10 reasons for classroom boredom.

Classroom Common Challenges and Suggested Solutions!

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Challenge:

Students get bored in the classroom.

Solution:

A major and pronounced dilemma many teachers face is students’ boredom in the classroom. Teachers, parents and students claim that boredom is the root cause of losing interest in school. Hence, we have to address: What is beyond students’ boredom? What is the impact of boredom on students’ life and their learning? and, How can we tackle boredom in the classroom?

Let us start with addressing the reasons beyond students’ boredom in the classroom. As all of us know, half the solution is identifying the reasons behind the problem (actually the most crucial half).

The 10 causes beyond students’ classroom boredom:

1. Teaching in slow pace, explaining easy concepts, and repeating the same ideas, cause boredom specifically for gifted students and high achievers. These students complain from attaining the concepts quickly and getting bored from listening to the teacher repeating and simplifying the same concept for their classmates over and over again.
2. Lack of interest in the subject, due to its abstract concepts, technical terminologies and/ or lesson irrelevancy to daily life, is a common initiator of boredom in the classroom. Students always ask: Why are we studying this lesson? How do we use it in daily life? How knowing these terminologies will help us in life? How is it related to my future career?
3. Lack of motivation is a common cause of boredom. Some students aren’t intrinsically motivated to learning and at the same time they don’t find any incentive to perform well. They disconnect from the learning process
4. Lack of challenge is at the base of students’ boredom in the classroom. We all know that “A life without challenges is boring.” How about a school day with six or seven continuous teaching hours without challenge!
5. Low achievement in the subject and lacking the essential skills needed to stay on task. Low achievers may not be able to follow up with the lesson. They got detached from the class discussions, activities. etc. This leads to their boredom.
6. Socially Isolated students who are not able to build relations with their classmates are vulnerable to boredom.
7. Lack of discipline in the class may cause boredom to a group of students who fight to learn amid all the noise in the class. Those students will get bored after several attempts to stay connected with a helpless teacher who is not able to manage the class.
8. Monotonous Classroom is one of the dreadful reasons beyond students’ boredom since it almost affects all the students in the class regardless of their level. This results predominantly from traditional teaching methods where teachers teach on the board and the students passively listen and share while seated all day on their chairs.
9. Teachers’ stiff facial expressions and monotonic voice tone are natural triggers for students’ boredom in the classroom. Don’ t expect students to stay attached and connected to the class discussions in such cases! Teachers’ facial expressions must convey messages and their voice tone must put the class on fire!
10. Lack of autonomy is a hidden cause of boredom. Students feel controlled by the educational system and trapped by its requirements. Some consider they follow the wants and the needs of the school and their parents without themselves having a say in the decisions.

I advise each teacher to reflect on the implemented learning process and try to identify the reasons behind students’ boredom in the classroom. Addressing the problem will help solving it!

It is good for us as teachers to put ourselves in the students’ shoes. Let us spend one day in students’ place and reflect on it! We can’t say I used to learn this way! Things has changed since that time. Some of our students come to school emotionally unprepared to learning! These students are the product of an unhealthy parenting! Parents must be guided to the proper way of raising their kids. Moreover, our students are the product of a digital era that is shaping their needs and preferences and hence it must shape our educational system.

Till the next blog with the suggested solutions that help us successfully tackle boredom in the classroom.