Make Teaching Boring

Ironically, I discovered the idea of boring teaching in a place built to harvest our short attention spans: TikTok. Here’s another video in support of the method. The idea isn’t to make education dull, but to encourage self-engagement and critical thinking. The irony here is that a short-form content platform creator is encouraging the embracing of boredom. 

It struck me as the opposite of my own philosophy, which I wrote in a recent post, Teaching as Improv. My method has always been to entertain and gather their awareness that way. Transitioning lessons into a more boring style feels less creative. And that might not be a bad thing; it’ll conserve my creative energies.

Teaching is a challenge, especially in retaining students’ minds. Most days, I try to entertain while educating. But recently, I’ve turned back to lecture and note-taking. It was painful for one class not used to this style. Their whining was persistent, frustrating. “Can’t you just use a slideshow?” “When are we done?” “I missed the last one.” But posting all this to Google Classroom reduced planning time by almost 50%. No need to review videos and overthink creativity. 

Boring Teaching

Boring teaching does three things. It frees up my creative energy so I can use that for myself (selfish, I know). It reduces planning time, which allows me to educate myself and make sure I have a deeper knowledge of the material. And finally, for the kids, it (hopefully) builds their resilience and critical thinking. 

Five ways teaching can be boring:

• Lecture without slides
• Independent note-taking from a primary source
• Sustained Reading without check-ins
• Letting silence resound after a question
• No-stakes quizzes

Basic Skills

Many students struggle with the basic skills of boredom resilience and critical thinking. Trivia isn’t my concern, but memorization is a core brain function. It’s the foundation of thinking, the collection and recall of everything. In order for thinking to occur, the working memory must collaborate with long-term memory. Without it, there is no deep thinking. You can’t write poetry without understanding figurative language. And that’s the heart of the matter; kids aren’t thinking deeply or critically. They’re filling in boxes, checking all the tick marks, and submitting surface-level thinking.

Instead of fighting for attention, teaching can force kids to develop these basic skills. “Forcing” is an excellent word choice here, because kids won’t do this on their own. Yet, it’s necessary! There comes a time when asking isn’t enough. Students debate everything. They want to be led by the hand. Students need structure, and structure can feel boring. They’re not to blame. Boredom is falling out of style; we are all victims of constant contact and stimulation.

Overstimulation

Overstimulation prepares the brain to expect novelty at every corner. Phones, multiple tabs, YouTube, and visually striking images fight for our engagement. The idea of multitasking is relished, even though it means inferior quality in whatever is being multitasked. The ability to sustain deep thought is limited. 

When was the last time you stayed still and let your mind wander? Stop reading this for a moment, silence your phone, and stare at a wall. Listen to your mind fly through thoughts. Soon, you’ll feel the tug of boredom, begging for something to do. Overcome it. Let’s commit to doing this together. Maybe 5 minutes a day. I’ll do it with my students today.

And if I continue to try and entertain as an educator, doesn’t that reinforce their drive for immediate gratification and novelty?