On Educational Boredom

• In Event: 69.048 - Education in a Minor Key

Abstract

Educational boredom is right in the center of the classroom for all to see. For progressives, the problem is obvious: when we sever the connection between subject matter and student interest, we have to resort to our usual, ironic, one-two punch of managing restless energy and motivating students to engage. For traditionalists, the problem is equally obvious: we have listened to progressives, buying into their notion that learning must be fun when students are better served realizing that life and work take discipline and sacrifice. It is precisely the visibility of this debate over “pedagogical boredom,” I argue, that conceals a crucial educational dimension of boredom, an “educational boredom” hidden in plain view.

Author

• Chris Higgins, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign