You just kind of have to barrel through it, I guess. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.

Um… doodle? My best artwork is done in class. But I also recommend that you actually listen to the teacher, because the only thing worse than having a really boring class is failing a really boring class.

EDIT: Willow, great minds think alike.

Out of curiosity, Mortis, are you in college or high school?

I’d doodle if I didn’t suck at art. Though I drew an endless amount of pictures of Batman during Psychology.

unless they went to a crappy high school or got home-schooled.

Don’t be hatin’.

Eh, we generally find a way to make it happen. I ended up taking college-level chemistry from my grandpa, who’s a renal physiologist.

And I sucked at chemistry. It was a matter of principle that I didn’t doodle in that class at all. I’ve avoided chemistry like the plague ever since. D:

I couldn’t avoid Chemistry, alas… my damn high school said that I had to take at least one math-science, so it was that or Physics… worst grade I ever got. C. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Technically, for some odd reason we were supposed to do one or two years of life-science, and two or three years of math-science. Usually the progression for honors students was Biology X, Chemistry X, Physics X, AP Biology/AP Chemistry/AP Physics. However, I did Biology X, Zoology X, Chemistry X, AP Biology. Dodged Physics, but only by going to the head of the science department and getting permission. I shudder at the thought of physics to this day…

AP exams are brutal, I’ll give you that. My high school offered a lot of AP courses, so I sat more exams than any sane person should (twelve). I passed eleven of them.

I just got very excited because I realized I got as many passing APs as Hermione got OWLs.

Lord I’m a dork.

I once had a Biology teacher that was the sterotypical ‘boring teacher’. He was old, bald, hard of hearing, and had a voice like a vacuum cleaner. His method of teaching was to take a chapter from the textbook, condense it into notes, then read those notes to us and wait while we copied them down. To make it worse, his class was the first in the morning. There was no way I could stay awake, but I learned the important skill of writing while sleeping. Sometimes entire class periods would go by and I’d walk out with pages full of (barely legible) notes that I didn’t remember writing. I doodled a lot, but after a few months of drawing the same ducks and flowers, I started to fall asleep while doodling.

The times I did manage to stay awake were when I mixed up the daily routine a little. Once, I brought a giant pinecone that I found and put it on my desk and stared at it the whole time. It was strangely amusing. Once in I while I brought a few pieces of candy to class, which kept me awake because I was thinking ‘should I eat the cherry or the lemon one next’? I wrote notes in fountain pen some days, with a really cheap pen that I had to refill every few lines, but after my pen exploded all over my page, I stopped doing that.

I think the best you can do with a teacher like this is attempt to take good notes, and when this fails, take bad notes. Also try to break the monotony yourself; it takes a surprising amount of effort, but it might just work.

12 AP exams? That’s freakin’ insane. I’m probably taking 9 at maximum, because choir takes space in my schedule.\

I took one my freshman year, one my sophomore year, two my junior year, and eight my senior year.

I bombed AP Calculus AB (woooo for scoring a 1! Lowest possible score for the win/fail!)

I got a 3 on AP Art History and 4s/5s on everything else.

I mean, we only have 8 periods in a day!

I have 4 periods in a day, and one of them is taken up by choir. My school has a weird schedule system. But yeah, now I feel under-accomplished. I am considering taking AP Physics C but currently I’m scared shitless of it.

So far, I have taken: AP Calculus AB and AP Chemistry
This year, I’m taking: AP Calculus BC, AP US History, AP Biology
And senior year I’m planning on: AP US Government, AP English Language, and an AP Physics of some sort.

I wrote the first 8 chapters of a novel while in a boring geology class. I just pretended I was taking extremely intensive notes. Plus, the novel turned out pretty well.

I even managed to get a C in the class.

Listen to everything, and try to find ways of relating it back you your writingf or worldbuilding. That’s how I got through the most boriong Ancient Greek Lit. and Philosophy lectures ever. (Don’t get me wrong, ancient greek literature is awesome, but this particular teacher… I never fell asleep in class, except for that one. It was like Prof. Binns had chosen to talk about Vogon literature instead of the goblin wars.

Anyway, yeah. Try to relate it back to something you find more interesting, like your own work. Or, in dire situations, H.P. fanfiction. Like how Transfiguration can be explained as a reassembling of the molecular and subatomic bonds between particles, and therefore the whole “transfiguration into gold is impossible” law is false. Among other things.

Eurrrgh, boring teachers are the worst. I have an incredibly active imagination, see, which is quite handy most of the time. I’m sure it drives my family crazy, but yes, when I look like I’m not paying attention to you, it’s because I’m not and I’m really thinking about the political repercussions of supernatural creatures existing in the modern day or something. While this keeps me entertained through most boring things, when it comes to classes it’s a terrible thing… if I get even slightly sidetracked by thinking about something, I completely miss what the teacher’s saying!

So… yeah, daydreaming is OK, but remember to keep an ear open for what the teacher says. I always forget that rule.

Your boring chemistry teacher is Professor Binns, and you’re just waiting for the moment when he’ll walk through the blackboard.

Wasn’t Binns famous for being boring beyond reason? You might as well pretend he’s an interesting ghost.

@Swenson: I have the exact same problem. It helps when I’m writing stories, but trying to get through lessons when your mind is thinking about much more interesting things isn’t too great.

Anyway, there’s some pretty good advice in here. I can’t draw, so doodling just makes me feel worse, but doing what Taku said and relating things to my characters or plots works.

We are still busy memorizing the periodic table.

Why are you memorizing the periodic table? That seems pretty useless, as if you’re taking an exam or whatever you’re usually allowed to have it in front of you. And I don’t believe chemists make important discoveries by memorizing the periodic table either. Waste of time in my opinion.

Boring class taught by a nice teacher? I have that problem myself.

It’s somewhat easier to bear because being a Special Education student, I’m allowed to skip class for 45 minutes. But that’s just 45 mins out of 5 hours. Other than skipping class, the other way I deal with boring talk is watch everyone else. You have no idea just how interesting it can be to watch body language. You can look at a person and try to guess what’s going on in their mind and sometimes it’s quite funny.

Also, I seem to notice a trend with boring/bad/disliked teachers and hearing problems.