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42 Examples Of Gen Alpha Showing Concerning Levels Of Illiteracy, Shared By Teachers
As one of the first generators to grow up with social media as a fact of life from the moment they were born, Gen Alpha have recently come under some scrutiny over some reports that they don’t engage with text or algebra the way previous generations did. But is there any truth to this?
Someone asked “Teachers, Is the “Gen Alpha can't read (write, or do math, etc)" crisis real? If so, how bad is it?” and they weighed in with their experiences. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote the most interesting responses and be sure to add your own thoughts and observations to the comments down below.
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#1
I've been teaching high school English for nearly a decade. It's bad. I go home and cry on nearly a weekly basis. Granted, I work in the toughest, poorest high school in 100 miles, but it shouldn't be like it is.
This is the first year the MAJORITY of my class cheated on their first essays. I had to go back to timed, paper and pencil essays for the rest of the year. It STILL took most of them 5 full class periods to write 5 paragraphs, ON AN ARTICLE WE HAD ALREADY ANALYZED TOGETHER, *with* multiple scaffolds. (I gave them sentence frames for their thesis, and they were allowed to use a notebook we made together that shows how each paragraph should be structured, sentence by sentence) Even with those tools, it took MOST of my 10th graders 5 full days to write 5 paragraphs. I STILL had a kid crash out and tell me I didn't give them enough time. I STILL had 25% of the overall class not pass the final.
It was also the first year a kid yelled "We don't care about your books, Miss!" while I was in front of the class presenting books they might be interested in for their book reviews. Even the most capable and the most bright kids side-stepped my attempts to get them to read anything at all. Almost all of them cheated on the book review they had to write. It was a major grade and I just dropped it from the grade book.
I tried to get very honest with them about what this is all going to mean for their future but when I did, I was reported to my boss-for the first time ever-by a group of kids. I had to go in and explain that I had given them a quote about literacy for them to write about, and I had to bring all the receipts.
I got into teaching because while I was a big reader as a kid, I hated school. I wanted to help kids and be someone in the school system who empowers children, rather than enjoys having power over children-there are plenty of those kinds of folks in school, too. I wanted to be one of the good ones.
But right now my job is the most difficult part of my life. I don't know if I can do this until retirement. Our school has experienced waves of cuts. We don't have enough custodians, we don't have enough bus drivers, and we don't have enough security. I have to stand out in the halls and tell kids to put their phones away and get to class every day during my prep period, and every day I get cussed at multiple times. There are no consequences and there are no real expectations that kids have any academic discipline or stamina.
I think unless we get rid of ALL screens, the 1-to-1 Chromebooks, the phones, we are going to lose an entire generation of people who will live Wall-E style. Seriously, I can't stress enough how damaged these kids are, and they don't know it because they don't have anything to compare it to. No one but school staff sees it, because we're the ones dealing with the entire collective of young people day in and day out. They don't even bother to get to know their teachers' names. They are THAT buried into their phones all the time. They don't bother to get to know their classmates, 90% of the student body doesn't go to football games or dances or prom. The social aspects of school have been almost entirely gutted by online culture. Even at assemblies they mostly ignore what is going on in favor of staring at their screens.
As a society, we need to regulate it and DEFINITELY regulate AI, or we may very seriously lose the country for good. We simply won't have informed voters who know how to stave off political or financial propaganda.
The more I write here, the more upset I feel. I need to unplug and go stand in my garden awhile. .
Gabriel Camomescro 4 hours ago
This has less to do with screens and tech and more to do with parenting and passing kids that should have been failed. This isn't the fault of teachers, it's the fault of bad parents and a system more focused on numbers than education.
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#2
Eh, depends on where you teach. I went from a low income school, where most students were 2-3 grade levels behind, to a private school last year. My students are all reading and writing at a high school level in 6th grade.
The difference (in my opinion) is education level of the parents, which is also tied into socioeconomic factors. Parents have more time (flexible jobs, paid time off) to spend with their children. As well as access to extracurricular activities.
It’s an unacceptable (to me) inequality in 2026- the parents of the students at my old school don’t love their kids any less, the cards are stacked against them.
#3
I’m a high school teacher. Specifically AP and regular level physics. Been at it for 15 years now.
I’m not teaching alpha yet, but I’m starting to wrap up the last parts of Z.
My perspective is interesting because I’m still interacting with the top kids of each group, but also each “level” of kids all the way down to the bottom.
The very top kids are about the same as they ever were, and potentially even more impressive than before. More access to technology and resources have done wonders. My biggest worry for this group is that college admissions are now completely broken and they don’t always get into great colleges.
The run of the mill AP/honors kids have sort of gotten worse, but not by that much. COVID hit them in the fundamentals, cheating is more rampant because of easy it is, and culturally there’s less pride in “overachieving” so it doesn’t happen as often. These kids are perfectly content doing the bare minimum and seem to lack internal true motivation.
HOWEVER, the run of the mill non honors kids have gotten really bad. Very low tolerance for working hard, very short attention span, very short stamina for active listening. This is the brainrotted/fried dopamine group. Blame the screens, the social media, and the parenting for this group. It’s the group that is the most worrying because a decade ago, I’d estimate that maybe 10-20% of kids at a school are like this, and now it’s probably 40-50% of each graduating class. THIS IS NOT THE GROUP that viral TikTok’s are talking about with being illiterate and not able to do math, but it’s the group I’m most concerned with. When I hear about the Gen Z stare and the general inability for minimum wage workers to do their jobs, I immediately recognize that it’s the same kids in this category, just a few years older, and they still haven’t made any progress. They don’t care, they’re AFRAID to look like they care, they seem depressed as a cultural baseline, they’re super socially awkward, and they don’t seem to feel like they need to change any of this. They can do basic math, but they’re far below what kids in this category were able to do 10 years ago. They can read, but their comprehension and analysis of it is low. They can write, but their writing is filled with errors and their thoughts seem incoherent or simple.
Then there’s of course the bottom 10-20% kids (excluding the special ed/severe/moderate learning disability kids). This is what the viral videos are about and it’s not an exaggeration. They can’t read, write, or do very basic math like multiplication or division as a 17 year old. When they read, it’s obvious that they are just looking at some of the letters and then guessing, and it’s obvious that they aren’t processing it while they say the words out loud. They write like 1st graders at the age of 17. If they have to add even basic numbers together, they’re still using their fingers. They seem to actively think school is stupid and that they’re not the problem at all. These kids existed 10 years ago, but there weren’t that many kids. In a class of 40, maybe 1 or 2 were like this. Now it’s like 4-6 kids in each class.
Now, I’m at a “good” school. Top 10% type of school in an affluent state, serving a moderately affluent suburban community. I believe the teachers who are teaching the inner city/rural communities where their entire class can’t read/write/do math. I don’t think they are exaggerating. Those kids do exist and it seems that it’s been a consistent trend my entire career that it’s heading in this direction.
#4
Teacher in Sweden and it's pretty freaking bad here too. Parents have failed their kids by not having them read more at a young age, instead they gave them phones and social media. We the teachers can see that the kids that aren't always on their phones perform, in general, WAY better.
#5
I work at a library. The good news: I see many families there from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. The common thread is their parents are making the effort and leading by example.
Now onto what I see anecdotally. Many older kids and teens have a gap between the mechanics of reading and the actual real world component. If you ask them to fill out a form, they don’t understand how to format a street address (or what their own address even is — crazy), they fill out the wrong lines with the wrong information, too. Partly it’s because they don’t know what phrases like “zip code” mean, partly because they just zone out at the first sight of a challenge. It’s like they stopped learning/progressing beyond a certain point.
They do not have the mental endurance to read instructions and follow them when it comes to novel experiences. For example, they go to website with a list of instructions…they exclaim it’s all too confusing and ask how to do the thing. Only for me, who also has never seen this page to glance at the same instruction and figure it out in a couple of minutes. It’s actually very similar to dealing with the boomer population.
This is the issue with literacy. It’s not just being able to identify a bunch of words, it’s being able to utilize them, decipher context clues, etc. So many adults are walking around who can read words, but cannot comprehend or take action on documents that will affect their lives.
ETA: my goal was not to send people into an existential crisis. As I said I see kids here everyday who devour books and are brilliant.
I was simply answering the question with some of my personal experiences of what seems to be sticking out as unusual. For example, teenagers not knowing their home address. And yes, the literacy issue is far beyond kids. It’s something we have been grappling with in the US for quite a while.
#6
Elementary principal here. It is bad.
Parts of the issues:
For the last five years, the only teachers I have been able to hire were those barely in a teaching program. It’s a challenging job even with the degree, but it’s near impossible without the education OR experience. They’ve been skipping their student teaching due to this. Bright side - this year was a high turnover year and all the teachers I have hired are fully licensed and with experience. I’m in a more rural area, but I have lived in various states across the US and hear similar issues in those states as well.
Parents. Parents. We are no longer professionals in their minds. I will call home, explain the investigation I’ve conducted and the conclusion. Nope, not my kid. He would never. Ma’am, I have him on video and with 3 witnesses. They will hold them out of school to avoid ISS, take them for ice cream, for “standing up to a bully.” They think every kid that looks at their kid wrong is a bully. Bullies are still in existence, and it’s challenging to deal with those situations as an administrator, but they aren’t all bullies, I promise. Sometimes it’s just a kid who is mean to everyone and I am trying my best to get a handle on it.
Laws. In special education, there are so many laws our hands are tied in most, if not all, cases. Sometimes kids hit, bite, kick, and sometimes that is toward adults. We have to put hands on kids to keep us and others safe. Yes, I get it. They are children. And some of those children kick, spit, threaten, pull hair, climb walls, turn over furniture. If I mess it up, I’m suddenly an educator with a case on my record. Who wants a career ending risk like that hanging over them? And also, there are a ton of crazy teachers out there who should NEVER put hands on kids. So I also get it.
Society. School is no longer school. It’s the only way some of our parents can work. It’s become daycare. We really need more universal supports like pre-k for all, which would help prepare students for school as well as help parents not have to afford an entire mortgage payment for daycare.
I’d share more but it’s summer break and my cortisol levels have been high for 220 days so I am going to zone out a bit longer.
#7
Its not even that. They have the virtual library of Alexandria on the palm of their hands and when i told them to google it, they asked me, how?
#8
Not a teacher, but I find it odd my middle school kid's reading class listens to the audiobook, rather than, you know, reading.
#9
Teacher for the last 15 years. Taught in a title 1 school for a decade and a fancy suburban school for the last five years.
It’s not a Gen Alpha crisis it’s a poverty crisis. It’s just much easier to blame kids and iPads than the systemic problems that got us here.
Teaching in my high poverty school all of the statements on this thread were true. High schoolers could barely read or do math. I regularly had 17 year olds who had never read a chapter book in their entire lives.
Teaching 45 minutes away in a fancy suburban school my students are all high scoring, thoughtful, and emotionally well rounded.
When you don’t grow up with both parents working 70 hours a week in minimum wage and constant threats to your housing, food insecurity and violence, turns out you’re great at school.
We burned down the middle class, shifted the entire tax burden of education onto property taxes and gave huge tax cuts to businesses that used to pay for them. Then we blame iPads for why kids can’t read.
#10
It’s pretty freaking bad. I always go back to the instance where a junior in my class was giving a presentation and couldn’t read the word “thought”.
#11
As a teacher of 13 years in middle school reading/language arts, short answer is yes.
A LOT of things have gone into this not just covid. Kids aren't forced to read to alleviate boredom or learn like previous generations. Smart phones and tablets from a young age have eroded attention spans and boredom tolerance. I can't compete w tiktok or YouTube and shouldn't be expected to.
Parents can't or don't want to be involved in their kids education, don't value it bc they got picked on/weren't smart but turned out ok/teachers are indoctrination kids.
All of the standards/skills that used to be in 2nd grade have been pushed into K. K is no longer socialization and fine motor skills w phonics exposure, it's expecting them to be full reading by mid year which isn't developmentally appropriate. Until a few years ago elementary wasnt teaching phonics so kids dont have tools to decode unfamiliar words and they definitely dont care enough to look it up. Things we did regularly like weekly vocab, themed units have gone away entirely.
If you took a middle/high level reading test you might not pass; the reading snippets sometimes require background knowledge students might not have, I don't always agree w the answers and I have a masters. Curriculum is usually written by one of the major publishers, is absolutely trash that everyone hates, but has to be followed due to state mandates for "high quality materials of instruction". Novels are usually only used in advanced classes in favor of articles and snippets.
It used to be we'd have several sections of honors/advanced classes; now we're lucky to fill 2 sections in a grade level. We have kids in high school working on phonics and they just get passed along through middle school bc of metrics and some old study in the name of equity.
I'm sure there's more but it's summer and this post is eating my pool time.
#12
I worked in a library for a few years. The highschoolers would come in with the “my teacher said I can use any book for the project” and just stare at me. I’d ask them what they like to read they say they don’t. I ask if they like any show or movie and they’d name one. Here would be the conversation:
Ok so you’ve watched fantasy show through like 20 times. Do you like fantasy?
What’s fantasy.
Like magic? Elves? Creatures?
What does that have to do with show?
Literally the entire show? Like the main character does magic constantly? And is friends with magical creature?
Oh I didn’t know that.
What do you know about it?
Uhhh.
I thought you watched it??
Yeah I’ve watched it on streaming like 20 times.
Ok how about I just get you a book similar to it.
Why?
So you enjoy it because you like the story?
I do?
You’ve watched it 20 times!!!!
#13
Yesterday I bought something with cash, and not only could the cashier not calculate the change, she had to ask her older coworker which coins were which.
AtMostAFabulist 5 hours ago
I have been seeing the same thing. Running through a McDonald's, the total was $6.70 and I gave her $12.00. She tried giving me back the dollar bills saying I gave her too much. I told her I wanted a $5 back and she just gave me a blank look. I had to explain that 11-6 =5. And 1-.70 =.30. So $5.30 back. Good God!
#14
My son is in kindergarten and was having issues sounding out words. The issue was that he couldn't sound out words at all. Show him a word, and he would guess a different word that didn't even start with the same letter.
Turned out, they weren't teaching the kids phonics, they were just doing sight words. So the kids only knew the words on their lists. They called in some high paid expert who said "yeah kids need phonics" and they changed it, but the school has been open for three years, I feel bad for the kids who had that foundation for 1-3 years already. My son went from being below level to above level in reading.
#15
I had a university student who didn't understand that 50% was the same as 1/2.
#16
I teach Pre-K (4.5-5yo getting ready for kindergarten) and I am genuinely worried for my current group of kids. To give an example, the other day we were doing an open ended craft where they had to make trees out of materials. One boy looked at me and asked how to do the craft I told him to use his imagination! He then looks me in the eyes and goes "how do I do that?". I've also realized that a lot of these kids don't know how to handle boredom or how to play by themselves. So it's not just an academic thing, its a social-emotional thing as well.
#17
In first year college chemistry we gave students the same exam in 2023 that we gave in 2015. The average went from 73% to 35%.
When I was teaching these classes I notice kids put up their hands and ask for help before they have even bothered to read their worksheets. .
#18
I am not a teacher, but I do have a job in government working with a lot young kids.
It’s bad. Exceptionally bad.
I have had a 12 year old kids come to swim that walk up to the desk with a phone and just hand the phone to me, because they don’t understand how to pay for admission and assume the phone will just… do it for them. I have had a 16 year old dump eight $1 bills on my desk because he couldn’t count to three to pay for a $3 admission. I’ve had a 14 year old that injured his ankle need to sign an incident report ask me how to “draw the letter a” because they forgot how to spell “Matt”, his own name. I have witnessed numerous teens not be able to read the “Pool is closed on X/Y” with the date, and they didn’t understand how to interpret the numbers let alone know a 4 would represent April.
It’s crazy bad.
#19
As a Gen Z (I'm 26), we had to spend a whole class period in high school learning how to tell time on a clock and doing elementary worksheets because most students in the class didn't know how... I can only assume it's gotten worse since then, unfortunately 😬.
#20
I personally know many parents who are not teaching their grade school kids and lower how to read or do anything.
#21
I’m a Kindergarten and 1st Grade teacher. I constantly tell parents that the best thing they can do for early literacy is to read to/with their kids every night, and to have real conversations with their child, where they ask them questions, and get them to think about their world and how things work.
Then I’ll have parents clearly blow that off and ask me if I can just print them some worksheets for their kid to do.
So, you just want your kid occupied and out of your hair? Got it. I won’t be doing that. Read with your kid and talk to your kid.
#22
The college I went to added two levels of remedial courses that didn't previously exist for math
Previously students wouldve been entirely rejected from the program if they couldn't meet the entry level math requirement, now they're deferred to what's effectively a "remedical year". They wouldn't be doing this is there were enough incoming students with sufficient knowledge.
#23
I teach high school (from freshman to seniors).
Obviously it depends from kid to kid, but as a general trend, it's pretty bad. Even just getting them to read a set of directions can be like pulling teeth.
"What do I do next?"
"What did you just do?"
(describes step 4)
"Alright, then what does step 5 say?"
"I don't know."
"Well... read it?"
(they try and read it)
"I still don't get it."
God forbid I ask them to read a section of a textbook or an article longer than two paragraphs. Even with guiding questions, it's a real struggle for them.
Similarly, but not nearly as talked about, I've noticed a trend as a science teacher that kids have no *spatial* skills as well. Like, I'm asking 18 years olds to make a free swinging pendulum and it takes them 2 hours to figure it out (I don't necessarily want to just tell them *how* because the struggle is their brains actually starting to learn these skills). I ask 15/16 year olds to make a ramp for a ball giving them boxes and cardboard and it's a big struggle.
Young children aren't playing with or building with blocks or toys they hold in their hands, many things that you used to have to open or close yourself are automatized (doors to buildings, vans, etc) and it's stunting their ability to not only visualize things and problem solve in a 3D manner, but instinctually understand things like momentum and forces (e.g. when a sliding door didn't close all the way, they don't have the instinct to push it *faster*. They just keep pushing it confused why it won't close).
#24
Every teacher I know tells me kids have no basic concept of right or wrong and no respect for authority. Like a kid will just sit on their desk with their phone out and the teacher will tell them to put it away and the kid will be like "why?" And not in an edgy contrarian way but in a genuine "I don't understand why" way. And they just don't listen to teachers and when the teachers speak to the parents the parents either go full Karen "you don't tell my kid what to do" or they basically admit that they don't listen to them either and they're just out of control.
This is in stark contrast with just a few years ago when teachers and parents were generally a united front and kids listened to them or at the very least understood why something was wrong even if they didn't care for it.
#25
Yes, it really is a crisis. They depend on autocorrect so much on their phones, spelling is atrocious. Handwriting is actual chicken scratch. They’re glued to their devices with zero questions about what the AI tells them is correct.
Some schools in California are working on banning screens and switching back to pen and paper. I think it’s the only way forward to fixing education.
#26
I’m not a teacher but I can see what other people in my college humanities class post. We’re absolutely doomed. 22 y/o with the hand writing of a 3rd grader.
ETA: I have bad handwriting, and what I’m seeing is absolutely atrocious. Paired with sentences like “I like dogs bcause they are dogs” type sentences. .
#27
The system has many ways to hide it. Grade inflation, grade bracketing, "rounding up", pushing them through, fudging the numbers, etc. Some of these are motivated by trying to meet funding requirements, some by avoiding liabilty created by legislative requirements and hyper-litigious parents.
A friend of mine who homeschooled most of his children sent his youngest to the public high school at which I work, per his child's wishes. He was surprised that over her freshman year she read one book in class, while her homeschool cohort read 14.
#28
My wife works at a bookstore/coffee shop and they hire highschool kids during the summer. She keeps telling me about this highschool kid who cannot make change, with a computer. Like, the computer tells him the correct change, he just can't count it..
#29
Not a teacher but I hire high schoolers at my place of work. I'm seeing kids use "here" instead of "hear" or something and it's absolutely insane.
It used to be limited to your/you're and there/their/they're. Now it seems like no homonyms are safe.
#31
Im a tutor and the things I see are concerning. One of the biggest concerns is that high-school students cannot understand poetry. Figurative language makes no sense to them. They do not know how to think critically.
#32
I'm a professor and teach intro economics at a mid-tier university. I would estimate the percentage of students who can multiply 17 by 3 in their heads to be about 15%. I once had a student argue that you can't make a number bigger by dividing it with another number (a decimal below 1) because "that's not how math works". I also teach a (upper level) data analysis class, and a student once asked me "What do you mean by right-click?".
Above all, the tragic part is the apathy. Most students don't even care enough to try and cheat.
#33
I had to rework a unit in which the whole path of the lesson was geared toward them eventually writing a review of their favourite book, after chatting about their favourite book and doing a reading activity about someone else's favourite book.
Problem was, they couldn't even get past the chatting stage. They didn't know any books. So I switched it to films. They didn't even know any films. All they knew was tiktokers and youtubers. At least they knew Doraemon and a handful of cartoons, so I made it write about the best TV programme you've ever seen
One of them started his essay with "the best programme I've seen is news." .
#34
Soon to be retired teacher here… it’s more than just a crisis, it’s an existential crisis right now.
Kids with a level of self entitlement that is beyond measure… parents who a) think their kids can do no wrong and feed into that self entitlement, b) are too busy just trying to survive today’s economy that they’re working multiple jobs to keep kids fed/housed that they’re don’t have time to monitor their kids, c) parents who should have never had kids in the first place for a variety of reasons… building administration that is terrified of the Stupidintendent in charge so that they’ll cook the books to make it seem like nothing is wrong… Stupidintendents who only care about “test scores” so that they can keep their extremely cushy jobs… and politicians who think they know better than the actual front line teachers who are in in the trenches day in and day out coming down with ridiculous mandates/laws that are practically unenforceable but hold us accountable to them anyway with a threat to our careers if we don’t follow their stupid rules.
All the while, everything is our fault?!? And for all you jerks out there that will respond about having summers off, etc… the vast majority of us go get summer jobs because a) don’t get paid for summer vacation and b) we don’t make enough to save enough to get through the summer without working because of the economy and just how much everything costs, especially nowadays! Let’s not talk about all the unpaid overtime we do because we don’t get enough time to take care of it during the day because of all the nonsense listed above
You ever see the documentary “Idiocracy” starring Luke Wilson? Yup… we’re heading there faster than it took me to type this out. And it seems like most of the USA is happy that it’s going to happen.
It’s a shame because there are really great kids out there that deserve so much better than to be stuck in a classroom full of kids that are walking, talking cases for retroactive abortion.
So yes, unless the USA actually starts to value what teachers try and do on a daily basis…this country is well and truly doomed.
#35
The assumption that kids can use a computer needs to be forgotten. Kids are growing up with iPads and no family desktop, so I’ve got 13 year olds turning up to class with a shiny new laptop and they don’t know how to create files, save to specific locations, drag and drop, transfer files to another drive or set out a word document.
Gold Monkey 4 hours ago
People thought that giving kids technology would make them technologically proficient. Like, giving every kid a Chromebook would turn every kid into a programmer. But why would it? We all wear clothes, but that doesn't make us fashion designers. Passive use doesn't create experts.
#36
You guys have to understand that it’s not just the reading and writing. The reading and writing is just mentioned to much because it’s a definitive, objective metric.
As a teacher I can also tell you that they’re also terrible people that don’t know how to treat others whatsoever.
#37
Having a Gen Alpha kid, I can definitely say the issue is real. We think it's to do with how the learning process has changed so much from when we were little. The kids aren't taught to memorize their basic math tables (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) which is the foundation for all the other math concepts. I remember having to make our own flash cards in elementary as part of the learning so that for an entire school year we were focused on a particular math type. After seeing my youngest's school lessons over the years, the curriculum tries to cover all the maths all at once, introducing algebra and other concepts so that unfortunately the basics are glossed over instead of being focused on. And all of the other subjects are all over the place too. My school system had vocabulary all the way up through high school with a new word/definition list every week and a quiz every Friday. We learned the parts of speech, how to diagram sentences, synonyms, homonyms and all that. I had an in-law who was a teacher and a darn good one at that, but she was talking to me about the learning program they were introducing and it was more about keeping the kids' interest than really filling their minds with information. I understand wanting to keep the kids' focus but for some stuff you just have to sit down and write stuff out multiple times and ways instead of having dance time.
I will also add that the teachers are also burdened with the administrative side of things, always having to be focused on numbers instead of being able to relax and work with each of their kids. Since the administration pressures the teachers to keep test scores up and to pass every kid, the teachers tend to just do what they can to make sure that happens, again forcing them to artificially bump a kid up when they're not actually ready.
#38
Yes. As an education para, these kids have regressed so much. And they don’t want to learn or to be there. Their parents don’t hold any accountability, and don’t push their kids to learn or to study.
I hate to say it, but I feel like the phones and social media has a lot to do with it. It’s literally rotting their brains. Along with COVID and home classrooms of course. Society and learning slid back so much.
#39
I teach middle school. They can't tell time. They don't know the names or values of coins. Very few know their times tables. If presented with a problem like 20-18, they need to write it down.
Of course they're not all like that, but after 27 years of teaching, the percentage of helpless students is MUCH higher than it used to be.
#40
I am a high school math teacher, this comment will probably be buried under all the "not a teacher, but yes" comments.
When solving anything with call and response...
Me: "and what is 1× __" or "what is 0 × __"
Class: *crickets*
Me: *sigh* "you all have calculators..."
Class: *4 kids pick up the calculator, ask again what I want to know from them, and plug it in. The rest exist in their mental voids.*
They struggle to pass Algebra because they dont have their multiplication tables memorized. They dont know number families. They need to legitimately work hard at GCF/LCM. They can't mentally add and subtract numbers. They can't even fathom long division. Half their parents dont see the value in an education, the other half are too busy on their phones and social media to be any sort of a role model.
Granted, I teach outside of a major city on the east coast in a very transient neighborhood, students come from multiple run down areas to live in ours briefly. The amount of halfway houses in my district is actually insane.
On the other hand, I tutor a 6th grader weekly in a suburb closer to where I live and she gives me so much hope for society. She has a drive to learn, loves long division, can reduce fractions mentally, and all the things my high schoolers mentally quit over. She struggles with spelling and reading, but has made huge strides over the past 2 years and is ahead, again, of many of my high school students.
Parents need to step up. Don't buy them phones or tablets. Read with them. Encourage them to spent large amounts of time outdoors playing. Study and practice mental math with them. Or, guaranteed, they are going to be dumber than you.
#41
High School teacher.
Yes.
Students failing a class is by no means uncommon, it happens and there are supports to help with that.
Students should not be failing because they lack the fundamental skills necessary to survive *high school*. What I mean by that is they are failing classes because they cannot read or write full stop.
Some of the questions I have had alone just this year:
* What does "reverse" mean? I've never seen that word.
* I want to help clean up algay in the ocean.
* This is an example of hyperbowl
Other issues include:
* Students who cannot add basic fractions in high school.
* Students who don't know how to take a note. I mean they literally have nothing in their bag and when I am teaching, they will literally sit there staring at me as if this knowledge will just absorb into them via osmosis.
* Students who are genuinely shocked that I do not allow repeats for assignments I already cannot give deadlines for. In that they will hand in trash to me, I give them the failing grade and then they go "so I can do it again"
* Students take 2 weeks to write *a paragraph* in grade 11 and 12. These are not outliers either, this is the majority.
* Students handing in badly written tasks and asking if I think they will do well on it. I'm genuinely serious in that they are handing in sketches to me that have *none* of my checklisted items on it, I give them a literal checklist to check off their work and they will *still* not do it.
* I have grade 9 students who are *using their finger* to read my assignments.
* I have kids who would struggle reading even *half* of this and *most* would not even read up to this point.
So when I see a question of "is this crisis real" and "how bad is it?"
Yes it is real.
Yes it is bad.
Boomers often joked about how millennials and the next generation would be doomed because we don't know how to do anything.
I have kids that take *3 days* to tighten 2 bolts in auto class. Another teacher had to ban two of his classes from his actual auto shop because they could not pass the safety test.
Why?
Because they literally couldn't understand the question.
We are so colossally doomed in the next 20 years, I cannot even joke. Parents please reinforce with your children to read and write and do basic math.
My job as a teacher is to teach, your job is to reinforce what we do at school through homework and modeling.
Gold Monkey 4 hours ago
I want to know how it could take three days to tighten two bolts. I can only assume it's because they were doing everything but tightening the bolts - or even nothing.
#42
My step-son just graduated high school. He has *never* read a book. Never. Not a single one. Not even Dr. Seuss. Nothing.
Schools never assigned readings and almost every paper he had to "write" was a group project that the team leader would essentially write themselves.
On the other hand, his half-sister started reading a little early, finished all the Harry Potter books by age 8, and loves writing.
It's a combination of lazy parenting and schools not assigning proper reading guidance, IMO. .
What do you think ?
Mark Childers 6 hours ago
I teach at the university level. I see this played out at the college level. Most of my students can barely write and have no spelling/grammar skills. Even my graduate students are bad. I have to post announcements in class about certain words, what they mean, and what to use instead. It doesn't help. It makes me really scared for our futures. Someday these people will be running things and making decisions for us all.
nut nibbler 4 hours ago
Was the movie Idiocracy a documentary as it sure is starting to feel like it.
Mark Childers 6 hours ago
I teach at the university level. I see this played out at the college level. Most of my students can barely write and have no spelling/grammar skills. Even my graduate students are bad. I have to post announcements in class about certain words, what they mean, and what to use instead. It doesn't help. It makes me really scared for our futures. Someday these people will be running things and making decisions for us all.
nut nibbler 4 hours ago
Was the movie Idiocracy a documentary as it sure is starting to feel like it.
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