Teachers should give students the tools to engage with their boredom and cultivate a capacity for leisure, Kevin Gary, Valparaiso University professor of education, said in a lecture on Oct. 19.
Hillsdale’s Education Department and Graduate School of Classical Education hosted Gary’s lecture, “The Moral Eclipse of Boredom.” Gary is the author of “Why Boredom Matters: Education, Leisure, and the Quest for a Meaningful Life.”
If students are taught how to respond to their boredom, it can serve as a helpful indicator of their true interests, he said.
The first step toward properly engaging with boredom is developing an awareness of it, Gary said. Students often react to boredom in negative ways without realizing the reason behind their actions.
“We think of emotions as things like anger and fear and anxiety because we experience those coursing through our system,” he said. “Boredom often flies under the radar which is why it has been described as the latent emotion.”
When one is aware of boredom, the question becomes how to respond to it, according to Gary. He said avoidance is a problematic response to boredom on an individual and educational level.
“We experience boredom, and we just quickly find a way to stimulate ourselves. The iconic example of this is the smartphone,” Gary said.
The idea that a teacher must outwit boredom and entertain students is a misconception, Gary said. This non-reflective tactic corrodes the students’ ability for deep attention and perseverance through boredom.
“The other response which is problematic is resignation to boredom,” Gary said. “I think what’s really going on here is a loss of imagination.”
Drawing upon the work of philosophers Kierkegaard and Josef Pieper, Gary advocated for the cultivation of leisure as the best way to overcome boredom.
“Leisure is a way of beholding and being attentive,” Gary said. “It is a capacity to be receptive to intrinsic goods.”
Lauren Blunt, a student in the Graduate School for Classical Education, said Gary’s thoughts on leisure and education resonated with her own experiences in the classroom.
“I was particularly intrigued by Dr. Gary’s focus on showing students the inherent and intrinsic goods of the things being studied,” Blunt said. “As someone who has taught and spent a lot of time in the classroom, the value of creating wonder in a student through the means of conveying its beauty made such sense to me.”
Professor of Education Dan Coupland said he was glad to host Gary, as students in the master’s education program are reading the philosophers Gary referred to in his lecture.
“I thought it might be nice to bring someone in to just talk about this idea of why boredom matters, why leisure matters, and why part of a well ordered life — a well ordered soul — involves leisure,” Coupland said.
