Dear\nStudents,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want you to be interested, not\nbored. I often think you want the same thing. But sometimes I think you like\nbeing bored. You seem to revel in it. Sometimes it seems everything bores you,\nand that you think it\u2019s cool to be bored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I want you to be interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want you to know exactly what\ninterests you: the specific, unique interests and enthusiasms that capture your\nthoughts, and I want you to cultivate those interests. I want you to know the\njoy, wonder, and sheer fun of being really, really interested in something.\nHaving a strong interest is engaging in the short term; in the long term it\ncould lead you to a career you love, whether its drawing, or gaming, or playing\n a sport, or listening to music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But some students with interests\nhave tunnel-vision. They are only interested in one thing and pay little\nattention to anything else. I not only want you to have interests, I want your\ninterests to be deep and broad. Do you really know the thing you\u2019re\ninterested in\u2013 deeply? Whatever the interest, from skateboarding to online role\nplaying games, do you know the history behind it, its major players and\nfigures, the way it relates to the science and history of the world, the\nphilosophy behind it? Well, why not? If you\u2019re interested in something,\nbe really<\/em> interested!\nAs a third grader I was already interested in cartooning. I knew who drew the\nmajor syndicated comic strips, and I knew what a syndicate was. I knew about\nhow to design cartoon characters and set up a comic strip. I meet many students\nwho tell me they are interested in comic strips, but can\u2019t tell me who Charles\nSchulz is and have never heard of a syndicate. How is that being interested?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And whatever you\u2019re interested\nin, use it as the first domino in a long chain of bricks. How does your interest\nrelate to school subjects like science, history, math, art, and music? How does\nit relate to culture, popular culture, and society? Let your interests lead to\nother interests! I often tell my students that if you pick up any one small\nsubject and tug at it, along with that subject you\u2019ll pull on everything in the\nuniverse, like a string of paperclips. My interest in comic strips played in to\nmy interest in animation. Animation led to an interest in Walt Disney, and in\nmovie making and storytelling and fantasy. That connected to my interest in\nfantasy books, which led me love the Narnia and Middle Earth books. They led me\nto study mythic archetypes, which tied in to my interest in Star Wars<\/em> and other\nmodern myths. That led me, weirdly, to an interest in real astronomy. I\ndeveloped an interest in theater, too, so when I heard about astronomer\nJohannes Kepler in a science video, I decided to write a play about him\u2026 One\nthing leads to another. \u201cEverything is Connected\u201d reads a bumper sticker I\nsometimes hang at the front of my classroom. I believe that, and I want you to\nbelieve it, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because I want you to be really\ninterested in specific things, but I also want you to be interested in\u2013 everything<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because boredom is in the eye of\nthe beholder. And so is interest. If you look at life through bored eyes,\neverything will look boring. If you look at things with interested, wide open\neyes, everything will look interesting. The students who use the word boring\nthe most to describe the world around them in general and school in\nparticular, seem pretty boring themselves. When I ask them what does\ninterest them, they often are unable to think of much of anything. The world\nlooks boring to them because they watch it through a lens of boredom. My students\nwho are least bored are interested and engaged in something, whether it\u2019s\nreading or video games or skateboarding or horror movies. My students who\nare never <\/em>bored\nare interested in lots of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notice that I\u2019ve used the\nword engaged<\/em>,\nnot the word entertained. Some people say that they want us teachers to make\nschool more entertaining. If we managed to do that by using lots of flashing\nlights and loud noises and thumping music and exploding things in class, we\nmight entertain you, but we probably wouldn\u2019t teach you. Ever see a TV\ncommercial that was really entertaining and made you laugh, but then you can\u2019t\nremember what it was advertising? The fact that you can\u2019t remember the product\nmeans it was a bad ad. An entertaining class is often the same way.\nYou remember laughing a lot and making a 2-liter of\nsoda erupt, but what were you supposed to learn? Hmm\u2026 don\u2019t remember\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But even if you did learn the\nskills or knowledge you were supposed to learn in an entertaining class, you\u2019d\nalso be learning something else\u2013 a false and destructive lesson. You be\nlearning something that our culture is trying to tell you already in order to\nmake money off of you: that you should be entertained all the time. Never be\nbored. Plug in. Be online. Listen to music. Text. Never be left alone with your\nown thoughts so you might actually get to know yourself. I\u2019d like to propose an\nalternate lesson: learn to occupy your own brain with your own thoughts. Learn\nthat the world doesn\u2019t owe you a life of dazzling entertainment devoid of\nthought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people say teachers\nshouldn\u2019t entertain, but should engage. I agree there, to an extent. I want you\nto be engaged in the work we do, but I cannot guarantee that you will be\nengaged every day for every lesson. There is no lesson so engaging that an uninterested\nstudent can\u2019t find it boring. And there is no lesson so dull that an interested\nstudent can\u2019t find it fascinating. Boredom and interest are in the eye of the\nbeholder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want you to be interested not\nbecause someone used a flashy gimmick on you but because you are an interested\nand interesting person. I want you to be fascinated with the world. This is an\nattitude, and it can be cultivated. Ask yourself lots of question. Make\nconnections. Be curious. There is no down side to this. Being interested makes\nyour life more entertaining and engaging, and you don\u2019t have to wait for\nsomeone else to do anything. And you learn. A lot. In a way, the world does\noffer 24\/7 entertainment\u2013 if you know how to look at it the right way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Student have tried to find topics\nthat would bore me, to stump me with topics so dull I could find nothing to say\nabout them. Pain drying. Grass growing. Dust. Ag-lets. In every\ncase, I was able to find something interesting about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boredom or interest do not lie in\nthe world around you. They are inside you, in the way you pay attention<\/em>. Look. Listen.\nSmell. Taste. Touch. Think. Ponder. Drink in wonder. The world is too full of\nfantastic and fascinating things and life is too short to ever, ever be bored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unless you are a boring person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You have to work at being\ninterested, and interesting, but it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Work\u2026 that\u2019s something I\u2019ll talk\nabout next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Finkle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Students, I want you to be interested, not bored. I often think you want the same thing. But sometimes I think you like being bored. You seem to revel in it. Sometimes it seems everything bores you, and that you think it\u2019s cool to be bored. But I want you to be interested. I Read More >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[101,14,96],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}