Why Boredom is Interesting

What if boredom is a signal, not a flaw?

“I’m not bored because it’s easy. I’m bored because it doesn’t matter.” With permission, from a high school senior in 2025, in a reflection journal

Dear Readers,

At the end of the school year a few weeks ago, I saw a lot of hand-wringing online.

Posts about how students “don’t read the classics anymore.”

Frustration that assemblies and advisory time are “cutting into real learning.”

Worry that students “just don’t have the attention span” for academic rigor.

I get it. I’ve read those books, too.

I know what it feels like to want something beautiful, challenging and important to land. I know how it feels to work hard on a lesson and hear a student sigh and say, “Ugh. This is boring.”

It stings.

In response, I hear adults fall back on a familiar phrase: “Kids need to be bored.”

I thought I understood. But I don’t, at least not in the way it's usually said, like boredom is some kind of necessary boot camp for adulthood. Sometimes, yes, we all need to sit in stillness, resist the urge for constant stimulation, and learn to be with our thoughts. There is a ton of evidence that “boredom” invites creativity, daydreaming, innovation.

But I am more interested in this: boredom is asking us to reframe, not retreat.

When a student says they’re bored, they’re not always asking for more glitter or novelty. They’re asking to matter in the space. They’re telling us something about how disconnected they feel from the material, from the classroom, or from the role they’re being asked to play.

Disengagement isn’t just a problem of attention.
It’s a problem of intention. It asks us: Why does this matter? To whom?

And what is this for? (And it cannot all be “the future.”)

I’ve heard teachers call responding to boredom engaging in some form of “edu-tainment,” laughing like they understand.

When we treat boredom as a flaw in the student, we miss what it’s telling us.

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The Big Idea

Boredom is communication.

But in educational spaces, boredom is often treated like a character weakness. It’s used as a shorthand for laziness, entitlement, or a lack of discipline.

Take this excerpt from an opinion piece in The NY Times:

Life isn’t meant to be an endless parade of amusements.

“That’s right,” a mother says to her daughter in Maria Semple’s 2012 novel, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette.”

“You are bored. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it’s boring now? Well, it only gets more boring. The sooner you learn it’s on you to make life interesting, the better off you’ll be.”

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What??? It only gets more boring? Really? That’s the message?

Boredom is treated like a behavioral red flag, or worse, a personal failing. But I think of it more like a white flag, or whatever flag you fly when you need a break, when you are sending a signal.

We are ignoring the very real information boredom is sending us.

And this is not just my (very strong) opinion. Developmental psychologists and learning scientists see it differently, too.

In fact, studies from researchers like John Eastwood¹ and Erin Westgate, who run a research hub delightfully called the Boredom Lab, have found that boredom isn’t just about having nothing to do. It often arises when people feel:

1. A lack of connection - not an absence of stimulation, an absence of meaning.

2. A lack of relevance - when learners do not see themselves in learning.

3. A lack of challenge - when things are too simple.

4. A lack of autonomy - when they have no choice in what or how they learn.

5. A lack of alignment- when learning does not align with beliefs or values.

Boredom, then, is not just a blanket emotion, it’s a diagnostic clue. And yet, instead of responding with curiosity, our systems double down on compliance.

We preserve the classics, but lose the students.

This is not a new problem.

bell hooks warned about it. In Teaching to Transgress, she wrote:

“When education is the practice of freedom, students are not the passive consumers of knowledge. They come to the classroom to be co-creators in learning.”

This is counter-boredom.

And while we are on the subject, it’s worth asking:

• Who gets bored and still gets labeled “gifted”?

• Who gets bored and gets labeled “defiant”?

• Who gets space to explore?

• Who gets told to comply?

Boredom isn’t just emotional. It’s structural.

Compliance is Not Readiness

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Making Big Ideas Usable

Education researcher Thomas Goetz has shown in his typology of academic boredom, different forms of boredom emerge depending on whether students feel trapped, under-challenged, or disconnected from the purpose of the task.

So, with this inspo , I created a 2x2 matrix, "What Is Boredom Telling Us?"

Boredom is not just about under-stimulation, it’s about misalignment between desire, attention, and action. It's a form of feedback, asking us to tune in. This framework reveals four forms of boredom by mapping two key dimensions:

• Agency: Does the learner feel they have any control or influence?

• Connection: Does the learner feel connected to content, people, or purpose?

How to Use It

This tool can help educators shift from managing boredom to listening to it.

• During a lesson: Pause and ask, “What kind of boredom might this be?” Instead of dismissing or correcting behavior, use it as a diagnostic cue.

• In curriculum planning: Reflect on where a unit may be triggering low agency or low connection. Are students able to make meaningful choices? Can they see themselves in the work?

• In student conversations: Share the matrix and invite students to map their own feelings. This builds metacognition and mutual understanding.

What Else Can We Do With Boredom?

Let’s stop asking how to keep students from being bored (or worse, how to just get them to comply) and start asking what their boredom is trying to teach us.

Here’s what I am thinking about:

• Let’s broaden the concept of “classics”

• Let’s pair the chosen with choice for things that are required?

• Let’s make space for co-creation (of assignments, policies, reading choices)?

Instead of “How do I make this more entertaining?” ask:

• Where is there room for student voice here?

• Is this connected to something meaningful in their world?

• Can students shape the format or product of their learning?

There have to be ways to shift from compliance tasks to contribution tasks.

I am thinking about questions like: What can this learning do in the world?

Further Reading and Research

• Eastwood, J. D., et al. (2012) – The Unengaged Mind: Defining Boredom in Terms of Attention

• Westgate, E. C. (2020) – Why Boredom Is Interesting

• Goetz, T., et al. (2014) – Types of Boredom: An Experience Sampling Approach

• Danckert & Eastwood (2020) – Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom

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A Parting Thought

When kids say, “This is boring,” while learning, they’re not failing us.

They’re inviting us to listen. They’re telling us that something in the room is out of sync with their energy, with their questions, with their hunger to matter.

That is the beginning of learning.

Let’s stop reacting to boredom with panic or dismissal, and start responding with curiosity.

Boredom might really be the signal that learning needs to shift.

1. In his Boredom Lab at York University’s Faculty of Health, Eastwood looks at what causes boredom and its impact on behaviour and health. I just needed to include this footnote because….BOREDOM LAB!