No Child Left Behind “rates” children and schools arbitrarily through multiple choice questions. Standardization and rote learning lead to sub-standard results because they don’t inspire or challenge. My solution: get rid of binary right and wrong answers. Experimentation is learning. Only through making mistakes do we find out what works, what to do differently and how to get better. […] Let’s inspire children by giving them the freedom to get things wrong.
I’ve been thinking a lot about boredom lately, after reading (and earlier today linking to) a thought-provoking blog entry on the topic by Douglas Adams – the famed creator of the ‘Dilbert’ comics trip.
In his piece, Adams brings up an old but important idea:
I read someplace that the brain needs some boredom during the day to process thoughts and generate creativity. That sounds right. My best ideas always bubble up when I’m bored. And my period of greatest creative output was during my corporate years when every meeting felt like a play date for coma patients.
Browsing back through the Danielsaurus archives, though, I came across this old piece I linked to and referenced more than a year ago: “Boredom Begins at School”. It highlights research which shows some of the physiological dangers of boredom, and shares how many scientists and education reformers are actually faulting it as one of the key reasons our education system fails.
I’ve linked to both perspectives, and I actually do believe there’s some truth in both perspectives even though they seem at odds with each other: On the one hand, boredom can be a breeding ground for creativity – and certainly, it is something I believe is vital for children to experience and have (a lot of) in their life as they grow up. On the other hands, boring places don’t make for good learning environments, at least if its inhabitants are expected to learn certain things and not how to doodle cartoons in class while ignoring the intended curriculum.
It leaves me to ask myself several, possibly overlapping questions. Wondering out loud right now:
Is boredom the same as disengagement? Is it possible, and maybe even good, to by physically bored (perhaps by a lack of intentioned activities or tasks you need to do) but mentally engaged and curious? Is there a difference between a “boring” geographic place (or person, or book, or…) and an individual person, child or adult, “being bored”? Could a boring place be the same, and perhaps more aptly described, as an “un-stimulating” place? And when we talk about “boring” classrooms and schools, are we perhaps really just talking about environments that force their users into a natural inclination toward disengagement?
This may seem like playing with semantics, but I wonder if there’s something there. Who knows, maybe there isn’t. But if there isn’t, how do we reconcile the boredom paradox? Is it simply a matter of saying “some boredom is good” but “constant boredom is bad”?
In a piece commenting on the supposedly “closed” nature of Apple’s iPad, John Gruber has (somewhat inadvertently) written a stirring defense in testament to the capacity and ingenuity of children.
The criticism around Apple’s new device centers around it’s “closed, consumption-oriented nature” and what this means for the future of computing – not only for adults, but for children, where they might supposedly no longer allowed to hack, program, and tinker their time away with only an iPad at their disposal. Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing, sees the iPad as perhaps too “perfect” – too complete, too closed off to exploration. And here’s what Mark Pilgrim wrote about it, in a piece entitled “Tinkerer’s Sunset”:
Once upon a time, Apple made the machines that made me who I am. I became who I am by tinkering. Now it seems they’re doing everything in their power to stop my kids from finding that sense of wonder. Apple has declared war on the tinkerers of the world.
It’s a fair criticism – but as Gruber argues, it’s not quite the full picture. Not only is the iPad just one device among several that we use, but here’s the important bit: Kids will always find a way to make things work for them. We just have to show a little trust. As if to illustrate the point, Gruber shares the story of 13-year-old Sam, who recently wrote him to introduce an iPad app that the boy wrote himself. Gruber:
He’s 13 years old and he has created and is selling an iPad app in the same store where companies like EA, Google, and even Apple itself distribute iPad apps. His app is ready to go on the first day the product is available. Not a fake app. Not a junior app. A real honest-to-god iPad app. Imagine a 13-year-old in 1978 who could produce and sell his own Atari 2600 cartridges.
Somehow I don’t think young Mr. Kaplan sees the iPad as hurting his sense of wonder or entrepreneurism.
13-year-old iPad programmers? Absolutely. And Sam’s not the only one out there – not at all.
Yes, as it turns out the kids are, indeed, alright.
