Monday, September 29, 2014

The Two-Stringed Morin Khuur

I've been thinking about boredom.  It seems like, compared to 30 years ago when I was little, kids have more access to instant stimulation.  If you find yourself with nothing to do for a moment, and you're uncertain of how to proceed, you can just pick up a device and watch or do something that somebody's already made.

One reason I liked our camping trip was that there was time in which boredom could creep in.  And then, silliness and fun ensued once the children developed their own game.  Sure enough, there have been several studies about boredom breeding creativity.  Here's one.

This makes me wonder about school.  How can we harness the power of boredom there?  Without being, like, boring?

2 comments:

mm said...

I thought I had left this comment which has little to do with this post. As I was sitting bored in a meeting, I was wondering if you'd e-mail or share with me or something your presentation that you gave at Google Summit with the sound cloud?

jdoc said...

Yes. Totally. I'm trying to harbor the blessings of boredom in our house and it's nearly impossible for the THREE YEAR OLD. Beautiful weekend for camping!