Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
then open in external browser
and click "Open in External Browser" 
School Staff In This Online Thread Tell Stories Of Students Having No Clue Of Basic Life Facts
My older daughters are 11, and they don’t like to read. They watch videos, play games, and draw really well—they’re very creative kids—but they don’t read anything other than graphic novels. As someone who used to read literally everything they could get their hands on at their age, I just can’t understand it.
Well, I can understand it, but I can’t accept it. I get it because it’s pretty much the norm around the world now. And high-schoolers struggling with basic knowledge that was a piece of cake for 10YOs decades ago is also part of the world we live in. So today’s story from the user u/SecretaryPresent16 is exactly about this process.
More info: Reddit
RELATED:
The author of the post is a high school counselor, and they also help students with their career counseling and applications
Image credits: vh-studio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The author says that high schoolers nowadays have a huge lack of basic knowledge
Image credits: SecretaryPresent16
Image credits: eugeneshemyakin9 / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Some of them don’t know their ZIP code or even the state they live in, and some don’t know their parents’ jobs
Image credits: SecretaryPresent16
Image credits: stockking / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Some of the students don’t even know how to check their email, the author says
Image credits: SecretaryPresent16
The counselor took this online in the educators community to ask the teachers’ opinions and a possible explanation of this alarming process
So, the Original Poster (OP) tells us that they work as a high school counselor, and one of the parts of their job is the career counseling portion. Usually, the author helps students with applications if needed, but every year, in their own words, they see how students have a huge lack of something that the OP considers just basic knowledge.
For example, they may not know what their parents’ job is, they may not know their own ZIP code (or even have no idea what that actually is). They’re confused about the counties they live in – and they may not even know what state they are in. Furthermore, someone doesn’t know whether their parents went to college or not, whether any of them were in the military, and, finally, they’re confused about their own date of birth.
The original poster says that they have met students who sincerely admit that they don’t know how to check their email, and this is still an Internet skill, even if someone may consider it quite obsolete today. Of course, the author helps students and explains all these facts and processes to them, but each new case makes them sadly shake their heads.
The author says they’ve already spoken to colleagues online, and many other high school counselors are in a similar situation. Now, they took this online to the teacher community to ask if the educators have encountered manifestations of something similar in the classroom and, of course, to find out what they see as the reasons for this alarming process.
Image generated by Bored Panda using ChatGPT
Perhaps the main problem here is that kids have stopped reading. No, that’s not it. They have stopped reading books. They regularly read texts and posts on social networks on smartphones, but reading books for fun seems to be a thing of the past. Every year, data from a test administered by the National Center for Education Statistics shows that more and more children in the U.S. don’t meet the standards for reading proficiency.
For example, if only 37% of fourth graders were proficient in reading in 2017, then by 2019, this figure had decreased to 35%, and by 2024, it would have decreased by another 5%. Children just don’t want to read.
“I have noticed is that the belief that reading both enlarges and enlivens life itself has largely vanished from the lives of my young students,” Detroit News quotes Jeremy Adams, a high school and college political science teacher.
The reason? Well, most likely, the rapid growth of the Internet and its penetration into literally all spheres of our lives. Children, in general, choose easier and more enjoyable activities, and watching short videos and playing games on the phone are easier and simpler than reading. They don’t think that by doing so, they are reducing their own skills and level of understanding of the world. The parents… well, many parents just don’t care.
Teachers in the comments to the original post gave even more alarming examples. Schoolers simply don’t care about all this information and don’t intend to remember it, and many parents don’t try to show and explain to them the importance of this knowledge.
As a result, we have rapidly deteriorating indicators of school education—and teachers, alas, don’t know what can be done about it. Because the world is changing—and this process cannot be stopped.
Yes, the world is not always changing for the better, and our social and emotional development doesn’t keep up with the speed of technological progress. Where I take a book to have some fun, my kids play mobile games and watch shorts… By the way, how are things with you, our dear readers? Please feel free to share your thoughts about this in the comments below.
People in the comments claim that the modern children, alas, just don’t want to read books and it’s a sad reality
Poll Question
Total votes ·
Thanks! Check out the results:
Total votes ·
Newsletter
Subscribe to Access
Exclusive Polls
By entering your email and clicking Subscribe, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Privacy Policy.
Thank you! You've successfully subscribed to newsletters!
What do you think ?
LooseSeal's $10 Banana 7 months ago
We've got a daughter who is about to be 5 and will start kindergarten in the fall. I think one of the most important things we've done as parents, and one of the most difficult, is to tell her no. Can you take my dress off? No, you can do it. Can you wipe my butt? No, you can do it. Can you get me some water? No, you can do it. It's tough because I know we can do it faster and better, but she's got to fail at things in order to learn how to do them by herself.
BookFanatic 7 months ago
This! I struggled with penmanship when I was small, so my mother had me write our grocery lists. The patience needed to say "Milk...m-i-l-k; bread...b-r-e-a-d; cheese...c-h-e-e-s-e" each week is staggering. Years later Mom told me it nearly killed her not to just do it herself, but she knew I had to learn.
Load More Replies...
T'Mar of Vulcan 7 months ago
Some of the kids I teach don't even know ALPHABETICAL ORDER. Most can't multiply, even small numbers. Lots of them don't know the difference between lower-case B and D (hence writing that they "bib something" or about their pet "bog" or they like to play with a "dall"). These are kids in Grade 5. It gets worse every year. I have 40 kids in my class and I think only 10% even study for exams, if that. They don't understand how to answer questions. If you have 1a) and 1b), they don't understand that the two questions are related. If you ask, "How do we know that..." (i.e. asking for a REASON we know something), a lot of them will just write, "Yes/No." I've had to dumb down my English so much it's ridiculous. I can't ask questions the proper way because the kids don't know what is being asked.
howdylee 7 months ago
Covid did a number on education too. My oldest was in 1st grade when covid hit. And digital lessons did NOTHING for her, so the remainder of 1st and all of 2nd grade were just terrible, and you can tell she didn't create that foundation of learning before being ushered to the next grades (because NOBODY was getting held back those years.)
Littlemiss 7 months ago
This is what I found too. Our government sent out resources and parents complained that it was just puzzles, books, paper and pens, nothing fun. Yeah it was because you were supposed to actually engage with your children and play with them! Not dump them in front of a screen and disappear for a cuppa elsewhere. We've lost the art of learning together, spending quality time with our children and enjoying them. You don't stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing.
Load More Replies...
Lukas (he/him, it/its) 7 months ago
I just graduated high school and yeah, it's scary. In my senior year English class, we were being taught how to write a paragraph the way I'd learned in 3rd grade. Keep in mind this was the poorest high school in my state and most of my education I'd been in the wealthiest part of my state.
StrangeOne 7 months ago
It's not super uncommon for teachers to refresh their students on basic lessons. Gosh, I remember we were still colouring provinces on maps of Canada every grade up to 11, and that was in the 90s to 00s. That's just one example in one class out of all of them that did stuff like that. It's like testing to see how much knowledge we retained since elementary.
Load More Replies...
Atom Bohr 7 months ago (edited)
I'm a private tutor, so my students are representative of those whose parents are invested in their learning, and financially capable of paying for it, so while few are wealthy, these aren't socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Before covid I had the odd exception, but now it seems to be the norm that most of them don't know basic things like mixing colours, animals, reading the time, etc. Really basic stuff. This is concerning in primary school aged children, but I'm seeing it in 15 year olds, too. It happened really abruptly and I really don't think it's just down to the break in learning during lock down. There seems to have been shift in how parents engage with their kids which happened before covid, but then became much worse, and some educational systems are failing to pick up the slack
Marnie 7 months ago
People say the problem is the kids constantly being on some device. But I wonder if it's as much a problem of the parents constantly being on some device, and it was a specific age group, and now they're the ones with the kids that you're seeing.
Load More Replies...
StrangeOne 7 months ago (edited)
A lot to unpack here. Perhaps because I'm from across the border and this sounds like it's mostly from the USA, it's leaving me more questions. I hear lots of blaming. Lots of assumptions. We got blaming of "screen a*******n" and I'm not too sure that has anything to do with it. It's the same rhetoric older folks had about TV and video games in the 80s - 00s all over again. However, it reminds me of a phase me and others went through, to try to seem "cool" where we would act like we didn't know much. It only lasted maybe a year or 2, and not on this level. It was just to not be deemed as a "geek" or "nerd". So, I'm wondering if this is an extreme, prolonged "trend" to pretend to not know anything and give smartass answers on purpose? Just wondering. I don't hear any of the adults talking to the kids about what is going on at home, or in their social lives. Plus, specific examples are given of individual students, so I have to wonder how many students are lacking basic info, compared....
StrangeOne 7 months ago
... to the few individual examples given. There does appear to be differences in how kids are prepared for school. In Canada, your child must be potty trained, know their parent's names, other family members, know their address and phone number. Have basic math skills, counting to 100 or more, simple addition and be able to read about 1000 words or more, just to be ready for pre-kindergarten. If a child is unable to grasp this knowledge, it means either the parents are neglecting their child's education and intellectual development, or the child has a delay, disorder, disability keeping them behind and further assessments would be needed. The child would likely be given additional help in a regular class or be put in a special ed. room, depending on the level of severity. This is another factor I'm now wondering about. Are these school staff are aware of the student's ability to learn, or if they're using special needs students as examples to further exacerbate the agenda of poor ....
Load More Replies... JB 7 months ago
Ahem, to all the Republican lawmakers who want to complain about education and "kids these days": YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR you cheap dipshits!
B Jones 6 months ago
You think this isn't the plan? Lower educated can mean more manual labor and usually more kids born, plus a group of people added to just vote how they're told without critical thinking.
Load More Replies...
Rick Murray 7 months ago
Just think in a few years these people will be able to vote. Policies? Fiscal responsibility? Making the country better? They won't have a clue, it'll be more like "I saw this guy on a funny meme so I think I'll put an X by him". Gods (in the plural, ALL of them) help us all!
Scott Rackley 7 months ago
I've got about 30 more years on this rock, give or take. I hope I make it off before it all goes t**s up.
LooseSeal's $10 Banana 7 months ago
We've got a daughter who is about to be 5 and will start kindergarten in the fall. I think one of the most important things we've done as parents, and one of the most difficult, is to tell her no. Can you take my dress off? No, you can do it. Can you wipe my butt? No, you can do it. Can you get me some water? No, you can do it. It's tough because I know we can do it faster and better, but she's got to fail at things in order to learn how to do them by herself.
BookFanatic 7 months ago
This! I struggled with penmanship when I was small, so my mother had me write our grocery lists. The patience needed to say "Milk...m-i-l-k; bread...b-r-e-a-d; cheese...c-h-e-e-s-e" each week is staggering. Years later Mom told me it nearly killed her not to just do it herself, but she knew I had to learn.
Load More Replies... T'Mar of Vulcan 7 months ago
Some of the kids I teach don't even know ALPHABETICAL ORDER. Most can't multiply, even small numbers. Lots of them don't know the difference between lower-case B and D (hence writing that they "bib something" or about their pet "bog" or they like to play with a "dall"). These are kids in Grade 5. It gets worse every year. I have 40 kids in my class and I think only 10% even study for exams, if that. They don't understand how to answer questions. If you have 1a) and 1b), they don't understand that the two questions are related. If you ask, "How do we know that..." (i.e. asking for a REASON we know something), a lot of them will just write, "Yes/No." I've had to dumb down my English so much it's ridiculous. I can't ask questions the proper way because the kids don't know what is being asked.
howdylee 7 months ago
Covid did a number on education too. My oldest was in 1st grade when covid hit. And digital lessons did NOTHING for her, so the remainder of 1st and all of 2nd grade were just terrible, and you can tell she didn't create that foundation of learning before being ushered to the next grades (because NOBODY was getting held back those years.)
Littlemiss 7 months ago
This is what I found too. Our government sent out resources and parents complained that it was just puzzles, books, paper and pens, nothing fun. Yeah it was because you were supposed to actually engage with your children and play with them! Not dump them in front of a screen and disappear for a cuppa elsewhere. We've lost the art of learning together, spending quality time with our children and enjoying them. You don't stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing.
Load More Replies... Lukas (he/him, it/its) 7 months ago
I just graduated high school and yeah, it's scary. In my senior year English class, we were being taught how to write a paragraph the way I'd learned in 3rd grade. Keep in mind this was the poorest high school in my state and most of my education I'd been in the wealthiest part of my state.
StrangeOne 7 months ago
It's not super uncommon for teachers to refresh their students on basic lessons. Gosh, I remember we were still colouring provinces on maps of Canada every grade up to 11, and that was in the 90s to 00s. That's just one example in one class out of all of them that did stuff like that. It's like testing to see how much knowledge we retained since elementary.
Load More Replies... Atom Bohr 7 months ago (edited)
I'm a private tutor, so my students are representative of those whose parents are invested in their learning, and financially capable of paying for it, so while few are wealthy, these aren't socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Before covid I had the odd exception, but now it seems to be the norm that most of them don't know basic things like mixing colours, animals, reading the time, etc. Really basic stuff. This is concerning in primary school aged children, but I'm seeing it in 15 year olds, too. It happened really abruptly and I really don't think it's just down to the break in learning during lock down. There seems to have been shift in how parents engage with their kids which happened before covid, but then became much worse, and some educational systems are failing to pick up the slack
Marnie 7 months ago
People say the problem is the kids constantly being on some device. But I wonder if it's as much a problem of the parents constantly being on some device, and it was a specific age group, and now they're the ones with the kids that you're seeing.
Load More Replies... StrangeOne 7 months ago (edited)
A lot to unpack here. Perhaps because I'm from across the border and this sounds like it's mostly from the USA, it's leaving me more questions. I hear lots of blaming. Lots of assumptions. We got blaming of "screen a*******n" and I'm not too sure that has anything to do with it. It's the same rhetoric older folks had about TV and video games in the 80s - 00s all over again. However, it reminds me of a phase me and others went through, to try to seem "cool" where we would act like we didn't know much. It only lasted maybe a year or 2, and not on this level. It was just to not be deemed as a "geek" or "nerd". So, I'm wondering if this is an extreme, prolonged "trend" to pretend to not know anything and give smartass answers on purpose? Just wondering. I don't hear any of the adults talking to the kids about what is going on at home, or in their social lives. Plus, specific examples are given of individual students, so I have to wonder how many students are lacking basic info, compared....
StrangeOne 7 months ago
... to the few individual examples given. There does appear to be differences in how kids are prepared for school. In Canada, your child must be potty trained, know their parent's names, other family members, know their address and phone number. Have basic math skills, counting to 100 or more, simple addition and be able to read about 1000 words or more, just to be ready for pre-kindergarten. If a child is unable to grasp this knowledge, it means either the parents are neglecting their child's education and intellectual development, or the child has a delay, disorder, disability keeping them behind and further assessments would be needed. The child would likely be given additional help in a regular class or be put in a special ed. room, depending on the level of severity. This is another factor I'm now wondering about. Are these school staff are aware of the student's ability to learn, or if they're using special needs students as examples to further exacerbate the agenda of poor ....
Load More Replies... JB 7 months ago
Ahem, to all the Republican lawmakers who want to complain about education and "kids these days": YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR you cheap dipshits!
B Jones 6 months ago
You think this isn't the plan? Lower educated can mean more manual labor and usually more kids born, plus a group of people added to just vote how they're told without critical thinking.
Load More Replies... Rick Murray 7 months ago
Just think in a few years these people will be able to vote. Policies? Fiscal responsibility? Making the country better? They won't have a clue, it'll be more like "I saw this guy on a funny meme so I think I'll put an X by him". Gods (in the plural, ALL of them) help us all!
Scott Rackley 7 months ago
I've got about 30 more years on this rock, give or take. I hope I make it off before it all goes t**s up.
You May Like 100 Facts That Linger In Your Head For Days “Depression Levels Correlate With Intelligence”: 48 Facts People Wish They Didn’t Know
Jonas Žvilius
Ieva Pečiulytė
Related on Bored Panda
54
77