Anonymous
Post 06/10/2024 08:57     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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.


You sound old and your lecture was probably hella boring




You sound like you have a dumb as rocks college student that has a brain devoid of any attention span because you sucked as a parent and let them rot their brains for years on TikTok.
Anonymous
Post 06/06/2024 23:48     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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.


Scapegoated teachers? You do know that the vast majority of them are of the generation OP was speaking of.

Honestly it’s all quite terrifying really. When I meet with my DCs teachers I am absolutely horrified at how stupid most of the younger ones are. I’ve prayed every single year of elementary for a 50+ year old teacher, some of the older ones are stern and strict, they control their classrooms, without even having to raise their voices. A look is enough. Excellent classroom management skills, which my DC loves.

The young ones seem to have such blurred boundaries, and are so extraordinarily immature and hapless, it’s no wonder they can’t control a classroom.

We are doomed.
Anonymous
Post 05/26/2024 18:37     Subject: Re:Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
I teach college students and have done so for about 20 years now. I think they represent pretty much the same range of creativity and intelligence as they always have. Post internet they--on average--are more sophisticated in some ways--draw on higher level sources, know how to integrate sources better, and show more judgment about quality of sources. I used to have to do more teaching of this. I do think attention spans are different now than they used to be and students are accustomed to taking in information in formats they prefer rather than relying too much on lectures. I think I've become a better teacher as a result of this, though. I can imagine it might be a shock if you took a hiatus, but that's probably true of all jobs--what you knew that worked well 5-10 years ago isn't going to cut it now.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2024 13:28     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
Kids are dumb as spit now and teachers are coerced to fraud the numbers so it doesn't hurt their feelings. That is what education is.


This is true. We don't want kids to suffer from a lack of confidence so we have lowered the standards. A lot of young people with hardly any skills are HS graduates.

They go to colleges that also want good numbers. They become college grads with hardly any skills.

It's no surprise that the job forum is full of posts about how 20somethings largely can't accomplish a damn thing.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2024 13:05     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
Kids are dumb as spit now and teachers are coerced to fraud the numbers so it doesn't hurt their feelings. That is what education is. It sucks for teachers and students are so dumb they won't realize the rigor they are missing out on. We deserve what we will get and that will be Trump in 2024.
Anonymous
Post 05/17/2024 22:33     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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.


You sound old and your lecture was probably hella boring
Anonymous
Post 05/14/2024 10:42     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
Anonymous wrote:While this might be true, it’s also likely you need to overhaul your lecture if it’s 14 years old.


Nope, because as an industry professional in the actual industry the students are trying to break into, I can assure you the content is 100000% relevant and up to date.

This is why students are terrible these days. Parents have every excuse in the book for their kids’ terrible attention spans. It’s always the lecturer’s fault, and not the fault of the parents who’ve let their kids grow up on 20 years of TikTok, cellphone use in the classroom, and who’ve done nothing to discipline their kids.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2024 13:37     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
While this might be true, it’s also likely you need to overhaul your lecture if it’s 14 years old.
Anonymous
Post 04/28/2024 11:36     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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.
Anonymous
Post 04/25/2024 18:53     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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
Post 04/25/2024 18:48     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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
Post 04/25/2024 18:45     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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
Post 04/24/2024 21:47     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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
Post 04/18/2024 16:20     Subject: Guest lecturer perspective: modern students are absolutely atrocious
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.