Are You Bored?

I subscribed to a magazine, Ode (For Intelligent optimists). Actually, I won the subscription by watching various ads on this site Adperk. If you like reading magazines and like getting stuff for free, you should give it a go.

I had heard of Ode but never read the magazine before. I have to tell you it's pretty darn good! One article particularly caught my attention. It's called "Childhood's End" written by John

Taylor Gatto, a retired educator and current author.

In the article, he discusses student complaints about being bored and turning that around to teach kids to be leaders and adventurers. Being the mother of two kids, I come across the "I'm bored" statement continually.

My response is usually to get them doing something, anything, to teach them something (trivial, moral, or otherwise). I've even told the teen to go move rocks out of the yard--we grow a lot of rocks here in Texas--if she was bored. Usually she will find something to do when that suggestion comes up.

Gatto said, in reference to being bored, "We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was 7, I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, he said, and those who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible."

His grandfather sounds a lot like my grandparents did. I like him.

I read this to my teen daughter. Then I backed it up with my own boredom lessons I pressed upon her in the past. I think she gets it now.

I never get bored. I hope my kids are never bored for very long. I think I'm pretty happy-go-lucky and can turn a bored day into something productive and educational yet fun. I hope I'm teaching them what Gatto's grandfather taught him.