Be the change

This Year I Am Boring My Students (On Purpose)

Pernille Ripp

I have been thinking a lot about boredom. And how so many of us, yes, myself included, seem to be almost allergic to it. I am not aware of this obviously when I search for constant stimulus, but my brain is.

It shows up in the exhaustion I feel at the end of the day, in the way I can’t quite remember the details of my life like I used to. How my own kids will bring up events that they remember so clearly, and yet I don’t even remember them happening.

I feel my hand reach for my phone before I am even aware of my brain telling me to do it. As I write this in my greenhouse, my phone lies next to me, calling to me with a quick check of Instagram to see how my latest post is doing, or perhaps to extend that Snapstreak I have with my husband.

None of this is new.

People much smarter than me have been ringing the alarm on attention issues and how we all need to be more bored, more often, for years. We know it. We try it. And then we get busy again, and we are right back to the cycle of stimulus chasing.

And yet, we also know that within boredom lies creativity, and so it is this that I ruminate on today. Because where did my own creativity go? And what happens to creativity when those behind all the latest AI tools want us to believe that it can come from a machine? What happens to creativity when we can be handed a manual for practically everything we can dream of doing, and assume that because our worlds are so filled already, what we have invented and created now is enough?

I see it with my students too. When I tell them to free draw, they immediately ask me if they can watch how to draw on YouTube. When I propose a dance break, they want a Just Dance with choreographed dance moves. When I invite them to write a story, often it is the first idea they go with, and often that idea is inspired by a game, a movie, or set in a world not created by them.

When I push them beyond the scripted or the known, they get a little lost. The insistence of needing help grows louder, the confidence drops, sometimes even followed by tears.

It turns out not knowing what to do, or not having a guide to follow, is a really scary place for some.

And I get it.

In a world where so many of us feel like we need to be perfect because that is all we are surrounded by, who wants to stand out as unique or creative? After all, when you take a risk, others may not like it, others may judge you. And with phones ever present, it is no longer just those close enough to you that can witness your strangeness. The whole world can point its finger and laugh.

So how do we invite boredom into our classes? Because it is kind of the opposite of what we have been told to do for so many years.

Do more, make it exciting, teach like a — insert whatever. Bring the exuberance and plan many activities in a short amount of time so you don’t lose their attention. Faster. More tech. More tools. More colors and noises. Bombard them so they don’t want to look away. Feel a dip in energy, do a game. Eyelids getting heavy — brain break!

And we leave the days needing to recover because our brains were never supposed to take so much in, no matter how well we think we do at it.

If we already know that we can’t win in the dopamine race that our brains are constantly in, then why even bother entering?

Because I am sick of running at a furious pace just to keep up with something I wasn’t meant to keep up with. And so in some ways, this year, unintentionally, I have been trying to bring boredom back into my classroom.

Slowing down purposefully, inviting children to sit in the discomfort of not getting help right away, telling them to try even when they are frustrated.

We have started with reading for more than 10 minutes now. A slow invitation into community and stories that allows everyone to settle in, settle down, and sink into their minds. I am steadfast in my commitment that this is one of the largest gifts we can give children. A book where they get to find peace, hopefully.

We do choose your own writing every week. Four choices are presented, or they can do their own, and as the year has grown so has the given time. Write beyond what you think you can. Allow yourself to think. No rush to get started, but select something that piques your attention. And keep at it. It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be written.

Our art classes have been freer, techniques shown, and then make something. Back to the basics of how to use the world for inspiration, mixed in with more formal lessons.

Saying no to brain breaks as a way to relax, and instead recognizing them as a way to hype up. They bring the energy, not a break, and so I use them for that purpose.

Using our class meeting as a way to reflect on how our community is and what it needs work on, and taking the time it takes because that is the whole lesson.

Staying with our read aloud and not offering opportunities to do anything else while you listen, except that you can choose to lie down if you would like.

Actively looking for places to slow down, focus in, and not feel the urge to rush through lessons in order to keep the excitement up. Sure, that three week unit on idioms should have ended two weeks ago, but we are still in it, and we are still having fun.

I need them to be present, I would love for them to be alert, but I am going to give them time to be involved longer.

And so as I dream of next year, although I still teach until June 26th, as we do in Denmark, I am thinking of more ways to cultivate boredom, and hopefully creativity, with my new 1st graders.

I asked Claude what ideas it had to share, and of course it complimented me on my thinking, because according to AI, I am a genius. But the ideas shared beyond that were worth perhaps considering. Or perhaps, when I garden next, where I have banned AirPods and music, my mind will wander and more ideas will flow as my hands dig in the dirt and order starts to take shape. Because after all, I discovered that my key to creativity is dirty hands and plans that promise a bright future.

From Claude:

What a great question — and a countercultural one. Here are some ways to build productive boredom into your teaching:

Create empty space and protect it

The instinct is to fill every minute. Resist it. Build in unstructured time with no task attached — even 5–10 minutes where students have nothing they have to do. Don’t rescue them from the discomfort. That discomfort is the point.

Give prompts with no right answer and then go quiet

Ask a question, then wait far longer than feels comfortable. Don’t fill the silence. Don’t rephrase. Just wait. Students will eventually stop looking to you for direction and start looking inward.

Remove the scaffold before they feel ready

A lot of creative paralysis comes from over-scaffolded tasks. Give a topic, a blank page, and nothing else. The constraints they invent themselves are always more interesting than the ones you provide.

Slow down repetitive tasks on purpose

Repetition — copying, tracing, sorting — creates a kind of mild cognitive float that’s actually fertile ground for ideas. Don’t apologize for it. Let minds wander during it.

Ban “I’m done”

When students finish early, don’t give them the next thing. Say: now just sit with it for a bit. Make “done” a beginning rather than an ending.

Build in maker/wonder time with no product requirement

Time to draw, build, mess around with materials — with no expectation of output. No sharing, no display, no rubric. The absence of an audience changes everything.

Let lessons meander sometimes

Follow a tangent even if it takes you off-plan. Model for students that curiosity doesn’t always lead somewhere useful — and that’s fine. Wandering has value.

The underlying principle: most creativity tools in school inadvertently kill boredom by replacing it with stimulation. The goal is to stop filling the gap and trust that students will eventually fill it themselves — with something that came from them, not from you.

being a teacher

How to Combat Summer Reading Slide with Students

Pernille Ripp

I have 43 school days left and I can already feel it. That quiet guilt that starts sneaking in sometime around May. The one that whispers I did not do enough this year. That the readers in my care will walk out that door in June and the reading lives we built together will quietly unravel over the summer and somehow that will be on me.

I have been a teacher long enough to know that feeling well. And I have also been a teacher long enough to know that some of it is a lie.

The summer reading slide is real and the research is probably the reason why many of us carry this guilt. The largest national study in the US found that 52% of first through sixth graders experience summer learning slide, losing an average of 39% of their school-year reading gains over a single summer (Brighterly, 2025). Students in grades 3 to 5 lose roughly 20% of what they gained during the year, and younger readers are most at risk because decoding and word reading skills are particularly susceptible to decay without frequent practice (Scholastic). In Denmark, Hans Henrik Knoop at Aarhus University puts it plainly: seven weeks is a very long time, and what happens neurologically when you stop practicing is that you forget. The brain deteriorates when you do not use it. Danish research confirms that the gap between strong and developing readers widens over summer specifically because strong readers keep reading while others do not (Folkeskolen.dk).

That is the slide. And here is the part we need to sit with: the research is equally clear about what drives it. What happens inside a child’s home matters enormously. Whether the adults in their home prioritize reading, whether they have quiet and time and someone who models what it looks like to reach for a book, those things shape a summer in ways we simply cannot reach from our classrooms. The socioeconomic realities of our students’ summers are real. Some of our kids are working. Some are caring for siblings. Some are navigating things we will never fully see or understand. And some simply don’t like reading.

That guilt we carry in August? A lot of it belongs to circumstances that were never in our power to change. We forget sometimes how limited our reach really is once that door closes in June. And naming that is not giving up. It is being honest about where our energy actually belongs, so we can stop spending it on guilt that was never ours to carry in the first place.

Because here is the thing. There are a few things still within our reach. Not all. But a few, and they matter.

Start with curiosity, not books. Before the last week of school, ask the readers in your care what they are actually curious about right now. Not what they want to read. What they are curious about. Dinosaurs, true crime, how engines work, why people get sick. Whatever it is, that curiosity is the thread to pull. Point them somewhere. A book, a magazine, a rabbit hole online. Curiosity is the door — we just help them see it is already open.

Get the actual book into their hand before they leave. Not a list. The physical book, checked out, going home with them. A list is an intention. A book already in their bag is a reality, especially on a Tuesday in July when boredom hits and there is nothing else to reach for. Talk to your librarian now, before the last week. Have books ready. Make the handoff personal because it is.

Write them a note. One sentence, specific to that child. Something that says you saw them this year, that you know something real about who they are as a reader. Kids keep those notes longer than you would expect.

Give them a short survey about people, not books. Ask them who in their life actually reads. Is there a teenager they look up to, a young adult, someone among the adults in their home who might talk books with them over the summer? Most readers have never been asked to think about this. The survey itself is the intervention. Help them name someone before they leave. That name matters more than any list we send home.

Lower the bar out loud, directly to them. Not always “read every day”. But “just keep trying”. Pick something up, put it down, try something else. The goal is a brain that keeps reaching for words all summer, even imperfectly. Tell them explicitly what counts to expand their preconceived notions. Graphic novels, audiobooks paired with the text, nonfiction articles even short ones online, digital reading, news sites written for kids, Wikipedia rabbit holes, chapter books on an ereader. All of it counts. Say it clearly.

And finally, give them a reading dare. Not a class challenge, one dare, one kid. Something specific and slightly ridiculous. A dare that is personal enough that they know you actually thought about them when you wrote it. Readers in our care need permission sometimes to approach reading as something that could actually be fun rather than something they are supposed to do.

We have worked all year to invite the readers in our care into reading, to support their reading lives, to help them see themselves as readers. We cannot control the summer. But we can make sure they leave knowing we believed they were a reader.

That belief is not nothing. Sometimes it is the only thing that carries them through to August. And that is worth holding onto, even when the guilt tries to tell us otherwise.

Reading Identity

Reading Was Never Meant to Compete

Pernille Ripp

We talk about reading as if it is in a race. As if every time a kid picks up a phone instead of a book, reading has lost a point. And I understand why we frame it that way. The competition feels real. YouTube, social media, every platform built around the endless scroll, they are extraordinary at what they do. The additives of a phone and everything that comes with it, the brain chemistry they tap into, the way they are engineered to keep you coming back, it’s a losing race, we cannot compete with that.

But here is the thing. Reading was never supposed to compete.

It is not a faster, quieter version of TikTok. It is not trying to win your attention the way an algorithm does. Reading is its own thing entirely. And the moment we stop treating it like a competitor and start presenting it to kids as something categorically different, something that exists in a completely separate space from their devices, everything about the conversation changes.

Reading offers quiet. It offers balance in a world that is otherwise relentlessly loud. It offers the health benefits we know are real, focus, empathy, stress reduction, the slow building of an inner life that is completely our own. But more than any of that, it offers something increasingly rare: A place where we do not have to perform.

How often does that happen?

With a book, no one is watching. Well, unless you are reading in public, of course. There are no likes, no comments, no version of yourself being constructed for an audience. You get to just be with a story. Not be judged. Not worry about what anyone thinks. That is a selfish indulgence, and I mean that in the best way. In a world that is constantly asking us to consume, to engage, to spend more time on their platforms, reading quietly says: this is for me. Just me. And the way it restores me is something I can’t let go of.

Giving kids the gift of reading is one of the few things we can offer them that pushes back against all of of the consumption and production. Not by banning phones or lecturing about screen time. But by showing them that reading exists in a different category altogether.

If we want kids to see reading as its own thing and not as a lesser version of entertainment, we have to change how we talk about it.

Stop framing it as the alternative to screens. When we say “put down your phone and read,” we immediately set up a competition reading will lose. Instead, talk about reading as something you do for yourself, not something you do instead of something else.

Talk about the privacy of it. Kids live remarkably public lives, even at young ages. I don’t envy my own children in any way when I think of the type of teen years I had, I am so glad there were no cameras ready to record at any moment. The idea that reading is a space that belongs entirely to them, where no one can see what they are thinking or feeling or imagining, is genuinely powerful. Name that out loud.

Celebrate the selfish part. Reading is one of the few things in a child’s life that is purely for them. Not always to improve their grades, not just to make a teacher happy, not to perform for anyone. Let them hear you say that. Reading is something you do because it feels good and it is yours.

Model the quiet. Let kids see you read. Not as a lesson, but as something you genuinely want to do. When they see an adult choose a book, not to be productive but simply to be still for a while, that lands differently than any message we could ever deliver. This is yet another reason to make your reading life public in some way.

Connect it to who they already are. Reading identity is not built through assignments. It is built through the experience of finding a book that reflects something true about you, or takes you somewhere you wanted to go, or makes you feel something you could not name before. Our job is to help kids find those books and then get out of the way.

The algorithm wants our attention and it is so easy to fall into. Social media wants your engagement. Every platform is designed to want something from you.

Reading wants nothing. It just waits.

That is not a weakness. That is exactly what makes it worth protecting and worth giving to the young people in our lives as the gift it truly is.

Reading Identity

When a Child Says There Are No Good Books: A Tool for Conferring

Pernille Ripp

All year I have been working with this one child.

A good reader. Bright. Funny. And yet he hates reading. Tells me there are no good books despite me bringing all my tricks. Book recommendations, book excitement, cheerleading and all of that.

And then I realized something.

It’s an ingrained habit now. A quick dismissal. Because if there are no good books then the work stops. The responsibility doesn’t sit with him. It sits with the circumstances surrounding him. There are no good books. What can you do?

So how do we break that pattern of dismissal?

Not with more recommendations. I’ve tried that. Not with more excitement or more cheerleading. I’ve tried that too.

I think we break it by handing the ownership back. Slowly. With small moves that ask something of the child rather than offering something to them. Moves that say I believe you can find your own way to a book. Let me show you what that might look like.

I put together a free conferring tool with 7 ideas for what to try. Not scripts. Not book lists. Just moves worth trying when you hear those words and I shared them on Instagram. I thought they would be worth sharing here too.

Link: When a Child Says There Are No Good Books — 7 Ideas to Try Now

The goal was never for them to need us to find the book.

It was for them to trust themselves enough to find it.

Reading Identity

When a Child Says They Hate Reading: What to Ask Next

Pernille Ripp

It seems, no matter what I do, it still happens. Year after year.

I started this work in 2010 and the voices were smaller then. Present but quiet. Now, with passive consumerism, with the need to be constantly entertained, with the pressures of life growing for so many kids due to inequity, it seems to have grown to a cacophony of voices. Eagerly chanting. Even from my 1st graders. Before they had even fully learned to read, they would say it.

I hate reading.

I know I cannot be the only one.

So what do we do? How do we speak to them in a way that shows we are actually listening — and also that it doesn’t have to be this way?

I don’t think the answer is a better book recommendation. I don’t think it’s making reading more fun or more gamified or more rewarded. I think it starts with a question. The right question. One that treats what they said as information rather than a problem to solve.

I’ve been collecting those questions for a while now. The ones that seem to open something up rather than shut it down. The ones that get underneath the “I hate reading” to whatever is actually being said. And I posted them on Instagram, and it seems like I wasn’t the only one who needed ideas for this work.

So here, I put them together here as a free conferring tool, something you can print and keep in your folder for those moments when a child says the thing and you want to respond with more than a recommendation.

Download: When a Child Says They Hate Reading — What to Ask Next

It won’t fix everything. But it might start a different kind of conversation.