Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like your lecture sucks honestly.

Nope, it's the same but with updated info. I actually got feedback directly from the students - overwhelmingly positive every single time. The material is fine.

Why could students in 2010 pay attention and listen while kids in 2024 have the attention spans of ants?

honestly, ants have incredible attention spans. always carrying and working and focused. get a different analogy.

[Anonymous]

We don't get smarter actually we just get more technical and lazy. Think about it - real intelligence is making things be as easy and convenient as possible but that also impacts how creative, hard working, knowledgeable you actually have to be if all you have is your own brain and resources. Once upon a time this was all we had. Since developing tools, we didn't need to use are brain as much. So there's 2 sides to everything.

Google Apple Uber - none of these companies actually create anything except make things easier and give us more choices more conveniently. We celebrate tech not because it makes us smarter or improves us but because it's less work and by working less we use less brain thus also dumber.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It’s the smartphone in 2012. Read an interesting book “iGen” that has some really interesting longitudinal studies about attitudes and experiences of older teens and young adults. There is a stark difference in data, beginning with smartphone adoption by general public in 2012. The author likens the generation to “growing up slower” - 16 & 17 year olds showed the independence and maturity of 13 & 14 year olds from 15 years earlier.

I taught middle school from 2006-2015 and high school since then. There are assignments and projects I successfully gave 6th graders 15 years ago that my 11th graders today couldn’t do because the assignments were open ended, required creative thought, and critical thinking. If it my kids can google the answer, they don’t know what to do.

I see it with my own children. We raised our kids low tech, minimal TV, lots of outdoors, take a book everywhere. When my oldest hit high school in 2014, the iPhone 4 was free with a family plan, so my 9th grader and 7th grader got iPhones. We didn’t want to leave out the 3rd grader, so they got an iPad. Biggest regret I have with raising my kids. All three kids are smart, but the difference in independence and phone addiction between the first two and my youngest is amazing. Youngest also got hit with the pandemic and virtual right when they hit puberty in 9th grade. Anxiety, depression, introverted. Academically ahead, socio-emotionally behind. It’s rough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just to offer a different perspective - I come in as a guest at a local college class every semester. I've been deeply impressed by the students I've met there. We do a discussion instead of me giving a talk so maybe that's a difference - but I always come away thinking how smart and thoughtful these kids are.

Not disputing your experience. Just saying, I guess, #notallstudents.

Where? We want our kid to go where to rest aren’t dumbed out on screens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just to offer a different perspective - I come in as a guest at a local college class every semester. I've been deeply impressed by the students I've met there. We do a discussion instead of me giving a talk so maybe that's a difference - but I always come away thinking how smart and thoughtful these kids are.

Not disputing your experience. Just saying, I guess, #notallstudents.

Where? We want our kid to go where to rest aren’t dumbed out on screens.

*THE rest

[Anonymous]

When I was in law school we had a guest lecture on a topic that was irrelevant to class, exams, or getting a job. She claimed we had zero attention span but we were all actually intensely focused on what mattered.