Teachers Resigning Like Crazy?

[Anonymous]

DC didn’t have phones until HS. They rec’d school ipad in 6th. Now they tell me all kids do on their school ipad are games instead of listening to teachers.

We have absolutely created this mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I've witnessed kids are behaving better this year than at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, when middle school students and 9th graders seemed particularly feral. It's just going to take some time given the disruption to learning and development. Parents can't expect teachers to be miracle workers nor can teachers expect parents to have fully compensated for the disruption forced upon them by the public schools. What the teachers can and should do is push back against the refusal of school administrators to discipline students or the imposition of oppressive training and ongoing reporting requirements that interferes with their ability to function effectively in a classroom.

Wow. Thank you for this measured response. That all makes complete and utter sense and you show that there is a way through. Thank you. I hope someone in power will listen to you!

It was a load of nonsense. Sorry, parents, it’s 2023 and kids have been in person for a long damn time. Time to retire the tired pandemic excuse. If your kids went feral during DL, that’s on no one but YOU.

As a teacher I just want to repeat something I mentioned in another thread or earlier than this one, can’t remember: the issue with schools right now is not solely attributable to a 6 month break that happened 3 years ago. That doesn’t hold water anymore, not least of which because the issues perseverate down to kids who weren’t IN school when the pandemic happened. K and 1st are a mess too- those kids were not in school or affected by any online learning.

What is happening is we have an entire k-12 generation who has grown up on handheld screens and lack of real life activity and engagement. Their parents (not all, but the parents who have helped create these issues) parented them by shoving a screen in their hands from toddlerhood. Todays seniors were born in 2005. By 2007-2008 when they were 2/3, their parents had a smartphone with apps and videos. They grew up sitting at dinner tables mindlessly staring at YouTube and shoveling food in their face. They got their verbal language from an app or video. Same with motor skills. My students are in 10th grade and all say they don’t even eat as a family - they all grab a plate and go watch a screen somewhere in the house. This is the norm.

So, right in line with this generation being raised this way, schools concurrently realized oh shit, discipline data looks bad . Let’s just stop disciplining these behaviors and then the bad data goes away. A generation of kids have been raised on terrible reading curriculum so they can’t meaningfully read either. They’ve been raised on screens and have no attention span, few true social skills, lack of reading and writing skills, and parents who don’t know what to do now that they’re too old to just shove in the corner with a phone. So what do the kids do? Cope the only way they know how- shove themselves in a corner to numb out on a screen.

I 100% agree with this. I stopped teaching when I had my first kid and went back 5 years later. Technology changed the game for the worse. Parents openly tell me they can’t get their kid off them or just use them when the kid is bored. If I had a choice I would never use them in my Kindergarten class. (Kids get 20 min/day on Lexia or dreambox)

I’m about DONE with iPads in my kinder class. They are always an issue and it takes so long for some kids to get logged on and I don’t even care anymore that we aren’t meeting Lexia minutes. I am done with iPads

I'm about DONE with behaviors . Behaviors all day every day. Teachers in my building are exhausted with the apathy and disrespect from students and parents.

That too. I thought it was just me but the last few weeks have been rough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county messed up with this 1:1 technology, giving every child a laptop. Kids are now addicted to screens and must use screens at school and for homework. They are now intertwined with school which is the real issue. Schools should collect the laptops and go back to traditional paper and pencil, and regular textbooks. Old school learning. I 100% blames the county.

HS teacher. Completely agree. Even 4-5 years ago when we just had class sets of laptops you could check out for in class essay writing it was better. The devices are a sanctioned distraction. They’re playing games and watching soccer on them. I do not use them in my class. Even for diligent kids, online assignments lack an immediacy and end up being forgotten or done late because when it’s always there, it’s … always there. Lulls the kids into not completing it because the second they close that device the assignment no longer exists. We do all paper and printed texts - the only assignment I do on their devices are their final written summatives so they have word processing tools.

This is amazing! How often do teachers have discretion to not use them? It seems like elementary teachers don't have that discretion but do all middle and high school teachers?

I can’t speak to elementary. There are definitely pushes from higher up in county admin to log data / time on the digital platforms they purchased. Online textbooks, NoRedInk, NewsEla, etc. I simply refuse. I don’t *not* use these entirely but for Newsela for example, I will level and PRINT the text. The kids are highlighting and annotating on paper and then writing responses or answering corresponding questions on paper. Same with any other online / digital resource: I can make it paper and I do. It is much, much better for them. These kids have 4 classes a day in HS; not only is it not ok to have them on screens for that long, it is PROVEN to be ineffective in terms of comprehension and retention of information. Kids do not read as well on screens. It is my job to help them grow as readers so- I don’t care what the county spent on those programs - I’m not throwing the kids on them to log hours / data. I provide it in other ways and the data shows my instruction is very effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county messed up with this 1:1 technology, giving every child a laptop. Kids are now addicted to screens and must use screens at school and for homework. They are now intertwined with school which is the real issue. Schools should collect the laptops and go back to traditional paper and pencil, and regular textbooks. Old school learning. I 100% blames the county.

HS teacher. Completely agree. Even 4-5 years ago when we just had class sets of laptops you could check out for in class essay writing it was better. The devices are a sanctioned distraction. They’re playing games and watching soccer on them. I do not use them in my class. Even for diligent kids, online assignments lack an immediacy and end up being forgotten or done late because when it’s always there, it’s … always there. Lulls the kids into not completing it because the second they close that device the assignment no longer exists. We do all paper and printed texts - the only assignment I do on their devices are their final written summatives so they have word processing tools.

This is amazing! How often do teachers have discretion to not use them? It seems like elementary teachers don't have that discretion but do all middle and high school teachers?

I can’t speak to elementary. There are definitely pushes from higher up in county admin to log data / time on the digital platforms they purchased. Online textbooks, NoRedInk, NewsEla, etc. I simply refuse. I don’t *not* use these entirely but for Newsela for example, I will level and PRINT the text. The kids are highlighting and annotating on paper and then writing responses or answering corresponding questions on paper. Same with any other online / digital resource: I can make it paper and I do. It is much, much better for them. These kids have 4 classes a day in HS; not only is it not ok to have them on screens for that long, it is PROVEN to be ineffective in terms of comprehension and retention of information. Kids do not read as well on screens. It is my job to help them grow as readers so- I don’t care what the county spent on those programs - I’m not throwing the kids on them to log hours / data. I provide it in other ways and the data shows my instruction is very effective.

MS teacher here. I teach social studies and don’t have any time requirement for any program. However, when I taught at a different FCPS middle school my team did everything on Google Docs, Slides, etc and I had to use those lessons. At my current school, teachers have more autonomy. I am trying to do as much as possible on paper because of the reason stated by the above poster.

However, in the current system it makes my life harder to swim against the technology tide. Admin wants assignments for kids who are suspended to be on Schoology. Families who take vacations during the school year (🤨) expect everything to be on Schoology. Parents and kids with IEPs/504s complain their kids can’t write down assignments/test dates or keep a binder organized. I’m at my wits end.

For what it’s worth, I am adamant that my young DS never have any screen time because of the effects I see in my students. The previous poster who talked about the “blob” kids was spot on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I've witnessed kids are behaving better this year than at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, when middle school students and 9th graders seemed particularly feral. It's just going to take some time given the disruption to learning and development. Parents can't expect teachers to be miracle workers nor can teachers expect parents to have fully compensated for the disruption forced upon them by the public schools. What the teachers can and should do is push back against the refusal of school administrators to discipline students or the imposition of oppressive training and ongoing reporting requirements that interferes with their ability to function effectively in a classroom.

Wow. Thank you for this measured response. That all makes complete and utter sense and you show that there is a way through. Thank you. I hope someone in power will listen to you!

It was a load of nonsense. Sorry, parents, it’s 2023 and kids have been in person for a long damn time. Time to retire the tired pandemic excuse. If your kids went feral during DL, that’s on no one but YOU.

As a teacher I just want to repeat something I mentioned in another thread or earlier than this one, can’t remember: the issue with schools right now is not solely attributable to a 6 month break that happened 3 years ago. That doesn’t hold water anymore, not least of which because the issues perseverate down to kids who weren’t IN school when the pandemic happened. K and 1st are a mess too- those kids were not in school or affected by any online learning.

What is happening is we have an entire k-12 generation who has grown up on handheld screens and lack of real life activity and engagement. Their parents (not all, but the parents who have helped create these issues) parented them by shoving a screen in their hands from toddlerhood. Todays seniors were born in 2005. By 2007-2008 when they were 2/3, their parents had a smartphone with apps and videos. They grew up sitting at dinner tables mindlessly staring at YouTube and shoveling food in their face. They got their verbal language from an app or video. Same with motor skills. My students are in 10th grade and all say they don’t even eat as a family - they all grab a plate and go watch a screen somewhere in the house. This is the norm.

So, right in line with this generation being raised this way, schools concurrently realized oh shit, discipline data looks bad . Let’s just stop disciplining these behaviors and then the bad data goes away. A generation of kids have been raised on terrible reading curriculum so they can’t meaningfully read either. They’ve been raised on screens and have no attention span, few true social skills, lack of reading and writing skills, and parents who don’t know what to do now that they’re too old to just shove in the corner with a phone. So what do the kids do? Cope the only way they know how- shove themselves in a corner to numb out on a screen.

Interesting. If you think that all of these problems were caused by screens and bad parents, that makes the decision to close schools and prohibit normal childhood activities even more morally reprehensible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I've witnessed kids are behaving better this year than at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, when middle school students and 9th graders seemed particularly feral. It's just going to take some time given the disruption to learning and development. Parents can't expect teachers to be miracle workers nor can teachers expect parents to have fully compensated for the disruption forced upon them by the public schools. What the teachers can and should do is push back against the refusal of school administrators to discipline students or the imposition of oppressive training and ongoing reporting requirements that interferes with their ability to function effectively in a classroom.

Wow. Thank you for this measured response. That all makes complete and utter sense and you show that there is a way through. Thank you. I hope someone in power will listen to you!

It was a load of nonsense. Sorry, parents, it’s 2023 and kids have been in person for a long damn time. Time to retire the tired pandemic excuse. If your kids went feral during DL, that’s on no one but YOU.

As a teacher I just want to repeat something I mentioned in another thread or earlier than this one, can’t remember: the issue with schools right now is not solely attributable to a 6 month break that happened 3 years ago. That doesn’t hold water anymore, not least of which because the issues perseverate down to kids who weren’t IN school when the pandemic happened. K and 1st are a mess too- those kids were not in school or affected by any online learning.

What is happening is we have an entire k-12 generation who has grown up on handheld screens and lack of real life activity and engagement. Their parents (not all, but the parents who have helped create these issues) parented them by shoving a screen in their hands from toddlerhood. Todays seniors were born in 2005. By 2007-2008 when they were 2/3, their parents had a smartphone with apps and videos. They grew up sitting at dinner tables mindlessly staring at YouTube and shoveling food in their face. They got their verbal language from an app or video. Same with motor skills. My students are in 10th grade and all say they don’t even eat as a family - they all grab a plate and go watch a screen somewhere in the house. This is the norm.

So, right in line with this generation being raised this way, schools concurrently realized oh shit, discipline data looks bad . Let’s just stop disciplining these behaviors and then the bad data goes away. A generation of kids have been raised on terrible reading curriculum so they can’t meaningfully read either. They’ve been raised on screens and have no attention span, few true social skills, lack of reading and writing skills, and parents who don’t know what to do now that they’re too old to just shove in the corner with a phone. So what do the kids do? Cope the only way they know how- shove themselves in a corner to numb out on a screen.

Interesting. If you think that all of these problems were caused by screens and bad parents, that makes the decision to close schools and prohibit normal childhood activities even more morally reprehensible.

Not going down that road with you. It happened. People made choices based on information they had at the time. We would be in this position no matter what because like I said , this is how a generation of kids has been raised . Covid or not, the slide to this numb apathy was going to be there. Schools reopened in Loudoun for elementary in fall 2020, then closed for a surge, then reopened for elementary and secondary in February 2021. It was simply not enough time closed to be solely to blame for everything happening in schools. Also, I will never concede that it makes sense to say kids being at home for 6-8 months with their families and it ruining them is on schools. Those are your kids. It shouldn’t destroy them mentally and academically to spend time with you in a once in a century pandemic. Sorry for you if it did.

[Anonymous]

I wonder what would happen if a kindergarten teacher refused to use the iPad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county messed up with this 1:1 technology, giving every child a laptop. Kids are now addicted to screens and must use screens at school and for homework. They are now intertwined with school which is the real issue. Schools should collect the laptops and go back to traditional paper and pencil, and regular textbooks. Old school learning. I 100% blames the county.

HS teacher. Completely agree. Even 4-5 years ago when we just had class sets of laptops you could check out for in class essay writing it was better. The devices are a sanctioned distraction. They’re playing games and watching soccer on them. I do not use them in my class. Even for diligent kids, online assignments lack an immediacy and end up being forgotten or done late because when it’s always there, it’s … always there. Lulls the kids into not completing it because the second they close that device the assignment no longer exists. We do all paper and printed texts - the only assignment I do on their devices are their final written summatives so they have word processing tools.

This is amazing! How often do teachers have discretion to not use them? It seems like elementary teachers don't have that discretion but do all middle and high school teachers?

I can’t speak to elementary. There are definitely pushes from higher up in county admin to log data / time on the digital platforms they purchased. Online textbooks, NoRedInk, NewsEla, etc. I simply refuse. I don’t *not* use these entirely but for Newsela for example, I will level and PRINT the text. The kids are highlighting and annotating on paper and then writing responses or answering corresponding questions on paper. Same with any other online / digital resource: I can make it paper and I do. It is much, much better for them. These kids have 4 classes a day in HS; not only is it not ok to have them on screens for that long, it is PROVEN to be ineffective in terms of comprehension and retention of information. Kids do not read as well on screens. It is my job to help them grow as readers so- I don’t care what the county spent on those programs - I’m not throwing the kids on them to log hours / data. I provide it in other ways and the data shows my instruction is very effective.

Thank you!!!! Sincerely, thank you!

Fwiw, my MS kid does a lot of assignments on paper, for all core classes except English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I've witnessed kids are behaving better this year than at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, when middle school students and 9th graders seemed particularly feral. It's just going to take some time given the disruption to learning and development. Parents can't expect teachers to be miracle workers nor can teachers expect parents to have fully compensated for the disruption forced upon them by the public schools. What the teachers can and should do is push back against the refusal of school administrators to discipline students or the imposition of oppressive training and ongoing reporting requirements that interferes with their ability to function effectively in a classroom.

Wow. Thank you for this measured response. That all makes complete and utter sense and you show that there is a way through. Thank you. I hope someone in power will listen to you!

It was a load of nonsense. Sorry, parents, it’s 2023 and kids have been in person for a long damn time. Time to retire the tired pandemic excuse. If your kids went feral during DL, that’s on no one but YOU.

As a teacher I just want to repeat something I mentioned in another thread or earlier than this one, can’t remember: the issue with schools right now is not solely attributable to a 6 month break that happened 3 years ago. That doesn’t hold water anymore, not least of which because the issues perseverate down to kids who weren’t IN school when the pandemic happened. K and 1st are a mess too- those kids were not in school or affected by any online learning.

What is happening is we have an entire k-12 generation who has grown up on handheld screens and lack of real life activity and engagement. Their parents (not all, but the parents who have helped create these issues) parented them by shoving a screen in their hands from toddlerhood. Todays seniors were born in 2005. By 2007-2008 when they were 2/3, their parents had a smartphone with apps and videos. They grew up sitting at dinner tables mindlessly staring at YouTube and shoveling food in their face. They got their verbal language from an app or video. Same with motor skills. My students are in 10th grade and all say they don’t even eat as a family - they all grab a plate and go watch a screen somewhere in the house. This is the norm.

So, right in line with this generation being raised this way, schools concurrently realized oh shit, discipline data looks bad . Let’s just stop disciplining these behaviors and then the bad data goes away. A generation of kids have been raised on terrible reading curriculum so they can’t meaningfully read either. They’ve been raised on screens and have no attention span, few true social skills, lack of reading and writing skills, and parents who don’t know what to do now that they’re too old to just shove in the corner with a phone. So what do the kids do? Cope the only way they know how- shove themselves in a corner to numb out on a screen.

Interesting. If you think that all of these problems were caused by screens and bad parents, that makes the decision to close schools and prohibit normal childhood activities even more morally reprehensible.

Not going down that road with you. It happened. People made choices based on information they had at the time. We would be in this position no matter what because like I said , this is how a generation of kids has been raised . Covid or not, the slide to this numb apathy was going to be there. Schools reopened in Loudoun for elementary in fall 2020, then closed for a surge, then reopened for elementary and secondary in February 2021. It was simply not enough time closed to be solely to blame for everything happening in schools. Also, I will never concede that it makes sense to say kids being at home for 6-8 months with their families and it ruining them is on schools. Those are your kids. It shouldn’t destroy them mentally and academically to spend time with you in a once in a century pandemic. Sorry for you if it did.

I agree with you. Screens and lack of meaningful, consistent engagement at home or elsewhere are a large part of the problem. There is some interesting research on the effects that screens have on brain development and executive functioning. After reading this back in summer of 2021 DH and I required that our son (4th grade) do a screen detox. He had gone from an easy-going, focused, high-achiever to a difficult child who was disrespectful and had a major attitude problem. We took screens away for the entire summer, with the exception of a family movie here and there. It was hell for the first two weeks. But, things improved, and our son returned to his old self by the time school started in the fall. The change was truly mind- blowing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county messed up with this 1:1 technology, giving every child a laptop. Kids are now addicted to screens and must use screens at school and for homework. They are now intertwined with school which is the real issue. Schools should collect the laptops and go back to traditional paper and pencil, and regular textbooks. Old school learning. I 100% blames the county.

HS teacher. Completely agree. Even 4-5 years ago when we just had class sets of laptops you could check out for in class essay writing it was better. The devices are a sanctioned distraction. They’re playing games and watching soccer on them. I do not use them in my class. Even for diligent kids, online assignments lack an immediacy and end up being forgotten or done late because when it’s always there, it’s … always there. Lulls the kids into not completing it because the second they close that device the assignment no longer exists. We do all paper and printed texts - the only assignment I do on their devices are their final written summatives so they have word processing tools.

This is amazing! How often do teachers have discretion to not use them? It seems like elementary teachers don't have that discretion but do all middle and high school teachers?

I can’t speak to elementary. There are definitely pushes from higher up in county admin to log data / time on the digital platforms they purchased. Online textbooks, NoRedInk, NewsEla, etc. I simply refuse. I don’t *not* use these entirely but for Newsela for example, I will level and PRINT the text. The kids are highlighting and annotating on paper and then writing responses or answering corresponding questions on paper. Same with any other online / digital resource: I can make it paper and I do. It is much, much better for them. These kids have 4 classes a day in HS; not only is it not ok to have them on screens for that long, it is PROVEN to be ineffective in terms of comprehension and retention of information. Kids do not read as well on screens. It is my job to help them grow as readers so- I don’t care what the county spent on those programs - I’m not throwing the kids on them to log hours / data. I provide it in other ways and the data shows my instruction is very effective.

I haven’t used ST Math all year. Lexia more in the beginning of the year but now not really. I do use technology but I try to balance it out. Math is always paper/pencil. SS notes are paper. HW is on paper. I tell the kids when they need computers and am a stickler for having them closed when they don’t need them.

[Anonymous]

I just had coffee with a teacher colleague from years back. Her teacher spouse just put in his 2 weeks notice at his fancy private school because he's had it. My friend is teaching too and she's also looking for something else. I posted something on facebook the other day about how I'd recently quit and within a week's time I had 4 teachers from my neighborhood parents' group reaching out to me asking how I was able to find a different job and how they are looking too. Not new teachers, these are people with 10-25 years in. It's stunning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I've witnessed kids are behaving better this year than at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, when middle school students and 9th graders seemed particularly feral. It's just going to take some time given the disruption to learning and development. Parents can't expect teachers to be miracle workers nor can teachers expect parents to have fully compensated for the disruption forced upon them by the public schools. What the teachers can and should do is push back against the refusal of school administrators to discipline students or the imposition of oppressive training and ongoing reporting requirements that interferes with their ability to function effectively in a classroom.

Wow. Thank you for this measured response. That all makes complete and utter sense and you show that there is a way through. Thank you. I hope someone in power will listen to you!

It was a load of nonsense. Sorry, parents, it’s 2023 and kids have been in person for a long damn time. Time to retire the tired pandemic excuse. If your kids went feral during DL, that’s on no one but YOU.

As a teacher I just want to repeat something I mentioned in another thread or earlier than this one, can’t remember: the issue with schools right now is not solely attributable to a 6 month break that happened 3 years ago. That doesn’t hold water anymore, not least of which because the issues perseverate down to kids who weren’t IN school when the pandemic happened. K and 1st are a mess too- those kids were not in school or affected by any online learning.

What is happening is we have an entire k-12 generation who has grown up on handheld screens and lack of real life activity and engagement. Their parents (not all, but the parents who have helped create these issues) parented them by shoving a screen in their hands from toddlerhood. Todays seniors were born in 2005. By 2007-2008 when they were 2/3, their parents had a smartphone with apps and videos. They grew up sitting at dinner tables mindlessly staring at YouTube and shoveling food in their face. They got their verbal language from an app or video. Same with motor skills. My students are in 10th grade and all say they don’t even eat as a family - they all grab a plate and go watch a screen somewhere in the house. This is the norm.

So, right in line with this generation being raised this way, schools concurrently realized oh shit, discipline data looks bad . Let’s just stop disciplining these behaviors and then the bad data goes away. A generation of kids have been raised on terrible reading curriculum so they can’t meaningfully read either. They’ve been raised on screens and have no attention span, few true social skills, lack of reading and writing skills, and parents who don’t know what to do now that they’re too old to just shove in the corner with a phone. So what do the kids do? Cope the only way they know how- shove themselves in a corner to numb out on a screen.

Interesting. If you think that all of these problems were caused by screens and bad parents, that makes the decision to close schools and prohibit normal childhood activities even more morally reprehensible.

Not going down that road with you. It happened. People made choices based on information they had at the time. We would be in this position no matter what because like I said , this is how a generation of kids has been raised . Covid or not, the slide to this numb apathy was going to be there. Schools reopened in Loudoun for elementary in fall 2020, then closed for a surge, then reopened for elementary and secondary in February 2021. It was simply not enough time closed to be solely to blame for everything happening in schools. Also, I will never concede that it makes sense to say kids being at home for 6-8 months with their families and it ruining them is on schools. Those are your kids. It shouldn’t destroy them mentally and academically to spend time with you in a once in a century pandemic. Sorry for you if it did.

I agree with you. Screens and lack of meaningful, consistent engagement at home or elsewhere are a large part of the problem. There is some interesting research on the effects that screens have on brain development and executive functioning. After reading this back in summer of 2021 DH and I required that our son (4th grade) do a screen detox. He had gone from an easy-going, focused, high-achiever to a difficult child who was disrespectful and had a major attitude problem. We took screens away for the entire summer, with the exception of a family movie here and there. It was hell for the first two weeks. But, things improved, and our son returned to his old self by the time school started in the fall. The change was truly mind- blowing.

No child’s brain (or even adults really but especially children who are developing) is truly capable of properly developing with the presence of a handheld screen in their hands. There is so much research on this . Attention deficiencies, anger and agitation, decreased motor and verbal skills, ALL attributable to constant stimulation from screens. Their brains cannot handle it and we are seeing the results of children on them nearly constantly from toddlerhood in schools now. Behaviors, lack of academic capacity, barely able to read/write , even kids in college now who grew up this way are baffling their professors because they simply cannot cope with the rigors . They can’t read even moderately lengthy academic texts. I am talking HARVARD students - professors are tweeting about this constantly. Even Joyce Carol Oates. We aren’t making it up. A brief closure 3 years ago did not do this - this is a generation of kids whose development has been altered by screens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just had coffee with a teacher colleague from years back. Her teacher spouse just put in his 2 weeks notice at his fancy private school because he's had it. My friend is teaching too and she's also looking for something else. I posted something on facebook the other day about how I'd recently quit and within a week's time I had 4 teachers from my neighborhood parents' group reaching out to me asking how I was able to find a different job and how they are looking too. Not new teachers, these are people with 10-25 years in. It's stunning.

+1
And why would they stay - they receive zero support from admin and are paid practically nothing but expected to do absolutely everything. I'd quit too. It's scary to think about who will be teaching my grandkids (when I actually have grandkids). I don't blame these teachers one bit. They deserve better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I've witnessed kids are behaving better this year than at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, when middle school students and 9th graders seemed particularly feral. It's just going to take some time given the disruption to learning and development. Parents can't expect teachers to be miracle workers nor can teachers expect parents to have fully compensated for the disruption forced upon them by the public schools. What the teachers can and should do is push back against the refusal of school administrators to discipline students or the imposition of oppressive training and ongoing reporting requirements that interferes with their ability to function effectively in a classroom.

Wow. Thank you for this measured response. That all makes complete and utter sense and you show that there is a way through. Thank you. I hope someone in power will listen to you!

It was a load of nonsense. Sorry, parents, it’s 2023 and kids have been in person for a long damn time. Time to retire the tired pandemic excuse. If your kids went feral during DL, that’s on no one but YOU.

As a teacher I just want to repeat something I mentioned in another thread or earlier than this one, can’t remember: the issue with schools right now is not solely attributable to a 6 month break that happened 3 years ago. That doesn’t hold water anymore, not least of which because the issues perseverate down to kids who weren’t IN school when the pandemic happened. K and 1st are a mess too- those kids were not in school or affected by any online learning.

What is happening is we have an entire k-12 generation who has grown up on handheld screens and lack of real life activity and engagement. Their parents (not all, but the parents who have helped create these issues) parented them by shoving a screen in their hands from toddlerhood. Todays seniors were born in 2005. By 2007-2008 when they were 2/3, their parents had a smartphone with apps and videos. They grew up sitting at dinner tables mindlessly staring at YouTube and shoveling food in their face. They got their verbal language from an app or video. Same with motor skills. My students are in 10th grade and all say they don’t even eat as a family - they all grab a plate and go watch a screen somewhere in the house. This is the norm.

So, right in line with this generation being raised this way, schools concurrently realized oh shit, discipline data looks bad . Let’s just stop disciplining these behaviors and then the bad data goes away. A generation of kids have been raised on terrible reading curriculum so they can’t meaningfully read either. They’ve been raised on screens and have no attention span, few true social skills, lack of reading and writing skills, and parents who don’t know what to do now that they’re too old to just shove in the corner with a phone. So what do the kids do? Cope the only way they know how- shove themselves in a corner to numb out on a screen.

Interesting. If you think that all of these problems were caused by screens and bad parents, that makes the decision to close schools and prohibit normal childhood activities even more morally reprehensible.

Not going down that road with you. It happened. People made choices based on information they had at the time. We would be in this position no matter what because like I said , this is how a generation of kids has been raised . Covid or not, the slide to this numb apathy was going to be there. Schools reopened in Loudoun for elementary in fall 2020, then closed for a surge, then reopened for elementary and secondary in February 2021. It was simply not enough time closed to be solely to blame for everything happening in schools. Also, I will never concede that it makes sense to say kids being at home for 6-8 months with their families and it ruining them is on schools. Those are your kids. It shouldn’t destroy them mentally and academically to spend time with you in a once in a century pandemic. Sorry for you if it did.

I agree with you. Screens and lack of meaningful, consistent engagement at home or elsewhere are a large part of the problem. There is some interesting research on the effects that screens have on brain development and executive functioning. After reading this back in summer of 2021 DH and I required that our son (4th grade) do a screen detox. He had gone from an easy-going, focused, high-achiever to a difficult child who was disrespectful and had a major attitude problem. We took screens away for the entire summer, with the exception of a family movie here and there. It was hell for the first two weeks. But, things improved, and our son returned to his old self by the time school started in the fall. The change was truly mind- blowing.

No child’s brain (or even adults really but especially children who are developing) is truly capable of properly developing with the presence of a handheld screen in their hands. There is so much research on this . Attention deficiencies, anger and agitation, decreased motor and verbal skills, ALL attributable to constant stimulation from screens. Their brains cannot handle it and we are seeing the results of children on them nearly constantly from toddlerhood in schools now. Behaviors, lack of academic capacity, barely able to read/write , even kids in college now who grew up this way are baffling their professors because they simply cannot cope with the rigors . They can’t read even moderately lengthy academic texts. I am talking HARVARD students - professors are tweeting about this constantly. Even Joyce Carol Oates. We aren’t making it up. A brief closure 3 years ago did not do this - this is a generation of kids whose development has been altered by screens.

+1
I was appalled by a picture on our FCPS school's website of a classroom of kindergartners receiving their iPads. It was being touted as this "wonderful" thing when the reality is quite the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can the teachers use collective bargaining to get disruptive kids out of the classroom???

They'll just be able to get themselves out of the classroom in some cases in which students have threatened or assaulted them, if they can get a protective order.

The struggling kids will stay right there in the mainstream setting, disrupting the classes of dozens of kids who are ready to learn.

People with means will put their kids in private schools, which can more easily expel kids and more easily fire teachers who don't toe the line.

This is what the 0.1% wants. And they're getting it.

I taught at a private school once and part of what the “private can kick anyone out” convo misses is that even though they can, they usually don’t. Because a) that’s losing tuition and b) the parents have money to sue. So kids with shitty behavior stick around privates too.

Also, if there’s a dispute between students, a private school will often side with the student whose family is more lucrative to the school, rather than the student who was in the right. What that means to all y’all reading this message board and threatening to take your kids to private school is that if this situation happens, your kid is the less lucrative party.

Liar. No private is hurting for applicants these days.

If you think it’s just about “applicants” you’re so clueless it’s pitiable. Private schools want families that can throw cash and access around- not just tuition, but donations to annual funds and capital campaigns, access to even more rich people and politicians. Yes, they’re always going to have a lot of applicants, but most of y’all go right into the trash bin.