Boys v School: Boredom is the Enemy

Part 1 of our new audio series about boys and education is here!

In chapter 1 of Boys v School, we hear the stories of two young men, Jay and Carl, whose experience of education was riddled with detentions, suspensions and a bad reputation.

Interestingly, they both cite boredom as a major reason for switching off in the classroom. As Carl shares in the episode:

"I couldn't just sit there so I just had to act out get kicked out of class ...

Of course, there are other root causes for boys’ disengagement and underachievement, and we’ll get to those later in the series. But in this episode, we slow down to understand why boys feel education is boring and what could be different.

Thanks to Professor Noel Purdy OBE, from the Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement (Stranmillis University), who helps us understand some of the challenges teachers face, what systemic changes need to be made, and how teachers can stop learning from being so ‘boring’.

To find out more about Noel’s research, you can visit here. Noel also chaired the expert panel that produced A Fair Start, an action plan on educational underachievement in Northern Ireland, which can be read here.

Listen to Boredom is the Enemy on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.