Reasons Why Kids get Bored in School

1. Under-Challenged  Bright students who don’t need a lot of instruction to master a skill or  start out ahead of the rest of the class often complain of being bored at school. What they’re really telling you is they are not being challenged by the work in the classroom.

Students who are under-challenged aren't always gifted--there are specific qualifications for that--but they are typically very capable and very smart. Surprisingly, these children don’t always present that way. In fact many under-challenged students are sloppy in their work, don’t study much (though still get good grades) and tend to zoom right through their work without much in the way of editing or rechecking.

2. Under-Motivated  Under-motivated students also complain of being bored in school, but not because they already know what’s being taught. This complaint is different. Often “school is boring” is paired with “that’s why I don’t do the work” or “that’s why I don’t pay attention.”

An under-motivated child is not the same as a lazy child. In some cases, the lack of motivation is tied in to a feeling that what he’s learning isn’t personally important, that the learning process has no meaning for him and his life. In other situations, a lack of motivation can be the sign of an underlying issue, such as childhood depression, ADHD or a learning disability.

3. Under-Connected  Children who have trouble forging a connection with their peers and/or their teacher may be bored in school because they feel very isolated. If your child hasn’t built a comfortable relationship with anyone in his classroom, he may feel as though he has nowhere to turn when he needs help with the work.

That, in turn, can cause him to tune out, making him feel as though he is “bored.” What he’s really experiencing is the need for some encouragement that he’s a part of the classroom community.

4. Under-Skilled

Not all students have the skills they need to be successful in the classroom. Whether that’s because your child has learning deficits caused by a disability or because he hasn't been taught in a way that’s most conducive to his learning style is really not of importance.

The bottom line is that if a child is saying he’s bored because he doesn't know how to study for tests, create a plan for a long-term project or write a paragraph, what he really means is “I don’t know how to do this, so I don’t even want to try.”

The reasons get bored at school aren't mutually exclusive, either. You can have an under-challenged, unconnected child with poor test-taking skills just as easily as a child who is simply unmotivated. The trick is to discover what your child is really telling you when he says “ I'm bored at school” before jumping to conclusions.

Teacher's Guide in Motivating Students

1. Explain. Some recent research shows that many students do poorly on assignments or in participation because they do not understand what to do or why they should do it. Teachers should spend more time explaining why we teach what we do, and why the topic or approach or activity is important and interesting and worthwhile. In the process, some of the teacher's enthusiasm will be transmitted to the students, who will be more likely to become interested. Similarly, teachers should spend more time explaining exactly what is expected on assignments or activities. Students who are uncertain about what to do will seldom perform well. To the question, "When will we ever use this?" there are several answers. (1) You never know when knowledge and skills will be useful. (2) Whether or not you ever use this specific knowledge is less important than the fact that you are learning how to learn, learning the discipline of focusing on a task, learning how to work on a task that might not be interesting to you--and perhaps you are learning how to make such tasks interesting.

2. Reward. Students who do not yet have powerful intrinsic motivation to learn can be helped by extrinsic motivators in the form of rewards. Rather than criticizing unwanted behavior or answers, reward correct behavior and answers. Remember that adults and children alike continue or repeat behavior that is rewarded. The rewards can (and should) be small and configured to the level of the students. Small children can be given a balloon, a piece of gum, or a set of crayons. Even at the college level, many professors at various colleges have given books, lunches, certificates, exemptions from final exams, verbal praise, and so on for good performance. Even something as apparently "childish" as a "Good Job!" stamp or sticker can encourage students to perform at higher levels.

3. Care. Students respond with interest and motivation to teachers who appear to be human and caring. Teachers can help produce these feelings by sharing parts of themselves with students, especially little stories of problems and mistakes they made, either as children or even recently. Such personalizing of the student/teacher relationship helps students see teachers as approachable human beings and not as aloof authority figures. 

It is also a good idea to be approachable personally. Show that you care about your students by asking about their concerns and goals. What do they plan to do in the future? What things do they like? Such a teacher will be trusted and respected more than one who is all business.

4. Have students participate. One of the major keys to motivation is the active involvement of students in their own learning. Standing in front of them and lecturing to them (at them?) is thus a relatively poor method of teaching. It is better to get students involved in activities, group problem solving exercises, helping to decide what to do and the best way to do it, helping the teacher, working with each other, or in some other way getting physically involved in the lesson. A lesson about nature, for example, would be more effective walking outdoors than looking at pictures.

5. Teach Inductively. It has been said that presenting conclusions first and then providing examples robs students of the joy of discovery. Why not present some examples first and ask students to make sense of them, to generalize about them, to draw the conclusions themselves? By beginning with the examples, evidence, stories, and so forth and arriving at conclusions later, you can maintain interest and increase motivation, as well as teach the skills of analysis and synthesis.

6. Satisfy students' needs. Attending to need satisfaction is a primary method of keeping students interested and happy. Students' basic needs have been identified as survival, love, power, fun, and freedom. Attending to the need for power could be as simple as allowing students to choose from among two or three things to do--two or three paper topics, two or three activities, choosing between writing an extra paper and taking the final exam, etc. Many students have a need to have fun in active ways--in other words, they need to be noisy and excited. Rather than always avoiding or suppressing these needs, design an educational activity that fulfills them.

7. Make learning visual. Even before young people were reared in a video environment, it was recognized that memory is often connected to visual images.

8. Use positive emotions to enhance learning and motivation. Strong and lasting memory is connected with the emotional state and experience of the learner. That is, people remember better when the learning is accompanied by strong emotions. If you can make something fun, exciting, happy, loving, or perhaps even a bit frightening, students will learn more readily and the learning will last much longer.