Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:20 years ago there were rules and punishment now we have no rules no punishment and the kids have devices that encourage cheating and videosgames instead of paying attention. Principals blame and fire the teachers for this dynamic.

I swear this is exactly what people were saying when I was a kid.....40 years ago. Only it was TV instead of video games. But people were saying how kids were so much worse, and they were cheating and lying, and everything was so much better before. Don't people ever get tired of saying the same thing over and over?

‘Kids these days,’ right?

I suspect you are not working in public schools or youth development programs, poster.

I am your age and I did just resign from a job at a before/after school program where I worked for a few months and was shocked by what I saw. And I’ve been on teacher boards for a few years now because I was planning a midlife career change and have read for years things I didn’t really believe until I saw it firsthand.

Kids today are not like kids 40 years ago, and the administrators of public schools are not at all like 40 years ago. Far too many kids are feral and there is no mechanism by which to rein them in, because administrators are not supporting teachers but instead are bowing to parental pressure and/or more recently social justice silliness which mandates that kids who call teachers mfers among other vile names, and kids who physically assault teachers and other kids, are being allowed to show back up the next day to do it all again.

I was sickened by what I saw, and am heartsick that my teaching dream which I’ve held in my heart since 2nd grade is not going to come to fruition because I’m not willing to be verbally bullied and physically assaulted by children and then excoriated by parents and administrators for not meeting teaching metrics sufficiently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gave a guest lecture today. It really hasn't changed much over the years except with updated information. I had a hiatus a bit from doing the lecture, so this was the first time I restarted it since COVID, but holy Toledo modern students are horrible. They have attention spans of ants. And it is absolutely noticeable beyond belief when I think about teaching students and giving a lecture back in 2010 vs 2024. I guess this is the end result of raising entire generations on toxic social media like TikTok since they were out of the womb. We are absolutely doomed. Modern generations' brains have been fried by spastic social media clips that last only 3-4 seconds. Heaven forbid they have to sit through a 75 minute lecture on extremely complex topics that have been distilled down to them in a digestible manner.

Just horrible. Thank God I do not teach for a profession. I'd lose my mind dealing with modern students who are incapable of having focused thought for more than 5 minutes. One student even came into the class wearing headphones and wore them the whole time while I was giving lecture. WTH? If you don't want to listen, simply don't come then. This country is going to be an unmitigated disaster in 30 years when these people take over. I honestly don't know if gen alpha is going to be able to digest baby food for course material at the rate mental capacity and attention spans are rapidly degrading. It is scary how fast the quality of students has declined in only a fraction of my lifetime.

This could have been said in 3 sentences. I also wouldn't have the attention span to sit through your guest lecture if you rambled this much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was just talking to another professor today about how the students barely have enough attention span to read a paragraph. Excerpted readings are getting shorter and shorter. They claim they don't understand all the words and don't bother to look them up in the dictionary. It's bad.

I was on a curriculum committee for elementary reading. The curriculum experts from the school system explained to us that there were many ways to learn vocabulary, but that the one way that didn’t work was to look up words in a dictionary. They thought the best way for kids to learn words was to act them out. This included abstract concepts like contemplation.

The next day I taught my kids how to use a dictionary because I knew they weren’t going to learn at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was just talking to another professor today about how the students barely have enough attention span to read a paragraph. Excerpted readings are getting shorter and shorter. They claim they don't understand all the words and don't bother to look them up in the dictionary. It's bad.

I was on a curriculum committee for elementary reading. The curriculum experts from the school system explained to us that there were many ways to learn vocabulary, but that the one way that didn’t work was to look up words in a dictionary. They thought the best way for kids to learn words was to act them out. This included abstract concepts like contemplation.

The next day I taught my kids how to use a dictionary because I knew they weren’t going to learn at school.

My elementary schooler uses her Apple Watch to ask Siri word definitions when she comes across something in a book that she doesn’t know. Seems to work for her. Sad that college students can’t figure this out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was just talking to another professor today about how the students barely have enough attention span to read a paragraph. Excerpted readings are getting shorter and shorter. They claim they don't understand all the words and don't bother to look them up in the dictionary. It's bad.

I was on a curriculum committee for elementary reading. The curriculum experts from the school system explained to us that there were many ways to learn vocabulary, but that the one way that didn’t work was to look up words in a dictionary. They thought the best way for kids to learn words was to act them out. This included abstract concepts like contemplation.

The next day I taught my kids how to use a dictionary because I knew they weren’t going to learn at school.

My elementary schooler uses her Apple Watch to ask Siri word definitions when she comes across something in a book that she doesn’t know. Seems to work for her. Sad that college students can’t figure this out.

Yes, it is. Many of today’s college students were taught by the philosophies espoused by the curriculum department mentioned above (MCPS) because they were the prevailing pedagogies of the time.

In addition to thinking that looking up a word was useless, the experts also taught that you should guess at unknown words and only sound them out as a last resort, that formal, systematic grammar instruction stifled the writing process and that marking everything that was wrong on a student’s paper was bad for their self-esteem. Instead of formal grammar instruction and thorough grading/correction of papers, teachers were supposed to pick one or two grammar areas to focus on in each paper and let that real life-usage provide meaningful instruction. For example, maybe on one paper they’d correct all the capitalization errors, but only those errors. Then on the next paper, they might correct punctuation errors, but not comment on other types of errors (including capitalization).

That being said, when I specifically asked my child’s teachers if they taught grammar, they usually looked furtively around, hemmed and hawed, and reluctantly admitted that they did. One teacher used the curriculum from her child’s private school to teach grammar to her class.

Fortunately, after an independent review of the MCPS curriculum concluded that it was terrible, the county is replacing it with an outside curriculum that I hope will be better.

Moreover, the nation seems to be rediscovering phonics. Hopefully, common sense will return the pedagogical pendulum back to focusing on content and skills. Maybe the next generation of college kids will know that words have actual definitions and that knowing the definition is more useful than just guessing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was just talking to another professor today about how the students barely have enough attention span to read a paragraph. Excerpted readings are getting shorter and shorter. They claim they don't understand all the words and don't bother to look them up in the dictionary. It's bad.

I was on a curriculum committee for elementary reading. The curriculum experts from the school system explained to us that there were many ways to learn vocabulary, but that the one way that didn’t work was to look up words in a dictionary. They thought the best way for kids to learn words was to act them out. This included abstract concepts like contemplation.

The next day I taught my kids how to use a dictionary because I knew they weren’t going to learn at school.

My elementary schooler uses her Apple Watch to ask Siri word definitions when she comes across something in a book that she doesn’t know. Seems to work for her. Sad that college students can’t figure this out.

Yes, it is. Many of today’s college students were taught by the philosophies espoused by the curriculum department mentioned above (MCPS) because they were the prevailing pedagogies of the time.

In addition to thinking that looking up a word was useless, the experts also taught that you should guess at unknown words and only sound them out as a last resort, that formal, systematic grammar instruction stifled the writing process and that marking everything that was wrong on a student’s paper was bad for their self-esteem. Instead of formal grammar instruction and thorough grading/correction of papers, teachers were supposed to pick one or two grammar areas to focus on in each paper and let that real life-usage provide meaningful instruction. For example, maybe on one paper they’d correct all the capitalization errors, but only those errors. Then on the next paper, they might correct punctuation errors, but not comment on other types of errors (including capitalization).

That being said, when I specifically asked my child’s teachers if they taught grammar, they usually looked furtively around, hemmed and hawed, and reluctantly admitted that they did. One teacher used the curriculum from her child’s private school to teach grammar to her class.

Fortunately, after an independent review of the MCPS curriculum concluded that it was terrible, the county is replacing it with an outside curriculum that I hope will be better.

Moreover, the nation seems to be rediscovering phonics. Hopefully, common sense will return the pedagogical pendulum back to focusing on content and skills. Maybe the next generation of college kids will know that words have actual definitions and that knowing the definition is more useful than just guessing.

After phonics they need to reintroduce cramming facts about science and history into kids' heads if they want them to be able to reason. Also grammar and math facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parenting and family structure has also been and is on the decline. I feel this is more of the corrolatory cause of youth crime, violence, and mental health consequences.

That's what has changed in the last 5 years? That's the difference?

Or the difference is the iPhone (since 2007, delayed impact).

Or it's the pandemic.

Or it's the rise of various parenting styles that are increasingly permissive.

Pick your expert and you'll get various different explanations. My personal one is a toxic mix of all of the above, plus what PP said about marriage. There's pretty solid evidence that intact two parent households lead to better outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Actually I believe that the mother’s educational level trumps everything.

[Anonymous]

It's the students, sorry:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1c6cnry/americas_youth_are_in_massive_trouble/

The comments from teachers in that thread are disturbing.

Phones and social media video in the classroom are complete ruination for modern day students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like your lecture sucks honestly.

This. They may be bad students but you’re clearly not giving a great lecture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like your lecture sucks honestly.

This. They may be bad students but you’re clearly not giving a great lecture.

Nah.

It sounds entirely like sh!tty students and even worse parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gave a guest lecture today. It really hasn't changed much over the years except with updated information. I had a hiatus a bit from doing the lecture, so this was the first time I restarted it since COVID, but holy Toledo modern students are horrible. They have attention spans of ants. And it is absolutely noticeable beyond belief when I think about teaching students and giving a lecture back in 2010 vs 2024. I guess this is the end result of raising entire generations on toxic social media like TikTok since they were out of the womb. We are absolutely doomed. Modern generations' brains have been fried by spastic social media clips that last only 3-4 seconds. Heaven forbid they have to sit through a 75 minute lecture on extremely complex topics that have been distilled down to them in a digestible manner.

Just horrible. Thank God I do not teach for a profession. I'd lose my mind dealing with modern students who are incapable of having focused thought for more than 5 minutes. One student even came into the class wearing headphones and wore them the whole time while I was giving lecture. WTH? If you don't want to listen, simply don't come then. This country is going to be an unmitigated disaster in 30 years when these people take over. I honestly don't know if gen alpha is going to be able to digest baby food for course material at the rate mental capacity and attention spans are rapidly degrading. It is scary how fast the quality of students has declined in only a fraction of my lifetime.

Students are different. They aren’t willing to fake it through boring lectures and classes. I’m in education and I can assure you that giving the same lecture from 2010 with updated information screams boring. I don’t fault today’s students for rebelling. Instead of blaming them everyone should reevaluate teaching and learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gave a guest lecture today. It really hasn't changed much over the years except with updated information. I had a hiatus a bit from doing the lecture, so this was the first time I restarted it since COVID, but holy Toledo modern students are horrible. They have attention spans of ants. And it is absolutely noticeable beyond belief when I think about teaching students and giving a lecture back in 2010 vs 2024. I guess this is the end result of raising entire generations on toxic social media like TikTok since they were out of the womb. We are absolutely doomed. Modern generations' brains have been fried by spastic social media clips that last only 3-4 seconds. Heaven forbid they have to sit through a 75 minute lecture on extremely complex topics that have been distilled down to them in a digestible manner.

Just horrible. Thank God I do not teach for a profession. I'd lose my mind dealing with modern students who are incapable of having focused thought for more than 5 minutes. One student even came into the class wearing headphones and wore them the whole time while I was giving lecture. WTH? If you don't want to listen, simply don't come then. This country is going to be an unmitigated disaster in 30 years when these people take over. I honestly don't know if gen alpha is going to be able to digest baby food for course material at the rate mental capacity and attention spans are rapidly degrading. It is scary how fast the quality of students has declined in only a fraction of my lifetime.

Students are different. They aren’t willing to fake it through boring lectures and classes. I’m in education and I can assure you that giving the same lecture from 2010 with updated information screams boring. I don’t fault today’s students for rebelling. Instead of blaming them everyone should reevaluate teaching and learning.

Yeah, students aren't willing to fake it. Only to use ChatGPT and other AI tools to do all the work for them.


You sound completely incompetent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the students, sorry:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1c6cnry/americas_youth_are_in_massive_trouble/

The comments from teachers in that thread are disturbing.

Phones and social media video in the classroom are complete ruination for modern day students.

The teacher (and professor) subreddit is depressing AF. I don’t know why people won’t listen to teachers who are sounding the alarms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gave a guest lecture today. It really hasn't changed much over the years except with updated information. I had a hiatus a bit from doing the lecture, so this was the first time I restarted it since COVID, but holy Toledo modern students are horrible. They have attention spans of ants. And it is absolutely noticeable beyond belief when I think about teaching students and giving a lecture back in 2010 vs 2024. I guess this is the end result of raising entire generations on toxic social media like TikTok since they were out of the womb. We are absolutely doomed. Modern generations' brains have been fried by spastic social media clips that last only 3-4 seconds. Heaven forbid they have to sit through a 75 minute lecture on extremely complex topics that have been distilled down to them in a digestible manner.

Just horrible. Thank God I do not teach for a profession. I'd lose my mind dealing with modern students who are incapable of having focused thought for more than 5 minutes. One student even came into the class wearing headphones and wore them the whole time while I was giving lecture. WTH? If you don't want to listen, simply don't come then. This country is going to be an unmitigated disaster in 30 years when these people take over. I honestly don't know if gen alpha is going to be able to digest baby food for course material at the rate mental capacity and attention spans are rapidly degrading. It is scary how fast the quality of students has declined in only a fraction of my lifetime.

Students are different. They aren’t willing to fake it through boring lectures and classes. I’m in education and I can assure you that giving the same lecture from 2010 with updated information screams boring. I don’t fault today’s students for rebelling. Instead of blaming them everyone should reevaluate teaching and learning.

Yeah, students aren't willing to fake it. Only to use ChatGPT and other AI tools to do all the work for them.


You sound completely incompetent.

A you and people like you are exactly why America’s student lag so far behind students around the world. But feel free to keep your head in the sand.