"It's Boring!" A Complicated and Annoying Opportunity

PART I: DEALING WITH BOREDOM
Boredom. A problem. But who has to solve it? Unfortunately, a lot of deep, long term learning happens in boring (steady, drill, and practice) ways. Children learn that work is hard and not always new and fun — I get that. I don’t, however, want a student to lose the love of learning. I do want students engaged and challenged.

Each child learns differently. Working through “bored” is also a chance to mature and stick to a task somehow, even when bored. Tough for kids, but a huge life long lesson that impacts success. The flexibility of homeschooling is often an advantage in adapting. In the traditional classroom, a student, parent, or teacher may have some limits in addressing boredom.

The delicate line is to guard against losing motivation. Can we get kids to work hard on boring stuff through intrinsic motivation and values, or external motivations and empower their healthy sense of self? That is the delicate dance of education, the big picture beyond just memorizing and practicing over and over. 

Intrinsic motivations:

• The value of doing his best and feeling that pride
• The value of doing what one is asked to do because sometimes it is the right thing to do — submission to authority in a work setting
• The value of completing a task in timely fashion — even if one hates the task
  

Extrinsic motivation for completing the task:

• Free time
• Time with someone special doing something you both enjoy
• Time doing an activity of higher value the Wii, computer game, or ride the bike
  

When do we need to “force” kids to do what is good for them in the long term, and risk squashing their joy in learning? There must be a compromise, a middle-ground. The big question for any student when bored is, “What is the right thing, the important thing, the best thing to do now?” and “How am I going to solve the problem of being bored and still achieve the goal?” Adults can assist in the process of answering these two questions. We do not need to rescue a student from boredom, especially if we can model and facilitate how they can resolve the issue well.

Kids that count on adults to make education entertaining, fun, interesting all the time lose the chance to solve their own problem of boredom, and get a false sense of reality. We all must learn to make ourselves get a task done — perhaps we determine a reward for ourselves at the end of the task, listen to music while we work, have a good cup of coffee while we work, work with a friend, take a walk or watch a TV show/movie when we are done, or somehow change our mind — adjust our attitude to get through the task. This is as much a part of the reality of education as learning the basics. Often, the reality is simply getting down to business and getting the task done takes less time and effort than complaining and procrastinating. Funny how that works!

PART II: DETERMINE WHY A STUDENT IS BORED
In order to evaluate a student’s needs for the learning environment and curriculum, we need to know why the student is bored. Then we can determine what to change or how to encourage the student in resolving boredom. There are many reasons for boredom:

• Too easy
• Too hard
• Too much pencil and paper; not enough action
• Not enough graphic interest on the pages (all black & white print, no color, no pictures)
• Too many problems on a page
• Too many steps to solve a problem (often the case in upper grade math)
• Takes too long...shorter attention span needs short work periods
• Other “more fun” things in working environment (distractions)
• Too isolated...a more social child may need one or more people working in the same area
• Too quiet...may need some soft background noise
• Disinterest in the topic or task
• May not see the application or value

Boredom is a complex symptom of a greater need. Is it an opportunity for adjustment in curriculum, environment, learning style, or maturity? If only there were enough time in a day to truly address the root issue, and walk with a student to a new place where they are better equipped to move on through boredom in the future, with a win-win outcome.