Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you really needed to vent. That’s interesting and sad about the difference in students. My 8 yo gets really frustrated that entitled classmates won’t listen to the teachers and then their parents blame the teachers for yelling. Certainly they will not win teacher of the year, but my DC and I do feel sorry for those scapegoated teachers.

Same and I have an 8 year old too. She’s been talking about her teacher crying a lot and kids in the class aren’t listening. It is a bit like lord of the flies when I visit. They recently assigned her class a teachers aide.

But my other kid is in PreK and I volunteer often. The kids sit like angels and they have much better attention spans. They love to be read to. These preK kids weren’t affected by Covid because they were babies. And they haven’t yet been assigned their school chrome book. I hate that all the kids get laptops in public school. The PreK is private so maybe that’s a factor too?

I’m the PP you responded to. That’s awful about the teacher getting so demoralized. PreK was heaven in retrospect compared to public elementary school. The teachers cared for the most part, and got to know each student.

In ES, student behavior seems to start to get unruly starting in 2nd grade. I’m not thrilled with the overuse of laptops either-they seem to have a lot of time to play games. When I was in ES, disruptive students were dealt with and not allowed to take over the classroom. I don’t know why this seems to be a foreign concept now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is sad. The majority of students admit that they don’t read the textbook. It’s death by PowerPoint.

If they get a textbook, it's the first one they have ever had. K12 students no longer get textbooks.

And for those doubting the shortening attention span, it's been researched and confirmed. Listen to this Hidden Brain or see the cited resources:
https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/finding-focus/

[Anonymous]

I’m a teacher. I do think tech has been pushed too heavily in schools probably by the same companies who stand to profit from kids using tech constantly. Technology has its place in schools but schools should be a place where students get a break from screens. Especially in elementary school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like your lecture sucks honestly.

Sounds like OP touched a nerve.

[Anonymous]

But…but…my kid has ADHD!

[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.

Tech and social media is dumbing every generation down at an exponential rate. I seriously wonder if student 10 years from now will even be capable of reading anymore.

M. T. Anderson's book Feed was disturbingly prescient in this regard.

Funny, this book was assigned reading for my high school freshman!

[Anonymous]

I’m the lawyer who was considering a career change to teaching and went to work with kids at the Y to get a taste of the current climate.

There are lots of lovely kids. Honestly they are all lovely in their own way, but many of them struggle with behavioral issues apart from any diagnosis and they all struggle with attention span.

They are thoughtful when you can get a chance to see what’s going on in their heads - but there is so much disruptive behavior that is not a frequent occurrence.

Some of them do love to be read to from an actual book, but I rarely get the opportunity because there is so much acting out and screaming it is hard to get 15 quiet minutes to read a story aloud.

These are kindergartners and first graders, fyi. But I’ve worked some of the rooms with older kids and it’s worse, they are much nastier which is why I refuse to work those ages anymore - they’re bullying each other AND the teachers.

We use iPads to track attendance, fill out our daily classroom management survey, and in my case to find and download coloring pages for the kids. The iPad is in the room but we don’t look at it often - nevertheless the kids constantly ask if we can look up videos and play music for them. Our policy is no screens, and this is a struggle for them. It’s obvious to me that they are being parented by screens at home the majority of the time and they struggle with being cut off for 3 hours daily while in our program.

I recently read this article about new research showing how detrimental screens and tech are as teaching tools in the classroom and out: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/17/kids-reading-better-paper-vs-screen

I believe screens are damaging kids abilities in terms of focus and language processing. In my own life I’ve seen the damage - I used to be a constant reader of books and then I got a smartphone in 2010 and my reading rate dropped dramatically. I read a ton of news and forum posts on my phone and do a fair amount of writing, I’m not a person who does games or Tik tok or Instagram and I’ve largely kicked my Facebook habit, spend maybe 20 minutes there every day, post a few inspiring photos and funny cartoons for my friends and then get off - but I used to spend a lot of time there arguing with morons. I’ll never get that time back.

My current strategy is to let my phone become so outdated that it barely functions beyond text and calls, so I’m spending much less time online and more time reading real books.

As for the kids - I’m pretty sure I won’t pursue the teaching after all, which is sad because I’m a good teacher (have four years experience before and just after law school to attest to my effectiveness in a classroom) and I’m the kind of person who would spend a serious slice of pay on the classroom and the kids - but spending so much time just trying to settle down screen addicted overstimulated kids and having almost no time spent in the rewarding work of reading is just too disheartening, never mind all the administrative crap I haven’t even had to cope with at the Y.

I’m so very grateful that I grew up in a time when the phone was mounted to the wall and had a rotary dial, we only had 5 channels on the one television in the house and children were the remote control. I feel so sorry for today’s kids - I don’t believe all this tech is actually enhancing their lives.

I’m glad I’m not still teaching at the college level - many of my friends who are report very negative experiences with tech addicted students and a much higher rate of plagiarism than in the past as kids refuse to learn to write and let AI do it for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the lawyer who was considering a career change to teaching and went to work with kids at the Y to get a taste of the current climate.

There are lots of lovely kids. Honestly they are all lovely in their own way, but many of them struggle with behavioral issues apart from any diagnosis and they all struggle with attention span.

They are thoughtful when you can get a chance to see what’s going on in their heads - but there is so much disruptive behavior that is not a frequent occurrence.

Some of them do love to be read to from an actual book, but I rarely get the opportunity because there is so much acting out and screaming it is hard to get 15 quiet minutes to read a story aloud.

These are kindergartners and first graders, fyi. But I’ve worked some of the rooms with older kids and it’s worse, they are much nastier which is why I refuse to work those ages anymore - they’re bullying each other AND the teachers.

We use iPads to track attendance, fill out our daily classroom management survey, and in my case to find and download coloring pages for the kids. The iPad is in the room but we don’t look at it often - nevertheless the kids constantly ask if we can look up videos and play music for them. Our policy is no screens, and this is a struggle for them. It’s obvious to me that they are being parented by screens at home the majority of the time and they struggle with being cut off for 3 hours daily while in our program.

I recently read this article about new research showing how detrimental screens and tech are as teaching tools in the classroom and out: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/17/kids-reading-better-paper-vs-screen

I believe screens are damaging kids abilities in terms of focus and language processing. In my own life I’ve seen the damage - I used to be a constant reader of books and then I got a smartphone in 2010 and my reading rate dropped dramatically. I read a ton of news and forum posts on my phone and do a fair amount of writing, I’m not a person who does games or Tik tok or Instagram and I’ve largely kicked my Facebook habit, spend maybe 20 minutes there every day, post a few inspiring photos and funny cartoons for my friends and then get off - but I used to spend a lot of time there arguing with morons. I’ll never get that time back.

My current strategy is to let my phone become so outdated that it barely functions beyond text and calls, so I’m spending much less time online and more time reading real books.

As for the kids - I’m pretty sure I won’t pursue the teaching after all, which is sad because I’m a good teacher (have four years experience before and just after law school to attest to my effectiveness in a classroom) and I’m the kind of person who would spend a serious slice of pay on the classroom and the kids - but spending so much time just trying to settle down screen addicted overstimulated kids and having almost no time spent in the rewarding work of reading is just too disheartening, never mind all the administrative crap I haven’t even had to cope with at the Y.

I’m so very grateful that I grew up in a time when the phone was mounted to the wall and had a rotary dial, we only had 5 channels on the one television in the house and children were the remote control. I feel so sorry for today’s kids - I don’t believe all this tech is actually enhancing their lives.

I’m glad I’m not still teaching at the college level - many of my friends who are report very negative experiences with tech addicted students and a much higher rate of plagiarism than in the past as kids refuse to learn to write and let AI do it for them.

What were the nasty problems you saw with older kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every generation writes this about the subsequence going back to ancient Greece. There's never any truth to it.

Sometimes there's truth to it. I was reading a book from the late 1800's and it was so boring. Three pages describing the scenery and two pages about the mental state of a side character. That book would never get published today. And maybe that's not a bad thing?

+1, change isn’t always bad. When you have three pages that describe scenery, that doesn’t give the reader a chance to use their imagination… it sounds like everything’s being spoon fed to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade? I teach kindergarten and so many kids are brain damaged from too much technology. Their eyes can barely focus on a picture in a book or on words. They haven't been able to watch a short animated movie for many years.

It was a college course.

Did you lecture pertain to anything they would be graded on or have anything to do with real world application of their degrees? If not, then they were using their time during your lecture timely

Yes, I often come in to talk about translational medicine and how you go about getting biotech ideas tested and approved. Mind you this is an audience of students who are biotech majors and who supposedly want to work in biotech or start biotech companies. They completely tuned out advice from a professional in biotech who's been doing it for over 20 years. I'd never hire grads like these. Just horrible. Students 10 years ago had zero issues paying attention because they knew the direct relevance of the talk to their careers.

In all honesty, you’re too old. They can’t connect with you. They don’t think they can learn anything valuable from you. They would take advice from a younger person of their own generation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade? I teach kindergarten and so many kids are brain damaged from too much technology. Their eyes can barely focus on a picture in a book or on words. They haven't been able to watch a short animated movie for many years.

It was a college course.

Did you lecture pertain to anything they would be graded on or have anything to do with real world application of their degrees? If not, then they were using their time during your lecture timely

Yes, I often come in to talk about translational medicine and how you go about getting biotech ideas tested and approved. Mind you this is an audience of students who are biotech majors and who supposedly want to work in biotech or start biotech companies. They completely tuned out advice from a professional in biotech who's been doing it for over 20 years. I'd never hire grads like these. Just horrible. Students 10 years ago had zero issues paying attention because they knew the direct relevance of the talk to their careers.

In all honesty, you’re too old. They can’t connect with you. They don’t think they can learn anything valuable from you. They would take advice from a younger person of their own generation.

Maybe. But I'm the one who will decide to NOT hire them or find their biotech companies because they have zero clue about what they're doing.

[Anonymous]

My siblings a college professor. He says it’s really bad for years and gotten worse. Critical thought is dead and there is no interest in reviving it. It’s bad news

[Anonymous]

I think the fact that tech makes everything so convenient is the prob. We can google wiki Reddit and tik tok.

Nobody needs to know how to read a map. We don't write anymore just type. Nobody even has to talk or go out - you can simply text and order online.

Culturally, even us adults have short attention spans no?

Af the same time, I feel like the world is moving away from how things were done and into a new paradigm. I'm not sure we will even need to be able to write the way we have leveraging critical thinking with AI in development. Whether AI will be delivered sooner v later is a big question however.

I think that it's harder to find people and not just kids who are awful at basic skills. I hire professionals in various industries and there's very few who I think twice about.

While every generation complains about changes they see in the next, I definitely agree that my kids' generation lack the focus of mine. But it's my generation who led them here with all the new toys we developed. Their reality however greatly differs from ours and I think we have to recognize that the world simply moves faster now than it used to.

[Anonymous]

This is so sad to hear. My nephew just turned 4 and a week ago I spent the afternoon and evening with him. We probably read about five books total. We played a matching game three times. We played trains. He is a high energy kid but was focused on what we were doing, paid attention, sat at the table to eat dinner, and I showed him pictures on my phone for about three minutes, of him and his older sister as babies. I hope his attention span and patience either stays the same or improves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the fact that tech makes everything so convenient is the prob. We can google wiki Reddit and tik tok.

Nobody needs to know how to read a map. We don't write anymore just type. Nobody even has to talk or go out - you can simply text and order online.

Culturally, even us adults have short attention spans no?

Af the same time, I feel like the world is moving away from how things were done and into a new paradigm. I'm not sure we will even need to be able to write the way we have leveraging critical thinking with AI in development. Whether AI will be delivered sooner v later is a big question however.

I think that it's harder to find people and not just kids who are awful at basic skills. I hire professionals in various industries and there's very few who I think twice about.

While every generation complains about changes they see in the next, I definitely agree that my kids' generation lack the focus of mine. But it's my generation who led them here with all the new toys we developed. Their reality however greatly differs from ours and I think we have to recognize that the world simply moves faster now than it used to.

There's truth to this. Technology has basically made people dumber. They've done studies on the brain of taxi drivers in London who have to pass one of the most difficult exams in the world to get a license. They have to drive without a GPS in London and get from where they are to any random chosen point with no maps tech. They have to know the entire city of London by memory. Brain scans have shown that those cab drivers have larger areas of the brain for spatial learning/memory than your average person in public.

It's like weight lifting for your brain. The more you actually use your brain, the stronger it gets as opposed to letting tech do everything for you.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1051363389/researchers-study-london-cab-drivers-brains-to-learn-more-about-alzheimers