Why Does Mrs. Kahawai Want Us to Be Bored
Hey there, student. So…I know what you might be thinking…another teacher telling us to put our phones away. Booooooo. But, hear me out! I am not just here to talk about screen time. I’m making a case for something your sweet young brains have been trained to avoid at all costs: boredom itself.
If you watch the students in class or walking around our hallways, you will notice that the moment there’s a lull in activity, the phone comes out instantaneously. Earbuds go in. The silence gets filled with music, videos, messages, really anything to avoid that uncomfortable feeling of having nothing to do. We’ve become experts at eliminating every spare second of unstimulated time from our lives.
But we might have lost something valuable in the process: the wandering mind.
Some of my best ideas have come to me while completing mundane household chores or staring out the window on a long car or plane ride. Sometimes waiting in line at the grocery store with nothing but my thoughts brings about clarity on a concern or personal issue. Moments of mental drift aren’t wasted time. This is the time when our brains get the space to make unexpected connections, to process what we’ve learned, or to stumble upon creative solutions we would never have found if we were scrolling for something, anything, to fill the spare moments.
What Happens When We’re Bored
Turns out there is actual science behind this. When we’re bored, our brains don’t just shut down, they shift into what neuroscientists call the “default mode network.” This is the time our brains engage in daydreaming, reflection, and what’s called “autobiographical planning.” This is, basically, the time we have to make sense of our lives and imagine our futures.
This crucial mental state only activates when we’re not constantly feeding our brains external stimulation. Just like you shouldn’t eat sugar all day every day and expect to be physically healthy, you can’t feed your brain neural stimulation all day and expect to be mentally balanced. It’s just not how we were built.
This is So Boring
Let’s talk about school. Every teacher has heard “This is so boring” (maybe even multiple times an in the last hour). The truth? Sometimes, honestly…it is. Not every lesson can be a thrilling performance. Not every assignment will set your soul on fire. School is not Disneyland – it’s not designed to keep you buzzing with excitement every moment of the day. As much as I try to entertain my students, there are just some times where it’s about delivering content.
Schoolwork doesn’t have an inherent responsibility to be entertaining, and I kind of don’t think you should want it to be. Things worth learning require patience, repetition, and yes, sometimes a bit of tedium. The athletes out there should recognize this…lifting heavy weights is often not “fun.” Similarly, reading a challenging text requires sustained attention. Revising an essay means looking at the same sentences over and over. Solving complex problems involves sitting with confusion for longer than is probably comfortable.
The expectation that everything should be immediately engaging is holding us back. When we can’t tolerate even a moment of boredom, we rob ourselves of the chance to develop persistence and fail to build the stamina to push through difficult material. We miss out on the satisfaction that comes from sticking with something that doesn’t instantly gratify us.
Can’t It Be Fun?
I, for one, would never advocate for deliberately “boring” coursework. Yuck. We don’t need to take dull classes just to build character. But I think we’ve swung too far in the other direction, treating every moment of understimulation as an emergency that must be immediately solved with a device.
The most creative students I’ve taught aren’t necessarily the ones constantly consuming content. They’re often the ones who give themselves permission to stare into space, to let their minds wander during a boring bus ride, to sit with a problem without immediately Googling the answer.
So here’s my challenge: Try being bored. Deliberately. Sit in your room without your phone for fifteen minutes. Take a walk without earbuds. Let yourself be understimulated and see what your mind does with that space. You might be surprised by what emerges. Maybe it’s an idea for something to draw, write, or perform musically. Maybe it’s a solution to a problem that’s been nagging you. At the very least it would be a moment of genuine rest in an overstimulated world.
Boredom isn’t the enemy. The inability to tolerate it is.
