Boredom in education

Noam Chomsky has, in a recent interview, pointed out the pandemic of boredom in education. He avers that boring learning process at educational institutions has created a vacuum for Artificial Intelligence to storm in. It has marooned students to AI bots (bot is short for robot). A bot is a software programme that responds to the questioner’s inquiries by gleaning data from relevant websites. Interactive classrooms can ensure students’ engagement to classwork. Boredom is the death of fascination, so contents and form of pedagogy have to excite students’ fancy as a panacea to boredom.

How and why has pedagogy gone stale for students? First, the milieu that asphyxiates the spirit of questioning is the most toxic for the learning process. When the questioner is ridiculed or snubbed in classroom, surely he will turn to someone who answers his queries. In today’s world, it can be any search engine on internet or the newest fad ChatGPT. But Chomsky warns: “Exploring the internet can just be picking up random factoids that don’t mean anything.”

Boredom in education is also generated by anaemic syllabi and curricula. Where and when textbooks are revered as holy books never to be defied, boredom is knit in the warp and woof of education system there. “The person who won the Nobel Prize in biology isn’t the person who read the most journals. It was the person who knew what to look for,” says Chomsky. The sole purpose at our educational institutions is the fanatic adherence to the bland and vapid completion of curriculum without ever bothering whether it has stirred students’ imagination out of stupor. Chomsky stresses the aim of a syllabus that it doesn’t what we cover, it is what we discover.

Lack of seriousness at educational institutions also spawns ennui at schools and colleges. Haphazard change of educational policies and political landscape has made serious inroads into the sanctity and gravity of the whole educational process.

Rat race of grades among students has made educational process one dimensional, focused on commodified education. Creativity and research are bypassed due to the grades-oriented education. Despite being 90% literate, Sri Lanka collapsed. Ex-SBP governor Dr Ishrat Hussain argues lack of education relevance to market demand goes a long way in triggering the economic slump of a country.

Ours is the most hackneyed examination system. The run-of-the-mill repetition of close-ended questions dispirits learners and teachers. ‘Routine’ is the worst deadener for ingenuity. Students are tested for their memory, not for creativity.

Half-hearted dedication to regulate co-curricular activities in educational institutions is another demotivation for learners. Libraries and playgrounds are non-existent.

Teachers’ pedestrian and stagnant information and knowledge make them vectors of boredom. When teachers lag far behind the modern research and development in their respective subjects, they fail in inspiring their students. This comes true of teachers of science subjects at public schools. They don’t even know the name of any science journal. They don’t bother to share with students the Nobel Prize winners in science subjects and their new research. Generally teachers’ inertia against information technology turns them into relics of the past.

As boredom at educational institutions has attained pandemic proportions, the UN must sponsor ‘educational vaccination’ programmes to direct countries to promote education relevance as per their own raw materials and industrial demands. Our own education system needs a metanoic overhaul. Activity-based learning can bring relevance to what is taught. The spirit of questioning in students has to be enlivened. Above all, a motivated teacher is the holy grail to cure boredom. As long as the classroom world and the outer world remain poles apart, boredom in education can never be eradicated. Moreover, students must have a say in classroom activities — academic or co-curricular.

A research by Harvard Business Review substantiates the view that to be fully engaged and happy, we have to feel that we are part of something important, and that our earnest selfless contributions help in achieving something significant.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2023.

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