Every generation thinks they were better in some way than the ones to come before or after – smarter, more respectful, better behaved, easier.
But what do the teachers think who have stood in front of classrooms for more than a couple of decades?
The 13+ experienced educators below are sharing their opinions on just that!
#15. Mental health.
“I’ll add to some of the other commenters regarding mental health–forget the achievement gap, it’s the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and emotional instability across all student demographics.
Last year, I worked with at least 20 students (out of 90 or so in my classes) who were dealing with some sort of anxiety. It didn’t matter if the student had two parents, one parent, middle- or low-income… students were seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I think there, anecdotally, many reasons why this is the case, but for the purposes of his thread, I’ll just say that it has altered the way I prepare students for quizzes, share results afterwards, etc. I spend more time ensuring that my student feedback (written or otherwise) is gentler, encouraging, and growth-mindset-oriented. It’s hard to be constructively critical without any rough edges at all, and everything is carefully contextualized so as not to get them to quit.
Parents are just as quick to judge, as well. How do you guard against enabling helicopter parents when you have students in the verge of tears in your classroom? This is difficult to balance because failure is a part of learning, but trying to convince kids that is getting more and more difficult each year.”
#14. Monster parents.
“モンスターペアレント (monster parents)
at least that is what my Japanese uncle, who is a teacher, told me. Basically parents, who do not see the fault in their children but the teacher if the grades of the child are bad or something in the likes.
I wanted to hear some stories from him, but my uncle’s been very discreet about it, he just mentioned that there have been an increasing number over the years (although by far not the majority) and that is all I need to know.
Edit: Changed “discrete” to “discreet”.”
13. A lot less optimistic
“20 years ago when I was in high school, my freshmen English teacher who had been teaching for 30 years said, “The only difference I notice between kids today and kids from when I started teaching is that the kids today are a lot less optimistic about the world they are inheriting.”
I’ve been a teacher for 15 years, and the difference I notice is in what the kids like. You don’t realize how quickly pop-culture turns over until you find out a 4 year old reference is dated for kids.
Edit: Spelling”
#12. An increase.
“An increase in helicopter parents.”
#11. Math ability.
“Math ability has declined tremendously. Several reasons for it:
1) most important is the no child left behind mentality so teachers are pressured to teach to the test and get people to memorize tricks or things to do in certain problems without understanding why. By the time they get to college they almost understand nothing, but our mentality is becoming similar. Kids are just being jammed through memorizing arbitrary steps like it was historical dates. That defeats the whole point and power of math and science
2) access to the internet, cell phones, wolfram alpha, etc means as soon as kids get stuck on a problem they look it up and get the answer. There’s no more hard work and attempt at difficult critical understanding
3) not understanding that studying is effort not time. Memorizing and reverse engineering solutions for three hours (and mind you most kids are willing to put in time) is far less useful than STRUGGLING for an hour creatively trying to reason through a few difficult problems yourself.
Despite this, the top 1-5% are still the same incredible top 1-5% (perhaps better since they are using technology to augment their understanding instead of substitute for it).”
#10. The parents.
“I would think society in general has changed. We are much more aware of the crazy s**t happening around the world so I’m guessing parents are more concerned, strict, and “mombies”. Why i never ever want kids is because i would be one of those parents the world is just so crazy. Id want to know whats up 24/7.”
#9. The internet.
“Failure is a part of learning, but each of those failures is expensive and demoralizing.
Kids have access to the internet. They know more and more about what life after high school and college is like. They know that even if they get a degree they still don’t have a guaranteed shot at a job. And they are told that if they do poorly at all in high school they won’t have the GPA and test scores necessary to get into a good college.
So every time they get a poor grade on a test, they see the chances of having a successful future shrinking. And it doesn’t help that parents can usually check their grades online. Nothing worse than sitting down to dinner and knowing your mom will bring up the 60% you got on that test in AP bio yesterday.
Before I go further, I should mention I am currently a junior in high school.
I wouldn’t say I have anxiety or depression but I’m honestly surprised by that. So many of my friends are having a tough time emotionally and school hasn’t even been going for a month. Every day you come home with an hour or more of homework from most of your classes, you have tests frequently, there are large projects and papers that you need to work on, and each class is flying through the textbook so fast that if you miss a night of reading you’re screwed.
Everyone is told (albeit indirectly) that if they mess up AT ALL their future is shot. They are told that even if their performance is flawless, they could still end up unemployed even with a degree. Then from the other side they are told that failure is important to learning. But failure means a lower grade, and grades are more important than learning in school today. I don’t cheat on tests, or have anxiety/depression, but I completely understand why the majority of my friends do.
My advice to you as a teacher is to make sure that those failures happen before success feels critical (I’m assuming you’re a high school teacher). Sure they might learn by failing their midterm, but thats not where the learning is important. Failure should happen on homework and classwork assignments with very little impact on their grade. There’s nothing worse for a kid than getting to a test and not knowing what to do because they were too worried about the grade on their work to really learn from it.”
#8. Zero power.
“I’m a fairly new teacher, but this is accurate. I had a student recently who spent the whole term in my class in his phone.
We had no phone policy, so when I told him to put it away he said “or what”. He was right because I had zero power to force him to put it away. So the whole term he didn’t listen to a word I said. He ended up failing my class by 1%. His parents contacted me every day for a week only after I posted grades. He had an F since day one.
They argued that
- 1: he wouldn’t be able to play sport if I failed him so I needed to reconsider,
- 2: it’s my job to make him pay attention by making the class more interesting (I had contacted them 4 times throughout the term letting them know he wouldn’t get off his phone and was failing already. No response.),
- 3: it’s only 1%, so it’s not a big deal to round him up to passing, and
- 4: that because I was a new teacher, I didn’t understand the ‘rules’ behind teaching athletes.
I was so mad I was shaking. Over the phone they admitted they failed as parents multiple times, but wouldn’t do anything to remedy it.
So instead they wanted me to just pass him because “what harm would it do just letting him through?”.”
#7. Touchscreens.
“My mum was a nursery (so kids 3-4 years old) teacher for 30+ years and her classroom had a computer in it.
Most kids would be familiar with the screen/mouse/keyboard when they arrived even at their young age when she taught in the 2000s and it became normal for families to have a home computer.
In the last few years before she retired she noticed a trend of kids coming in and not knowing ow to use the mouse or keyboard because they were so used to iPads and touch screens.”
#6. Self-regulation.
“20 years experience. I find the biggest difference is the inability to self regulate. Some kids struggle with the word “wait.” Some kids struggle when their emotions get too big- they don’t have coping mechanisms. Some kids aren’t able to interpret the emotions of others. However many kids are just fine.
I think it is related to changes in parenting and technology. The instant gratification of technology combined with parents who don’t create boundaries create kids who can’t self regulate.
However I also think that kids spend less time outside unsupervised. The natural processes of learning and social interactions is not happening for most kids.
Most kids are really pretty good. Every year I have kids that prove my faith in humanity. But that 10% who trash classroom, scream, and freak out are getting worse. The difference between the top and the bottom is only getting larger.”
#5. Never.
“Then
“My parents were too hard on me, I’ll never be like them to my kids”
Now
“WHY CAN’T I CONTROL MY KIDS”
#4. Technology.
“To me, technology has become the babysitter to many kids. Social media and unfiltered content is exposing kids to many things most current adults were never exposed to at their age.
Parents either dont care and want the quiet an iPad or cell phone brings to their kids, or they’re working their asses off just to put food on the table, and dont have many options for babysitters.”
#3. Older kid problems.
“Younger kids have older kids problems. Kids aged 8-10 today have the problems that kids 14-16 had 2 decades ago. This permeates every facet of their lives.
Societal norms, life education, laws, education systems, typical parenting styles, etc etc etc have not kept up with the ultra-rapid evolution of the internet and the ability for anyone at all to have access and exposure to anything, anything at all, instantly, anywhere.”
#2. iPhones.
“11 years of experience. When I started teaching, having a RAZR with unlimited texting was cool.
Now, most elementary-aged kids in my school have iPhones that allow them to access virtual classrooms any time they want.
The ubiquity of internet-capable technology is the biggest difference I notice, even for families living in poverty.”
#1. Never goes out of style.
“My professor who taught for 30+ years before he retired said “A lot of things change, but someone is always wearing a hoodie and jeans.
That never goes out of style”
Agree? Disagree? I’m sure there’s a little truth to all of it.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
