When School is Boring
Schools today are often unchallenging, especially for motivated or advanced students. Programs for gifted students generally offer more work, but seldom offer work that really challenges the intellectual abilities of the students. If a parent is not in a position to homeschool or to move a child to a better school, he is left with the responsibility of figuring out how to make a child’s education meaningful and interesting.
Do you know what classes your child is taking? Do you know what he does in his classes, how they are taught and what they are covering? Have you read the textbooks? Have you met the teacher? Do you know the focus of the class? Does the teacher care more about facts or ideas? If you can’t answer these questions, you need to do so before continuing. You can’t fix what you don’t know about. Meet with the teacher, read the textbook and talk to your child. When you ask what he learned today, don’t accept the standard, “Nothing.” Ask more questions. Keep asking until you find out what you want to know.
Next, figure out why your child is not being challenged. Good grades with minimal effort is one sign of an unchallenging curriculum, but poor grades with minimal effort might also be a warning sign. Many gifted children simply won’t do dull work. (This doesn't mean you should let him get away with this. It's just something to think about.) If the work is too simple, you can make it harder. If it involves rote memorization without thought, you may have to provide the thought content yourself.
Once you are familiar with the material being covered, you will need to give your child some skills to use. He is ultimately responsible for making his classes interesting. When a teacher is dull, he might consider shaking things up a little. If he has an interesting and appropriate question, and the teacher allows questions, he should ask it. Sometimes a teacher thrown out of his comfort zone will become more interesting, especially if the student asks about something the teacher cares about.
Teach your teen to ask questions as he reads. He should keep a notebook handy to write these questions down. Teach him to ask himself why something happened. Teach him to look for conflicting information, or incomplete information. For instance, if he reads that Dutch women in colonial America had far more freedom and equality than did other colonial women, he should automatically wonder why that is. If he reads that Martin Frobisher took an Eskimo family to Europe in the days of exploration to show them off, he should wonder what happened to them…if they went freely….if they were returned or were kept as zoo inhabitants. If he reads that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, he should wonder if he thought about that as he wrote that all men are created equal…how he treated his slaves…how he felt about slavery. He needs to read with a questioning mind. If you're always questioning, your children will do it automatically.
The next step is to seek answers to those questions. He should ask his teacher good questions. If his teacher can’t answer them, he should offer to find out for her. Then he should start his research and find out the answers. Researching these answers will help him to learn far beyond the basics usually presented in a public school classroom. He will learn to think about what he learns, and every subject is more interesting when he thinks.
You might also look for outside experiences. Is there a related place your family can visit, such as a museum, a zoo, or a re-enactment? If he is reading a play, find out if it is playing anywhere. If the book is also a movie, watch it together after he reads the book, but not before, and then compare the two. Why did the script-writer make the changes he did? Which version was better?
Sometimes a teacher will be willing to alter the curriculum. I once took a social studies class on current events. I did not realize this class had been created for students who were never going to graduate unless they took the world’s easiest social studies class. The first day, I learned that the class consisted entirely of sitting in the classroom and re-writing a newspaper article in my own words. I was devastated at the thought of wasting an entire semester of my favorite subject. I stayed late to talk to the teacher, who was startled to find out I cared about current events. He and I discussed the possibilities, and decided that I would show up each day and check in before heading to the library. There, I would spend the entire semester researching a long-term current event.
Your child may be able to obtain extra credit for his work, but he should learn to do it even if there is no extra credit. As a child, he learned for the joy of learning. Help him to rediscover this joy.