ABSTRACT
This is the graphic account 10 year old Charlotte gave of her experience of everyday time at school during our recent ethnographic study.1 Her words captured, very strikingly, the commonly expressed opinion that ‘school is boring’. Drawing on accounts of the daily unfolding of child-adult relations at school this chapter explores why children may indeed describe their experiences of time at school as boring and it further discusses the implications this has for children’s learning. The children’s accounts of school as boring were remarkable for the very matter-of-factness with which they presented this view. It was often said in a repetitive, routine, manner which suggested that boredom was simply taken for granted. Although we are in no doubt that children also enjoyed the time they spent at school, the continual repetition of the notion that school is boring deserves explication. We framed our analysis of children’s accounts of time at school, therefore, by asking the simple question, What is school for?, a question central for the project of schooling in which children and adults are engaged.2 In this chapter we focus on how this project is accomplished at school by teachers and children, through an analysis of their accounts and of observations of everyday encounters and interactions in the classroom.
