Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My smart college freshman is kind of like this, and it really bothers me.

I look at the way they do google searches when they want to research something, and it's awful. They read too quickly, and if the answer doesn't jump out at them in 5 seconds, they move on.

I've told them repeatedly to slow down.

Even the way both my kids click on stuff is too quick and impatient, and they make mistakes. I'm fast on the keyboard but accurate; they are fast, too, but not as accurate.

I'm a pretty impatient person and read quickly, too, but DC is way worse and misses things.

Having stated that, I think a lot of these students are immature, and they may become more curious about the world outside what's in front of their face as they get older.

We've been noticing that too. It really scares us because it leaves them open to easy manipulation.

[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.

Ants have long attention spans and impressive focus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My smart college freshman is kind of like this, and it really bothers me.

I look at the way they do google searches when they want to research something, and it's awful. They read too quickly, and if the answer doesn't jump out at them in 5 seconds, they move on.

I've told them repeatedly to slow down.

Even the way both my kids click on stuff is too quick and impatient, and they make mistakes. I'm fast on the keyboard but accurate; they are fast, too, but not as accurate.

I'm a pretty impatient person and read quickly, too, but DC is way worse and misses things.

Having stated that, I think a lot of these students are immature, and they may become more curious about the world outside what's in front of their face as they get older.

We've been noticing that too. It really scares us because it leaves them open to easy manipulation.

So teach them a solid bed of facts and make them analyze arguments for logical fallacies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

They're now being taught persuasive writing in elementary school. That's one of the things that is leading to all these unintended consequences. Research is no longer about gathering general information that then gets analayzed. Research nowadays is entirely about finding support for the argument they come up with first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Bullying, physically assaultive behavior, sexual harassment - of other kids and of adult staff/teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

This makes sense to me.

When I think about the fact that I used to have dozens of phone numbers of friends and family members memorized back in the age of rotary/push button phones, and now the only one I have memorized is my own. Yikes.

[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.

That's absurd. If they don't think a middle-aged person can teach them anything, then that attitude is educational failure.

But maybe PP just has her own weird age bias. A smart person would know that a lot about how the world and people work remains consistent in spite of time and new tech. Meanwhile, someone involved in biotech surely has valuable perspective on the trajectory of relevant technologies.

[Anonymous]

Extended family in Germany includes a teacher in their educational system.

His comments on his experience over the last 20 years echo OP’s experience.

Choose the adjectives least offensive to you, but please understand:

- there is a major issue with decreasing attention spans of students in 2024.

Ignoring the problem is unlikely to make it disappear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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

That's because we no longer teach kids in a way that makes sense to teach them critical thinking. First stuff their heads with facts in elementary (so they have a basis from which to even begin to think), then teach them logic in middle, then teach the persuasion in high school. Dorothy Sayers was right.

They're now being taught persuasive writing in elementary school. That's one of the things that is leading to all these unintended consequences. Research is no longer about gathering general information that then gets analayzed. Research nowadays is entirely about finding support for the argument they come up with first.

PP here, and while I never thought about this, it makes a lot of sense.

[Anonymous]

This absolutely cracks me up.

You're mad that the next generation has short attention spans, but have you ever stopped to consider that they're absorbing 1000x more information during the time in which it took you to finish your long and drawn out sentence?

Instructional design has yet to catch up and I'm guessing OP hasn't either. Nobody has time for a lecture that's a second longer than it needs to be.

These new generations have evolved to be more efficient and have perfected the ability to breakdown subject matter into bite sized pieces.

If it's not that, they don't want it...can you blame them? Time is the hottest commodity and Gen Z and Gen Alpha is all about protecting their time and being the most efficient with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This absolutely cracks me up.

You're mad that the next generation has short attention spans, but have you ever stopped to consider that they're absorbing 1000x more information during the time in which it took you to finish your long and drawn out sentence?

Instructional design has yet to catch up and I'm guessing OP hasn't either. Nobody has time for a lecture that's a second longer than it needs to be.

These new generations have evolved to be more efficient and have perfected the ability to breakdown subject matter into bite sized pieces.

If it's not that, they don't want it...can you blame them? Time is the hottest commodity and Gen Z and Gen Alpha is all about protecting their time and being the most efficient with it.

Dumbest comment in the entire thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This absolutely cracks me up.

You're mad that the next generation has short attention spans, but have you ever stopped to consider that they're absorbing 1000x more information during the time in which it took you to finish your long and drawn out sentence?

Instructional design has yet to catch up and I'm guessing OP hasn't either. Nobody has time for a lecture that's a second longer than it needs to be.

These new generations have evolved to be more efficient and have perfected the ability to breakdown subject matter into bite sized pieces.

If it's not that, they don't want it...can you blame them? Time is the hottest commodity and Gen Z and Gen Alpha is all about protecting their time and being the most efficient with it.

This is patently absurd. You cannot digest a complex topic like medical school anatomy, quantum physics, or thermodynamics in bite sized 2 second clips. Humans have not magically become smarter over the course of 50 years because of the invention of the internet and 2 second video clips. Students these days get frustrated because they’re sometimes required to spend more than 2 minutes thinking about something since their brains have been fried with 15 years of toxic social media use.


It’s sounds like you are trying to make excuses for the dumbing down of society. ‘Bite sized pieces’…..lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This absolutely cracks me up.

You're mad that the next generation has short attention spans, but have you ever stopped to consider that they're absorbing 1000x more information during the time in which it took you to finish your long and drawn out sentence?

Instructional design has yet to catch up and I'm guessing OP hasn't either. Nobody has time for a lecture that's a second longer than it needs to be.

These new generations have evolved to be more efficient and have perfected the ability to breakdown subject matter into bite sized pieces.

If it's not that, they don't want it...can you blame them? Time is the hottest commodity and Gen Z and Gen Alpha is all about protecting their time and being the most efficient with it.

Dumbest comment in the entire thread.

Can you even convert a word document into a pdf?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This absolutely cracks me up.

You're mad that the next generation has short attention spans, but have you ever stopped to consider that they're absorbing 1000x more information during the time in which it took you to finish your long and drawn out sentence?

Instructional design has yet to catch up and I'm guessing OP hasn't either. Nobody has time for a lecture that's a second longer than it needs to be.

These new generations have evolved to be more efficient and have perfected the ability to breakdown subject matter into bite sized pieces.

If it's not that, they don't want it...can you blame them? Time is the hottest commodity and Gen Z and Gen Alpha is all about protecting their time and being the most efficient with it.

Dumbest comment in the entire thread.

Can you even convert a word document into a pdf?

Can you even drive without google maps?