Borrrrring!

The lesson is boring. It happens. In a mass education scenario, the lesson goes at a certain pace, but not all students advance at the same speed. At any given lesson, for some students the pace is too slow and boring, while for others it is too fast and frustrating. How do we let every student advance in their own pace when we have 40 students in a class? Or even just 20? Any number larger than 1?  Mass education, as long as it goes with a one-to-many (teacher-to-pupils) model, has an inherent problem of being boring to most of the pupils.

A few years ago I talked with a second-grade child about her science class.  She said it was boring.  Always.  I asked her to go and take note of how many pupils in her class are bored.  This gave her something interesting to do.  She came back with a complete list of all the pupils, two thirds of them marked as being bored.  Employing a healthy scientific skepticism, I asked her how she knew they were bored, and she answered that all those marked as being bored either put their heads on the tables, or let their hair fall over their eyes for much of the lesson.  This looked like good enough an indication for boredom.  I asked about the reason for the boredom, and she explained that it's mostly because the teacher teaches stuff everybody knows (metal sinks in water.  Like, duh!) and keeps repeating the same lesson (electricity is dangerous.)  The problem was not the number of children, but problems in the choice of materials in the lesson.  And in that case, it was probably because the lesson prescribed by the central authorities didn't leave much room for the teacher to take into account what the kids in her specific class already know.  Also, maybe the teacher wasn't very good.

But the problem is not only a problem of mass education.  I recently entered a classroom with about thirty children at the ages of 10-15.  I started talking about a subject that was very interesting to me, and in half an hour ended up with about seven children.  All the rest got bored and left the class.  I was boring most of them.  I just didn't do a very good job making the subject interesting to them.  And this is a happy story, because the children were allowed to leave. In normal school circumstances, such as in the science class mentioned above, pupils are not allowed to leave.  They have the choice of either disrupting the class, or shutting themselves down.

So boredom at the class is a clear and present danger.  Most of the people I talk to agree that boredom is a horrible experience, but counter-points are occasionally raised.   As a person who hates being bored, I would like to refute these points one by one:

• Real life is often boring.  Work is usually boring.  Kids need to learn to deal with boredom.

On one hand, there are enough opportunities to experience boredom.  It just happens.
On the other hand:  No.  Life is not boring , and work is not inherently boring.  If one is bored doing their job, they must make a great effort to either change their attitude towards the job, or change their job.  They will usually succeed.  Here's a tip:  If you find yourself looking wistfully at the clock during work - know you are in trouble and do something about it.

The occasional boring task is okay, if it's the exception.

• Boredom is good!  Out of it come ideas, and it causes kids to try new things

I make a distinction between "Open Boredom" and "Closed Boredom."
"Open Boredom" is when one has nothing interesting to do, but one is free to explore new ideas.  Like when a kid is on vacation and is bored with the cursed TV.  They may actually go out and play with their friends, which is a good thing.

"Closed Boredom" is when one has nothing interesting to do, but can't escape the situation.  This is the type of boredom common in classrooms. The pupil (victim) may choose to become externally disruptive to the boring environment, but such behavior attracts negative feedback from the authorities.  So most pupils opt for an internal solution:  Becoming numb to their own will to be interested or excited; toning down their curiosity.

• Not every subject is interesting to every pupil, but they still need to know it

Similarly to my belief that everything can be explained to a 6-year-old, I believe every subject can be interesting.  I have never seen a subject that is inherently boring, but I often saw fascinating subjects butchered in a classroom.  Also, if a student studies a subject without being interested in the subject, the learning is of a very low quality.  Not sure it's worth the effort.

• There are many subjects that need to be learned, which take a lot of practice.  Practice is boring, but is necessary

I can think of an important example of the issue of necessary practice:  Studying the multiplication table.  My daughter has been doing that for a while now.  It is pretty boring and I admit it is of great importance to know your multiplication table. Yet, she willingly plays an Internet game raising virtual horses, performing the same tasks repeatedly and acquiring familiarity with horse-raising facts through long practice.  So there are ways to practice through play, that is interesting to the child.  I don't see why there should be any exception to this possibility.

Bottom line:  Boredom is an unpleasant experience, and specifically closed boredom is likely to cause damage to the child.  We shouldn't mindlessly subject our children to it.

Looking at the length of this post, I think the title might be self-descriptive.  Oh well.  It's Open Boredom.  The reader is welcome to go look for something interesting at TED.