Current Events > Are the Negative Stories Concerning Gen Z and Alpha Students Truly Exaggerated?

(+) Yeah! (+)

ZMythos posted...

Unrelated to covid is the undeniable affect social media and unrestricted phone/internet access has had on these generations as a whole. People claim that it's just a "generational thing" and that we've seen this before but no we have not. Not even the television has had an even remotely comparable impact on how youth consume (mis)information, disengage from their surroundings, and have been stunted in social and emotional development. Unregulated "AI" is only making things worse in that regard.

It's the immediate access to all sorts of information. Network television generally had some rules and restrictions on what you could or couldn't broadcast. Most TV networks still censor a lot of content and require that only certain content gets broadcast on TV. But the internet is a massive free-for-all. There's no regulation on what can be on the internet, so the manosphere has taken over. You have people like Andrew Tate, who deliberately craft this image of themselves as what a 11-year-old kid thinks a man "should" be, and it's all on the internet and being consumed by kids. 90s TV characters like Shawn Hunter and Cory Matthews weren't *perfect*, but they were leagues better than Andrew Tate.

And of course, there is no coincidence that, anytime I have a male student who is a real jerk and seems to enjoy disrupting and disrespecting people...almost *always* they are consuming this redpill manosphere content.

ZMythos posted...

You can point the finger at bad parenting, and there is a responsibility they play in all this. But in case you haven't noticed, the world is on fire and many parents are just barely trying to survive in this hellscape we call modern society.

The problem, no matter how you dice it, is that unregulated late capitalism has caused kids to be stunted in their academics, qualified teachers to leave the profession, and families to struggle to hold things together.

Yes, many families are struggling. But I work in a neighborhood where the families generally *aren't* struggling, and still we see a lot of the same shit. The late-stage capitalism has caused many *adults* to be stunted in their social, emotional, and academic skills (after all, adults who consume misinformation are the reason Trump is in power), and the kids simply emulate the world they know. Telling kids that racism is awful can fall on deaf ears when racists run the government.

It's bad. My wife is a middle school teacher and tells me horror stories. The majority of parents no longer parent. They would rather pacify their child with treats to keep the peace then put in the effort to disipline. Then teachers spend the most of the class period attempting to discipline the kids than teaching. When we were younger, there were always the handful of kids in the class that would act up like this while the majority of the class would follow instructions. Now that's flipped. You have 25 students in a classroom where 5 are trying to learn. The other 20 are walking around the class, eating chips, calling their mom, asking the teacher random personal questions, etc.

We also have the no child left behind act to thank for the nose dive in education. In order for the schools to stay accredited and receive funding, they don't allow teachers to fail students. One school my wife worked in didn't allow a grade below a 50 on any assignment. Meaning a child could not turn in the work and it would be an automatic 50. In this same school, a student was only allowed to fail a grade once. After that, they would be moved to the following grade. Students know this and have no reason to put in effort. My wife's current school allows a student to turn in any late assignments for only 20 points off until the end of the 9 weeks. Due dates mean nothing.

Today she told me about at least 4 students in her 6th grade English class throwing an hour long toddler tantrum because she asked them to copy a sentence from the board into their Chromebook. They didn't understand sentence structure and that capital letters and punctuation didn't matter cause "you know what I'm trying to say without it."

SSj4Wingzero posted...

And the biggest "problem* with technology is that it is set up to work and work very easily.

A lot of today's kids grew up with technology that was relatively foolproof so they didn't have to do a lot of 90s and early 2000s troubleshooting that a lot of us on this board probably had to do. Most students aren't familiar with a file directory, or changing extensions, or creating shortcuts, or troubleshooting basic computer issues, and so on, because in the school system, they're generally given pretty decent technology that is rather reliable and generally works. So despite growing up with technology, I find that a lot of their digital literacy is actually *really bad*.

I feel like that means, in some ways, the school system that a lot of us grew up in didn't really encourage or permit failure, and it's created parents who aren't OK with their children experiencing it too. Frankly speaking, a lot of the issues that kids deal with are just as common in the parents of the kids.

Nowadays there has been a lot of discussion about how cell phone usage is really bad for kids and social media is not good for kids' self-esteem, but nobody seems to really tackle the issue that excessive social media usage is really bad for the *parents* also. So many parents' ideas of how to raise their kids and what their kids should be accomplishing comes from family vloggers and social media shit online that really gives a skewed perception of what life is like.

Yeah, that can be a problem. I don't think that covid can really be a huge part of it for the students I teach - in suburban NY, we went back to alternate-day in-person instruction around 6 months after we first closed schools. I just cannot believe that missing out on 3 months of school and 3 months of summer break activities (many of which, frankly speaking, still continued despite epidemiologists' suggestions) can be the root cause of things so many years down the line. I had to have this conversation where a parent claimed that COVID-19 was the reason her son wasn't doing the work in my class this past year, so like, March of 2025.

Like, please. Yes, the pandemic was not great, but the pandemic is not the reason that your child smokes weed, cuts class, and doesn't do his homework 5 years later.

I dont disagree for the most part. I particularly agree about the fact that we often frame the technology related problems as being issues for children when they are also issues for adults.

I do still believe that Covid was a major issue, though I dont share your experience of children who didnt miss much. It has had a devastating impact from what Ive seen, but I wouldnt be too quick to blame all of the problems were experiencing on it.

BlazinBlue88 posted...

It's bad. My wife is a middle school teacher and tells me horror stories. The majority of parents no longer parent. They would rather pacify their child with treats to keep the peace then put in the effort to disipline. Then teachers spend the most of the class period attempting to discipline the kids than teaching. When we were younger, there were always the handful of kids in the class that would act up like this while the majority of the class would follow instructions. Now that's flipped. You have 25 students in a classroom where 5 are trying to learn. The other 20 are walking around the class, eating chips, calling their mom, asking the teacher random personal questions, etc.

We also have the no child left behind act to thank for the nose dive in education. In order for the schools to stay accredited and receive funding, they don't allow teachers to fail students. One school my wife worked in didn't allow a grade below a 50 on any assignment. Meaning a child could not turn in the work and it would be an automatic 50. In this same school, a student was only allowed to fail a grade once. After that, they would be moved to the following grade. Students know this and have no reason to put in effort. My wife's current school allows a student to turn in any late assignments for only 20 points off until the end of the 9 weeks. Due dates mean nothing.

Today she told me about at least 4 students in her 6th grade English class throwing an hour long toddler tantrum because she asked them to copy a sentence from the board into their Chromebook. They didn't understand sentence structure and that capital letters and punctuation didn't matter cause "you know what I'm trying to say without it."

The American attitude towards education is really just sad. We just have a culture which idolizes stupidity. We have this ridiculous criteria of, "I'm gonna vote for the guy whom I'd rather sit down and have a beer with." Yes, I do agree that intelligent people can't always get things done effectively, but then we have inverted this on its head, where we instead automatically give stupid people the benefit of the doubt. We assume that, if a guy is not intelligent, he's automatically better at "knowing how to get things done" than an unintelligent person. We basically encourage dumbassery and allow these people to keep failing upwards until they run our government. It's embarrassing.

Glob posted...

I particularly agree about the fact that we often frame the technology related problems as being issues for children when they are also issues for adults.

Nobody at my school seems to take it seriously other than me though. A lot of our seminars on social media usage for students really should be directed towards the parents, but of course it is hard to tell grown adults how to act, consequences on their kids be damned.

Glob posted...

I do still believe that Covid was a major issue, though I dont share your experience of children who didnt miss much. It has had a devastating impact from what Ive seen, but I wouldnt be too quick to blame all of the problems were experiencing on it.

I don't disagree that it has had *some* impact. I think the biggest impact of the pandemic has been a huge rise in chronic absenteeism - basically, students who really don't show up to school that much. We've got some students in our school who miss 30-40% of school days, which is just sad. The worst is when their parents complain that they don't succeed on tests, and I have to come back with the whole, "When you're only here 70% of the time, it's normal to only get 70% of the questions right", and they never like to hear that.

Hasnt there been numerous problems contributing to this?

Schools being treated as daycares
Teachers being forced to pass students who dont even submit assignments or do below the bare minimum
no child left behind
Negligent parents who glue their children to tablets and let them just watch YouTube and tik tok all day
The ongoing degradation of the education system even ignoring the above etc

i hear from university professors that newly enrolled IT students dont know what files or folders are or the difference between a computer and a monitor.

plenty of adults already cant read at their age level

i can believe that society is failing these kids and they are behind where we were at their age. And I think its probably not exaggerated, but instead understated

Yeah, being absent can have huge impact. Where I am now though, you cant tell them they cant take the kids out and they do it all the time with no idea how teaching and learning actually works.

Last year, I had a parent ask, I shit you not, which weeks of the year the children don't get taught anything because she would book her holidays then. She really didnt like it when I pointed out that the weeks we dont teach them anything are the weeks that theyre not at school. I find the whole thing bizarre because shes paying 20 grand per term, per kid, to send them to our school and then seems miffed that we dont just teach them nothing for days on end.

Rika_Furude posted...

i can believe that society is failing these kids and they are behind where we were at their age. And I think its probably not exaggerated, but instead understated

It's probably been understated for years. Kids today aren't brilliant, but it's not like we went to school with geniuses either.

Glob posted...

Yeah, being absent can have huge impact. Where I am now though, you cant tell them they cant take the kids out and they do it all the time with no idea how teaching and learning actually works.

Last year, I had a parent ask, I shit you not, which weeks of the year the children don't get taught anything because she would book her holidays then. She really didnt like it when I pointed out that the weeks we dont teach them anything are the weeks that theyre not at school. I find the while thing bizarre because shes paying 20 grand per term, per kid, to send them to our school and then seems miffed that we dont just teach them nothing for days on end.

I teach at a public school where the local taxes are incredibly high, so it's basically a private school in all but name, and we see the same thing. I think it's mostly because they don't really send their kids to prestigious institutions caring much about what the students actually *learn* there. For them, it is more a function of social status and being able to brag to their friends about what their kids are doing - sending their students to prestigious high schools and well-known colleges is really just their version of "keeping up with the Joneses", so to speak. I see it a lot when it comes to college applications and acceptances - for so many of the parents, it's not really about what the kid learns in college, or whether the college helps the kid with life, but really more about being able to brag about their kids on social media or to their friends. It's incredibly depressing that many ultra high-income parents think of their kids the same way they think about their handbags or nice clothes, but there you go.

A few years back we had a huge college admissions scandal in the United States where wealthy parents were bribing colleges to accept their kid who weren't otherwise qualified to attend those schools. The big question on a lot of people's minds was: Why? Why did families with net worths in the tens of millions feel the need to commit crimes and cheat in order to get their children into prestigious colleges? In my view, it's all about being able to claim a certain level of social position and virtue signal to your friends. It's sad.

It's worse than most people realize and we are actually in deep trouble.

Frolex posted...

turn off the "hide ignored quotes" in advanced settings. for some reason, it hides posts quoting users who blocked you too

Oh, thanks.

Now I won't have topics ruined just because I don't like Demon Slayer lmao

BlazinBlue88 posted...

Today she told me about at least 4 students in her 6th grade English class throwing an hour long toddler tantrum because she asked them to copy a sentence from the board into their Chromebook. They didn't understand sentence structure and that capital letters and punctuation didn't matter cause "you know what I'm trying to say without it."

I can't find a Youtube link for the video, I think the guy took it down, but this was his class' reactions to instructing them to write a five-sentence paragraph. Someone exclaims that it's basically a test on its own.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1odomj5/this_is_so_concerning/

Humble_Novice posted...

I've been seeing a lot of online stories claiming that Gen Z and Alpha students are either out of control or can't read at their required level. Do you believe many of these tales are wildly exaggerated or is there some truth in them? If you're a teacher who happens to be in charge of students from the current generation, what are your thoughts?

I have a friend who teaches the most popular class at his university because everyone takes it as a science elective for graduation requirements.

Anyway to make a long story short yes the stories you hear are accurate. They can't read well or follow simple instructions.

As someone who teaches part time at a University for Accounting 101...my biggest issue is that this is suppose to be a core class and yet there's a lack of trying in the class. I didn't have this problem about 3 years ago, but it was only recently did I start seeing a downward trend. Last semester I saw everyone passing my 10 question online quizzes (total of 3 of them) and online homeworks with flying colors...and yet about 90% of them bombing my tests when it has to be taken in class. My midterm tests are open book and open notes (but no Laptop or phone usage) and here's the kicker...about 20 out of the 30 questions are directly straight from the quizzes and 10 out of 30 questions are taken directly from the homework, no changes to the numbers AT ALL. This shows me that their is a high likely chance they are just looking up the answers online/AI without even trying to understand the questions or how they come up with the answers. Even though I'm not required (because I'm part time) I still open office hours and the only ones who come to them are the ones who actively want to learn or people who know the material super well.

When reviewing the midterms, I tried to call up students individually to help them solve the questions but was told by the University that I got complaints for "bullying" teaching practices. Maybe I'm taking it to seriously, but I can't help but feel that Core Classes are absolutely essential to make it in the workforce. You need to master the basics in order for a smooth transition while you're in training. We need quality workers, not ones that think they can solve all their problems just googling or using ChatGPT....because in that case they might as well be replaced by AI and I don't want that to happen.

yes.

This is a case of millennials not remembering their own schooling and projecting their outdated worldview on a generation that doesn't experience the world the same way they do.

Students are worse now. I only deal with the university side but they have been getting progressively worse and all the other professors agree. Problems you could expect any 101 student to do before are now too hard for many. Also everyone just uses AI for everything now, so assigning homework is pointless.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c878b3bf.png

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3b1af641.png

Conversely:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8c0d0b14.jpg

I'm a high school math teacher.

Tiktok made pranks a lot worse for awhile. They'd see something on there and feel the pressure to recreate, but that's calmed down in the last 2 years, probably won't last.

Just like any year there's students that work hard and do well and students that really struggle with basic tasks. The proportion that give up quickly is higher.

Prestoff posted...

This shows me that their is a high likely chance they are just looking up the answers online/AI without even trying to understand the questions or how they come up with the answers. Even though I'm not required (because I'm part time) I still open office hours and the only ones who come to them are the ones who actively want to learn or people who know the material super well.

There are so many resources out there for anyone to learn anything, so the only real thing which separates people is whether they have any agency or desire to actually learn stuff. AI has made it easier than ever for knucklehead kids to survive while not knowing anything nor doing anything. Makes you question the purpose of putting those kids in school to begin with.

Prestoff posted...

You need to master the basics in order for a smooth transition while you're in training. We need quality workers, not ones that think they can solve all their problems just googling or using ChatGPT....because in that case they might as well be replaced by AI and I don't want that to happen.

Not just that - if you can't bother to learn basic shit in a classroom with a book that tells you what to do, how can you be expected to solve any actual real-world problems?

bfslick50 posted...

Just like any year there's students that work hard and do well and students that really struggle with basic tasks. The proportion that give up quickly is higher.

One thing that I do see is that even the students who want to learn and succeed need more and more spoonfed to them. Even the students who want to excel will quit on a question the moment it's not something they've seen before.