first lesson for many adolescents--everything important isn't necessarily fun and interesting. There are some things in the classroom that can be presented in a boring way, or in a more interesting way. But don't expect hazzahs from all the students for being engaging. Regardless of approach, some will be bored.

There are a lot of factors in late adolescent boredom. Certainly, we (as educators) must take some responsibility. In many cases we have taught boredom in schooling. Or, on the contrary, have created the expectation that everything in education should be fun. If it isn't, then students won't engage. Some responsibility lies with teaching students a high level of dependence. Few take much personal responsibility for their own learning. They are used to spoon feeding and hand holding, and weaning them from that can be traumatic. Few students see any personal responsibility in being interested. And, of course, some adolescents would rather be tortured than admit to an adult that something was interesting.

Engaged students aren't always learning well either. I've had many successful classroom activities and projects where students were highly engaged, yet a later assessment demonstrated clear as sunshine that the activity or project had become more important than the content of the activity, because, frankly, they hadn't learned much.

So, we struggle everyday to engage curiosity while keeping expectations for new learning high. We try to create interest, or find relevant connections for knowledge. We try to emulate Comedy Central and do a stand up routine. But, unfortunately, we can't always trust the student "audience" to react honestly. Boredom can be cool. Sometimes, after class, you get a peak at the truth when a student comments, "I didn't say anything in class today, but that was really interesting."

Finally, I have arrived at the truth: Student boredom is just, well, boring.