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“Basically Math Illiterate”: 55 Teachers Reveal Just How Bad Gen Alpha Is Doing
Every generation faces its fair share of advantages and challenges, and that will never change. Currently, a growing number of people are concerned about Generation Alpha, kids born between 2010 and 2024, who appear to be struggling with basic skills in school. Reading, writing, math… It’s not looking good.
Teachers who interact with Gen Alpha students every day spilled the tea about what they’ve personally witnessed in the classroom. And it is so shocking that we’re worried about the future of humanity. Read on for these teachers’ stories from the frontline trenches of education.
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#1
They're all over the map. It's like school is maybe 20% and home life is 80%. There are kids who read 20 books over the summer and maintain a reading list of the classics a mile long. Kids in 5th grade who can discuss politics and current events with fair-minded intelligence. Kids who can play impromptu songs on the saxophone. Kids who finish their math work so fast that you have to find six more things for them to do before class is over.
Then there are kids who break down in tantrums over the least little thing. Those who just say "no" when told to do an assignment. Second-graders who wander around the classroom writing swears on every surface. Kids who purposely kick other kids on the playground then gleefully run away.
You can't say no to the kids. You can't send them to the principal's office. There are no consequences for any of their actions. You either coddle them or you lose whatever imaginary control you have over the classroom. Every single classroom is dragged down by the kids with emotional problems that are impossible to solve.
StrangeOne 13 minutes ago
So, why can't they be disciplined with consequences? Why can't teachers send them to the principal's office? What happened to calls to the parents? Why can't teachers just say NO!? Also, with the way teachers are fed up, it seems like there's no smart, behaved students, at all.
Generation Alpha, which succeeds Gen Z, has been deeply immersed in technology from birth. It’s estimated that, with increases in life expectancy, some members of Gen Alpha are likely to witness the dawn of the 22nd century.
An overdependence on tech, short attention spans, and a lack of interest in learning are all concerns that people have about this generation.
Specifically, what’s seen as very worrying is the relationship that Gen Alpha has with education and learning, and how tech is integrated into both.
Smartphones. Social media. Artificial intelligence. Screen time. It's all a mess.
RELATED:
#2
Just quit my teaching job at a middle school this past year (for health related reasons…mostly). It’s exactly as bad as people are saying it is.
Kids can’t read well, and if they can it’s only short paragraphs. They struggle with basic instructions when they’re written without constant support and repetition. Even in my “honors” classes, the average reading level was at least 1-2 years behind.
Now, I will stress that there were absolutely some phenomenal and very bright students in my classes in recent years. But that number has gone down consistently over the past decade.
Curriculum is being dumbed down at a systemic level to push kids through to graduation.
StrangeOne 9 minutes ago (edited)
Isn't the honor roll for exceptional students? My Global Developmental Delayed kid was a couple years behind reading, put on an education plan, and had modified work. (She reads a lot, and had been read to as infant. So, she tried hard to grind through school.) If students that are supposed to be honor roll material are no sharper than a special needs student, then what the Hell is happening? Has the honor roll expectations been drastically reduced?
#3
Professor here. When I have students read out loud in class, they have trouble with very basic words (latest examples: independence, expectation, agency). When asked to interpret what they’ve read, one student out of 40 can muddle through a cogent response. It’s the worst environment I’ve seen in 30 years.
Roman Arendt 3 hours ago
What does he teach? In what college level class do students read texts out loud? 🤔
“There's been a noticeable shift in student engagement and accountability. Many students today appear apathetic and disconnected from their own learning, and it's not simply a matter of motivation—it's systemic,” teacher Elizabeth McPherson told Newsweek.
“When students learn that minimal effort still yields promotion and that they can be chronically absent without consequence, they stop seeing the value in showing up—mentally or physically.”
Meanwhile, NYT bestselling author and digital creator with a background in teaching, Matt Eicheldinger, noted that commonplace smartphones and social media use have increased the burden on teachers, counselors, social workers, and admin staff.
#4
It’s not just basic reading. It’s learned helplessness. I have kids who simply cannot do anything independently. Attention span is part of it, but a lot if them just can’t do it unless told exactly what to do, and yes, even if the directions are on the paper.
T'Mar of Vulcan 1 hour ago
They don't read the instructions on the paper. They look at the question and try to figure out what to do without reading the instructions. If I give a passage for them to add punctuation to, they just won't fill anything in. It's because there are no lines or clues as to what to do. They will say, "I didn't know I had to do anything." Even if you explain as you're reading through the paper with them, they don't even listen. It's a nightmare. And the GDE expects us to have a 100% pass rate.
#5
Kids don't read. Kids aren't bored so they don't get creative and do hands on things. The schools and parents don't push the kids so they can't handle anything. There are no consequences for failing and thanks to NCLB they move on regardless. They have no critical thinking skills and the attention span of a gnat. You can literally tell them the answer and they can't write it down. The last 5ish years have been hell, they just don't have the basic skills to function.
There's a slow shift towards going back to paper and pen, the schools that have done this have shown drastically better results. I do paper assignments and my kids do better than the kids in classes where it's tech driven.
#6
Kindergarten (6yo) teacher in Thailand here. You can tell which kids read and interact with their parents, and those that are babied or neglected.
At least here, parents have a tendency of giving them screen time for most of their non school time. They rarely read to their kids and hardly have a conversation. Those kids struggle to retain any form of information. Meanwhile the kids who grow up reading as a daily routine with their parents at bedtime pick up our phonics program much faster. This year only 2 of my 10 students finished kg with a full understanding of our basic phonics program and are able to decode. The rest struggle to pronounce vowels and blend two sounds.
Its clear as night and day. The 2 kids that do read also can tell me what their parents do for work and where they are from. They ask questions and are generally curious kids. The other 8 couldnt tell me the what their parents do, and some of them couldnt even tell me what country/city they are from. They dont want to know why fire is hot, they just want to be told it is.
According to McPherson, technology has its upsides, too, not just downsides. On the positive end of the scale, powerful tech gives students unlimited access to knowledge.
“That's a gift. But with that gift comes a cost: instant gratification. And that makes it hard for students to commit to learning processes that are slow, complex, or challenging,” she told Newsweek.
Meanwhile, Eicheldinger pointed out that students are struggling to control their impulses when it comes to tech use. They struggle with trying to play games all the time and find the need to constantly touch their digital devices.
“We had students who would sometimes be on a screen their entire learning day and then go home to 4-5 hours of additional recreational screen time.”
#7
I’m not a teacher personally but I have a couple in my family - my sister teaches elementary/middle school and my father teaches high school. It is BAD. As a fun (scary) game, my sister will show me assignments from her students and I try to guess what age they are. The handwriting and spelling skills that you’d expect from a 6 year old are now how 10 year olds write. They simply can’t do math. Some of the older elementary schoolers can’t add single-digit numbers. Among the high schoolers, they often just flat out refuse to do assignments. Too many big words? They just say they won’t do it. They sleep and vape in class.
Its the parents and people in charge’s fault. EVERYTHING is done on Chromebooks so they genuinely never develop writing skills. In the middle schools, on the rare occasion that they have to read a book, they’re given an audiobook option in case actually reading feels like too much work.
No child left behind means that kids who are a year behind in learning development are still pushed onto the next grade. My dad literally isn’t allowed to fail kids - if they refuse to do an assignment, they still get a 55. When they email parents about their kids’ situations, the parents either say its the teacher’s fault or that they’re too overworked to deal with it and it isn’t their problem. And the state requires so much standardized testing that they’re forced to spend much of the year doing test prep and don’t have time to actually tailor the curriculum to the kids’ needs.
The students are, frankly, incredibly lazy, bordering on illiterate, and do not care. But that’s a result of the environment they’re in now.
#8
College professor, so I get these students four years downstream, and the answer is yes, but the specific deficit surprises people. It's not intelligence and it's not even knowledge exactly. It's stamina: the ability to stay inside a hard problem for twenty unassisted minutes. Every friction point in their entire information environment has been optimized away, and now the deliverable itself can be generated on demand. So the muscle that grows during "this is hard and no one is helping me yet" never develops.
What it looks like concretely: students who can produce a polished essay overnight but can't summarize it aloud the next morning. The polish is up, the ownership is down. And the fix every teacher I know is converging on is the same: make the live, unassisted moment the thing that counts, because it's the only thing left that can't be outsourced.
#9
My boyfriend works at an after school program. He is in charge of the 9-10 year olds. The other day he put out board games for them all to play such as hungry hungry hippo, sorry, and twister. He left to do something quickly and when he came back they were all sat there doing nothing. He asked what was wrong and they all replied they didn’t know how to read the instructions and couldn’t understand them. Theres been times when kids will ask him how to spell cat. He’s beyond concerned for these kids.
“We need to bring back accountability. We have to rethink the curriculum and how we deliver it. This generation is different, so the same strategies from decades ago simply don't work anymore. We need more hands-on, student-centered learning experiences—projects, discussions, simulations, real-world applications,” McPherson said.
"It's not about abandoning tradition—it's about adapting it. We need to be willing to reimagine what school looks like. And that reimagination should start with the people who are in the classroom every day—teachers—and the people we serve—our students.”
#10
I’m not exactly a teacher, but I work with kids - recently 6-8th graders were tasked with creating presentations for an idea that they were to present to a company, and I had several of them ask me how to spell basic words such as “people”, “area” and “want”, the latter of which they’d already spelled “whant”. The kicker was when one of them asked me how to spell “such as”, and was surprised to learn that it was two words. 6-8th graders. Almost high school aged.
And it wasn’t just one or two that may be struggling with dyslexia or other learning disabilities - it was all of them. Scary and sad stuff.
#11
Yes.
They refuse to Think.
I've literally had kids in my class not doing any work. When I asked them why, they said, "I don't have a pencil." I reminded them that I gave them one when I handed out the assignment, and they said, "But I don't have one."
I asked them to see if maybe they lost it. Again, no. I told them to look around their desk. Lo and behold, the pencil was 6 inches from their shoe in the aisle.
This is not a one off. I ALWAYS hand out pencils/ supplies with the assignment. EVERY DAY. Multiple kids, so so many times, choose not to do basic problem solving skills. It's mind boggling.
T'Mar of Vulcan 1 hour ago
And they will wait the whole lesson and do nothing if you don't walk around and check all 40 learners. Sometimes we are given admin tasks to do that can't wait, and you give the kids the work and dive into the admin. When that's done and you go around and check, some kids have nothing done. Why not? "I didn't have a pen." They didn't ask for one. They didn't borrow one. They just sat there doing nothing.
#12
Not a teacher, but I work in higher education. We haven't gotten to Gen Alpha just yet, but OMG the younger Gen Z kids are in bad shape. They cannot follow verbal **or** written instructions. If an email is more than 4 sentences long they will not read any of it, and they require a lot of hand holding because of this. If it's longer than a reel, it won't hold their attention, and the lack of understanding of consequences (like missing deadlines) is infuriating.
What’s your experience with Gen Alpha kids, Pandas? What are the biggest strengths and weaknesses that you personally believe this generation has?
Meanwhile, what do you think the older generations struggled with the most when they were young?
Whether you work in education or not, we’d like to hear your insights. Share yours in the comments when you’ve finished reading these teachers’ tales.
#13
I work with kids as a 1 on 1 and its astonishing to be how bad it is and how dependent on technology kids are. They can sit and watch the most mind numbing things but as soon as I ask them to do anything, any small amount of work its a melt down. A tantrum. Most don't know how to spell their name or write on the lines.
#14
There’s a few main issues. One, they were effectively instructed to memorize words instead of learning phonics. Yeah, there’s a few words that you have to memorize how to say because they don’t follow rules, but learning the rules of reading also includes breaking the words down into parts and relating them. Phonics is making a comeback, so that part should swing back soon. The other part is that many parents aren’t reading with their kids at night, and kids are reading on their own less in general. This is a skill that needs to be reinforced, and will not improve by itself with just school time. Writing has similar issues, but physically no one writes anymore so that motor skill is not trained. In terms of the quality, a lot stems from the reading issues, as well as now AI being used (and in some places encouraged) to do writing. Not gonna begin to touch that. I was in high school barely over a decade ago, we used to write essays with no prep and manage to get it done. Now we have students who struggle to get to a paragraph.
Math is the worst. The approaches taken in explaining how numbers work was messed up for a while, and whereas memorizing may not be good for reading, doing so for things like times tables is very helpful. More importantly, theres no “number sense” and just panic anytime there’s numbers involved. Theres no “yeah that’s about right” and then doing the work to get it exact. I had a student put 1+0 into a calculator this year because they panicked anytime numbers were around. Math has always been an issue, but never like this. There’s no concept of how to approach any type of problem, it’s always a “let’s throw everything at the wall and maybe something will stick”.
Theres a LOT of work that needs to happen. We are passing kids through because the worst thing possible would be to keep them back, apparently. But they are failing and still graduating where they are functionally illiterate and can’t do basic math. It needs to start very early on, we need to hold kids back who can’t read or do math on grade level, like second or third grade, and not worry about hurting their feelings or what the parents would think or whatever.
#15
Even in grad school, most students won't read a single article. Even when lectures are recorded for their benefit (they can even watch them at higher speed), they will still not watch the lectures. At best, they just want to learn the minimum to get a job. But, they rarely even meet those standards. They're paying $6500 per course and they barely work at learning.
#16
In grad school working as a TA rn. I’ll pose questions to the undergrads and they try and turn the question around, reword it, or just completely misunderstand the question because they haven’t done the reading nor paid attention in class.
Some of them openly challenge the textbook/disagree with it and called the professor a quack (he is the head of the department and working on his own textbook) and it’s genuinely so disturbing.
I asked them how they decide who is an expert and they also spoke about who is right the most or watching over time etc and not one of them said because of credentials or a PhD. That may not seem egregious but they had been dismissing some of the textbooks authors 50+ year long niche careers, countless foundational research contributions, and scientific innovations, while in a university level science course.
They framed everything as left vs right politically and while it’s great they’re looking to be politically engaged, this particular area of study has far greater nuance than this framing, and to paint the theory we’re learning and it’s experts as black and white or always up for debate hurt to hear.
One of my professors says it’s learned thoughtlessness. Ugh
Edit; after reading many comments I want to add that I believe this issue has roots in the fact that being an active engaged parent isn’t common. People just want to shut up their kids and go back to their phones/tablets themselves and disconnect from the very scary reality of the world right now. Plus with the pushback for birth control and all the right wing bills and propaganda against education….ugh. I’m scared to see the direction of the workforce and job market. It’s already so different from how it used to be. Degrees and training used to mean something. Now a bachelors is barely enough for an entry level job, but the price keeps going up. We need things to change.
Pawsome 15 minutes ago
In a genomics class, one of my classmates kept debating what the professor was talking about because she thought that it was racist. There are genetic differences between ethnicities, what a shock! It was even more infuriating because the professor was talking about how to cater medicine - that is diagnosis criteria, treatments and preventive measures - to both ethnicity and environmental factors. It's highly important and there are big biases. She's white as well, so it was particularly annoying seeing her act like she was protecting people of color (of which we were several in that class) while actively pushing back against the very things that could make a long term change. Talking about ethnic differences is not the same as racism.
#17
Teacher for German high-school here (Gymnasium). For me it really is not the reading, writing or math skills. While orthography is horrendous, it's been that way with young children for a while now. The main issue is the inability to deal with problems. Solving a task with some unknown components. Figuring out a way to a solution. Things like this. I've always liked to do projects across multiple lessons where "researching" parts of the solution was necessary. Nowadays I'll put a wiki next to the project tasks from which they are to extract those things they are to research. It helps a lot, but some students are still unable to grasp the idea of "i don't know, so I'll figure it out" and just give up.
#18
High school teacher here. The oldest Gen Alphas are sophomores and (younger) juniors now, and full disclosure I just finished a year with the worst junior class I’ve ever taught. I agree with a lot of what people are saying in this thread, but the biggest shock for me is something no one else is saying: **how transactional everything has become.**
First, the number of kids who just refused to work and then expected me to figure something out. Students who don't want to work have always existed, but this felt different. It wasn't just laziness, bad time management, or hating school. **It almost felt like I had a lot of students on strike from doing their work.** I'd give out the assignment and then they’d sit back with their hands behind their heads, basically daring me to make them do it. It didn’t matter if the assignment was easy, engaging, or "meaningful"; there was a persistent percentage of the class that just refused to even participate.
When I tried to address it, the dynamic felt like I was a boss meeting with a union leader for contract negotiations. It became incredibly common for them to pitch me "compromises": they’d agree to do one small part of an assignment but expect full credit, or they’d tell me they were taking a break to game for 10 minutes but would "get back to me" after. I remember one pair of girls who regularly sat for *40 minutes* doing absolutely nothing, just waiting to see if I’d "make an offer" to get them moving. And they really sat there doing nothing, occasionally glancing over at me with their hands folded on the desk. When I did speak to them, it was to complain and make demands: sometimes they didn't like the questions I asked on the paper and wanted new ones or maybe they timed me speaking for 7 minutes when I said I would only take 5 and now I owe them that time back.
**Even discipline became transactional.** When I gave a detention, instead of just getting mad or trying to weasel out of it, they’d pull out an encyclopedic "memory" of the school handbook. They were constantly throwing darts at the wall, looking for any loophole to justify why the rules didn't apply to them. There was a lot of tit for tat trying to find the angle to get the kid to do what I wanted them to do but make them feel like I was giving them a special deal. I was flexing my brain every single day having to think like a lawyer while still teaching these kids *and* acting like they're babysitter. Because not only were they making these demands or requests of me constantly, but they were still way academically lower than they should be and their behavior was atrocious on top of it.
And of course, I've questioned if this was just a result of my teaching style or just having bad assignments, but after talking to colleagues, it’s clear they are seeing the exact same thing. And now I'm going to be teaching some of these kids next year (and teaching freshman again, which makes me want to smash my head into a wall) really worrying about all of the little things I need to tighten up, change the language of, or do to just build up barriers of protection around myself. Because the other issue that has come along is now also having to deal with guidance, administration, special ed, and the families holding water for these kids, playing defense over the kind of things that was never ever a consideration before they came along. I've never gotten so many emails or phone calls asking me to change grades, modify assignments, or take back consequences. I guess in some respects it's making me a better teacher, but this is not what I signed up for. And I do wonder what exactly went on in these kids' lives before they got to high school that produced this attitude of everything getting to be debatable or flexible for them.
#19
Yes, but what’s more concerning to me as a Gen Z teacher is the lack of independence. They will shut down if their hand is not held through every step. If I say I’m not going to help and I want them to try and figure it out on their own, some will cry. 14 year olds crying.
The TikTok sound stimming is also crazy. Kids SCREAM in the classroom. Yes, we were loud as kids, but would never scream. Just constant TikTok sounds on loop while they’re working. “We are Charlie Kirrrrkkkk” “FAAAAAHHH” “Oh heeeelll nooooo” “Tung tung tung tung tung tung” neverending… neverending. .
#20
They can’t finish their times tables. many of them give up. even after finishing more than half of it. “i forgot the rest”
some can finish within 10+ minutes.
a bit more in 5+ minutes.
My own PR is like 1m56sec as an adult math teacher. a few kids can do it in 2+ minutes.
I have a lot of friends from a lot of different backgrounds. Being able to complete the times tables (or even doing multiplication sprint sheets) was something we got actively trained in. I teach 10th grade and by the time they get to me, a lot of them cannot complete their times tables. It’s crazy to me but I try to teach them the pythagorean theorem and the quadratic formula anyways (while trying to improve their mental math skills). .
#21
Teacher in New Zealand here, and an older gen Z myself. It's quite bad. I have kids who can't pronounce words they should, and many more who can't / won't read even a paragraph let alone comprehend it. Most of my class complains that writing two sentences is 'too much' and a shocking amount can't read an analogue clock (I teach high school).
There's still some high flyers out there and the main difference is that their parents limit screen time and encourage reading.
#22
40+ went back to college to change career fields. New state didn’t accept my transfer credits for “reasons”. Had to retake English 101, a class I took over 20 years ago. Due to late registration had to take one of the very few offered “in-person” classes. Started with 30 students. By 6th week it was 12 of us. Of that 12, only 6 passed the class. The professor and I were same age and chatted during officer hours candidly. I felt awful. They were a great teacher. Attentive. Patient. And it was def less difficult than my class 20 years ago, not just because of my age and knowledge. No paper was longer than 2 pages. Any “test” was open book and open note. We spent 2 weeks on using a commas and semi colons. This was a college class. I learned those basics before high school. My English 101 20+ years ago expected you to know those concepts. My final was a 10 page paper with cited sources. My final this year was three pages, and content was only 10% of the grade. The rest was sentence structure, paragraph structure and punctuation. Higher education is now 6th grade English. I would have been shocked. But I spent 20 years in the military. The youngest kids coming in were the dumbest people I’ve ever met. Zero problem solving skills. On top of that, learned helplessness to a degree I’ve never seen. If there isn’t a YouTube tutorial on exactly how to accomplish a task, they literally just wouldn’t do it, and then complain I didn’t teach them. This is after skills training where they were taught how to do those things. I fear for the human race.
#23
It is significantly worse than that.
There is a small, but growing group of students who have basically surrendered anything that even approaches cognition to LLMs.
Were talking kids asking chatgpt how they feel about their morning.
It is only going to get worse.
Kira Okah 39 minutes ago
I read an article last night that this reminded me of: Anthropic destroying 2 million+ rare and unique (1 of 1 copy) books as part of a copyright dodging loophole, to create a private library for the exclusive use of training their LLM. The method used to scan the books resulted in the destruction of every book.
#24
Even when I was in college around 2016, I’ll never forget an exam answer key getting leaked in our class group chat for a midterm in a 300 level financial analysis class. I never trusted stuff like that so I fact checked it and realized most of the answers were wrong. Even texted our group chat to say so. The answers were wrong and most of the class bombed the midterm. They all still passed with me.
#25
High School English Teacher. 14 years experience. Teaching 12-18 year olds.
The major issues I've seen appearing have been
- dramatically reduced attention spans, particularly when watching films or longer reading. Eg the film Holes is studied and it's a slog getting students to pay attention and retrain what they watched.
- spelling remains consistent however grammar and punctuation has gotten worse. Run on and fragment sentences galore.
- having empathy for characters is slower to develop. I would normally see it in 80% of the class by year 9 now it's year 10 onwards the majority of students understand character motivation and empathy at any decent level.
- a decline in problem solving, not when applied to complex problems but general trouble shooting or finding a solution to small issues. It's almost a base level learned helplessness.
- a decline in personal responsibility eg homework in on time, remembering the correct items. Typically these issues disappear in senior years but still remain.
- rise of right wing extremism in general conversation and discussion. Asking for their evidence beyond trust me bro works in making them question their beliefs.
It's not that they can't read. It's a much more complex issue. I have also found a lack of basic domestic skills from families. Such as fixing small tears or lost buttons on uniforms, getting stains out of uniforms, cleaning shoes or belongings. In the early 2000s as a older teen I was responsible for my school uniform and I just don't see that now.
#26
It looks like students using ChatGPT for even the most basic assignments. Even asking them to do something personal and creative gets me AI generated answers.
#27
Director of a program that hosts young school age children up to third grade in the summer here.
12 of the 22 children enrolled in the school age classroom have learning challenges, half of which with formal IEPs and half that are apparent yet not officially represented in a learning plan.
The handwriting and general early literacy skills of these children are atrocious and frightening. 3rd graders who cannot reliably spell simple CVC words or basic, first 100 HF (high frequency) words are shockingly common. Very few of them are able to read basic, beginner chapter books such as Henry and Mudge, Frog and Toad or Amelia Bedelia, etc.. General fine motor skills and problem solving skills are also wanting in many of them. Some of these children struggle to focus to complete simple board games or learn and retain the rules of games they enjoy but need a lot of adult support to successfully play.
Not to bemoan how things "used to be" but I distinctly remember our final spelling test in first grade included words like "elephant" and "giraffe" and we were expected to recognize and write most foundational high frequency words (we had parents who came in to help us write little stories of our own in a writer's workshop type set up that got put in the classroom library) and the teacher regularly read books with complex vocabulary (his favorite word was "pandemonium"). We were taught to check out and return our own books at the school library, memorize our lunch code and bus number and color card (#264, Magenta) among so many other things.
The younger generation is not inherently less capable though. The children in the school age room love hearing complex chapter books and understand the storyline well. They are imaginative and creative but often dont know how to express themselves. They are empathetic and much more inclined to include and not judge other children. Something has changed and it is holding children back from learning critical capacities to be lifelong learners and to enjoy learning and reveling in pushing their abilities to the next level.
Roberta Surprenant 3 hours ago
My mother taught her 1st grade students to spell hippopotamus back in late 60's early 70's
#28
If a math problem requires more than two steps, 80% of the class just completely blanks out.
#29
Middle school math tutor via government program.
Granted I tutor low performers provided by the school, I have students that vary in proficiency. Here's a non-exhaustive list of things I've encountered over the past 6 months alone:
Some students dont know numbers past 10.
Use their fingers to count and for operations (not a huge problem but also kinda shows that they're unable to process it mentally)
Cannot do any operation involving 2 double digit numbers or higher
Some think that x = is a constant, being the same number for different problems
Not knowing 1-10 multiples
Struggle to solve expressions when the variable is given (ex: (4x + 24)/11, x = 5)
Word problems scare them (fair)
Anything involving linear equations and quadratics (y=mx+b, y=x², etc.)
I can go on...
#30
I’m a former daycare teacher, it starts young. 4/5 year olds hated story time and hated “reading” even more.
#31
My wife as a teacher.
1) Yes, kids struggle with basic literacy
2) it was a problem 10 years ago as well, just ignored
3) the issue is now hitting high school graduation ages so it’s coming into focus now
4) everyone is at fault. Bad parents, bad teachers, bad policy, bad leadership
It’s societal more than anything, we’ve let standards drop to appease the dumb and then are upset when we see the impacts.
#32
What is so interesting about this is that it’s entirely an American problem. I’m an American living in France, and the kids here are into everything and very independent. School and after-school activities are intense where I live in the Alps. These kids are skiing and rock-climbing and learning other languages and taking art and music classes. Activities are cheap and expected, I’m talking €10 for 6 months of art classes. Devices are scarce, and even when kids have them, the culture prevents long screen times. French people are very social. In 5 years across multiple cities, I have yet to see a kid with a device in a restaurant.
The U.S. is doing something very wrong culturally, and I hope we figure out what it is soon.
T'Mar of Vulcan 1 hour ago
It's not just a U.S. problem. We have these exact same problems in South Africa (at least, in government schools, where I've worked for my 30+ year teaching career).
#33
Been teaching in Japan for nearly 20 years and kids over here seem to be doing fine. They can normally read and write fine in 4 different alphabets. Basic skills like reading, writing and math are very high.
On the flip side critical thinking skills are somewhat lacking.
#34
My friend has many 6th grade students that can’t read. Couple that with just putting your name on an assignment (and not doing any of it) is an automatic 55%. Oh yeah, and everyone passes.
#35
I teach AP Lang and AP Lit, and even at those levels, the level of reading and writing is much lower than it used to be. There’s almost a complete lack of engagement in reading. Any kind writing isn’t any better. The problem I see most is that students don’t see the value in doing something unless it has a direct, instant correlation. So, learning to write a résumé makes a lot of sense to them, but reading a novel and really experiencing it, taking it in, broadening their view on life, etc. has very little value to them because they don’t see an instant benefit.
#36
I’m back in college as a 41 year old and I’m doing a summer literature course right now. We have weekly discussion boards and last week the average grade was 2.6/10 because 90% of the class didn’t read the directions. We had to pick a specific prompt to respond to and most just wrote about the lecture generally. The prompt involved quoting a passage from the weekly readings and writing 100-150 words about it; the class is not difficult at all.
Not being able to follow basic instructions has been a consistent problem with my younger classmates.
These are Gen Z kids, I imagine the problem is much worse with Gen Alpha.
#37
My wife is the head of the math department in her high school and she says the number of kids coming out of elementary school that are basically math illiterate is astounding.
#38
Yes. it's a combination of so many factors - bad curriculum, inability to fail, standardized testing, large class sizes, lack of parental involvement, phones/tablets. everyone wanted to blame covid but i started my internship in 2019 and my first day in a 4th grade classroom i was FLOORED by how these kids don't know how to read or write (and this was the best school in a large county). covid definitely made it worse for a couple years, but the kids got back to "normal" after about 2 years back in person. it's just that "normal" now is abysmally low. i have completely average 4th and 5th grade students who are unable to spell most everyday vocabulary words, unable to sound out unfamiliar words, and frequently write sentences that are missing words or make no sense. i teach the arts. i have largely given up on assigning written responses longer than 1-2 sentences because so many kids will take 10 minutes and give me something illegible/unreadable.
#39
Was on the tube the other day with a lot of 15-20 year olds. We had all just left a concert so there was no reliable WiFi and phones were low on battery.
No one could read the tube map. No one.
When I started giving people directions (I’m local and I love maps) people couldn’t follow more than two steps.
It’s terrifying how little people can do on their own now. .
#40
I tutor privately. I'm not seeing that. What I am seeing is a large enthusiasm gap between boys and girls. I might have a girl who is okay at math, but who is studious and follows directions unquestioningly and so gets good grades. And then I'll have a boy student with greater natural ability but zero interest in putting more than the minimal energy or effort in. I see that pattern over and over.
#41
Teacher here in Europe:
Reading is not bad, but the ability to read longer parts takes a lot more work. Reading 5 pages can seem like a huge struggle. (well, for me as well... I used to be getter at it!)
Writing suffers a lot from the "I just paste into AI"
Kids are not stupid, but they need help to learn to focus. Its a bigger challenge in classes as science and masth where you sometimes need to failæ a few times before you get the concepts.
That said, practical teaching (experiments) and doing things without screens WORKS!
I have done a math class for year with no computers. The kids were frustrated in the beginning, but then they started getting results. And drawing on paper and working on paper ended up really upping their math skills a lot!
#42
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.
#43
Children have been allowed to be 'unintentionally distracted'. Parents want to do something such as drive, eat, or talk to each other. So they give the toddler a device to watch. The child has learnt the equivalent of zoning out. Now try and break that learned behaviour.
Young children with devices don't ask their parents "what, why, how". They look it up and believe what they read. A third party (strangers) becomes the trusted source of knowledge. Adults are no longer the role model, the internet is.
Lazy parents, you created this. Now let's see you find a fix. If not, your children will be of very little value to you as you age.
#44
I've said this a lot, but I will say it here too. I think the fact that kids don't have to watch only what "is on" is doing them a disservice. I learned a lot from educational TV growing up. I had no control over what was on TV. One day it might show me how an airplane works. Another day it might be a documentary on different types of glue (yes I saw that, seriously). Nowadays, you search for whatever you are already interested in and the algorithm reinforces that. You don't see as many different things. On YouTube you need to know what you are looking for before you can find it. Therefore, you are exposed to fewer new things.
I was born in 1980 for reference. I'm old. Now get off my lawn, you punks!
#45
My 15 year old daughter reads over a 50 books a year. This is a parenting problem, not a kid problem. We're choosing to let them spend time in screens.
#46
English Teacher at a Sydney public school- I have started teaching since 2018 and I have noticed its gone worse, like reading and comprehending short one page texts is too much for them, like we need break them down into paragraphs just so its easier to comprehend what they are reading. Also with their writing, we have given students heavily guided scaffolds with sentence starters and examples but it seems its too much for them. I actually get worried how kids are going to be in the next 5 years.
#47
I am not a teacher but I am a parent of a child going into second grade. My daughter has always had clear boundaries of right vs. wrong, we are working on feelings constantly, and she loves to learn. Now I graduated from high school in 2007 so maybe my memory is a little bit rusty but the amount of little treats and prizes she gets from school are insane. Every week in Kindy and 1st grade she brought home something or told me how she got to sit at a special table during lunch where she and just a few other kids were given popsicles. I completely get where the teachers are coming from.. Reward the good kids and hopefully it will push others to get in line but it really is quite shocking just how many special things she gets. I feel like teachers are at their witts end trying to make the classroom run as smoothly as possible.
#48
Former behavior support assistant, it looks like societal pressures, more divorces, less availability of parents/guardians for kids that need it, less school resources, revolving doors from budgeting and causing some kiddos who need lots of behavior support to need more support and it can impact an entire class room.
There were alot of rooms that needed to be cleared, and classrooms communicated to about social emotional learning. I don't remember that level of need for social emotional learning from a councilor weekly in multiple classes at all in my K-12. It feels like it takes more time to get some kiddos basic needs met and regulated that some of their academic needs realistically won't get met. All while class rooms get bigger, and resources don't keep up with the times or the needs. I have definitely worked with middle schoolers who can't spell or write basic sentences. There is that and tech feels more like a long term wheelchair than temporary assistance to academic growth for most students who need it.
I remember a elementary student who wouldn't sleep sometimes due to being on screens late, not talk to adults when they were emotional unregulated (often from sleep). The kiddo enjoyed tech so much that he wanted to make a game. I've been playing all sorts of games with varying levels of creativity. That student made a game that was a digital storefront to get students to click more to get more points and spend more time on the screen. It felt two steps away from making a whole game that was just loot boxes and more screen engagement. There were a spectrum of student needs that were similar. I worry the skills that tech are bringing are so latently not in student academic interest and so in the interest in making forever customers, that students will not have the same ability to exist or adapt outside of the digital sandboxes they grow up in as previous generations.
#49
I have to teach kids how to read an analog clock on the regular.
I work with high schoolers.
#50
K12 SysAd here, it's unbelievable how bad it is. iPad generation. I've been adamantly pushing no screens in DK/K/1st and limited screen time in 2nd-8th. A shocking percentage of parents give iPad's to kids at bewilderingly young ages just to pacify them. We've followed that up by making their entire curriculum app-based like Moose-Math, Teachme kindergarten/1st grade, tiktok time, geoboard, and so many other things that should be taught in the physical space. We've completely abandoned the "phonics" style reading and writing method. Don't just generalize kids right now, I play Magic Cards with people in their 20's and 30's and 90% of them can't clearly sight read their cards aloud. It's shocking how illiterate we collectively are. And that's coming from Me; my written grammar is abhorrent and I'm not a certified educator.
T'Mar of Vulcan 1 hour ago
During a MEETING, one of my colleagues (we're a primary school - Gr R to 7) brought her daughter (about 4 years old), put her on her lap and let her play videos on her phone. During a STAFF MEETING. Eventually I said, "Please can you turn the phone down, it's really distracting and I can't follow what's being said." Then she suddenly seemed to get it and took the phone away. After 15 minutes of loud noise during which NO ONE ELSE said a word. And yes, I was the oldest person in the meeting.
#51
Obligatory 'not a teacher but' I am a Girl Guide leader for the past 4 years.
I saw the helplessness people have talked about first hand. It is BAD.
At camp, with girls 10-12:
"I want a peanut butter and jam sandwich. "
'Okay, go ahead and make one, there is the stuff.'
"I don't know how. "
'Have you had a sandwich before ? What did it look like ? Try to re-create that.'
I then proceeded to watch as this girl, 11, sloooooowly worked out what steps she needed to do to take bread, peanut butter and jam.... and turn that into a pb&j. Props to her, she did it.... but my gawd did it make me wanna scream, or do it for her, neither of which would be helpful.
And I fully admit, it is easier with other peoples children. If it were my own kid, I would have been MORE tempted to just make the sandwich myself.
This also carried over to many other tasks: " I don't know how to wash dishes. I don't know how to find my own sleeping bag. I don't know where my mom packed my pajamas."
Our first couple camps were hard, but now, the girls that have been there a while get it, and the new ones catch on from the senior girls.
So, there is hope. Keep pushing these kids, they are still smart, they just need to be MADE to think.
#52
Not a teacher but I had given training to some GenZ's the other day: 3 out of 7 of them only used one hand to type on a keyboard with their other hand just rested on their lap/phones. I have noticed this over the last few years and have to actively say "lets use both our hands cmon now" because its just so common.
#53
I teach university students. Frankly the biggest issue for me are their human skills. One of them told me she didn't submit her homework because she didn't know how to do it. Why the hell do you think I assigned that homework?? On the bright side, I've met kids 4 years younger than this batch and they're actually great so I have a bit of hope for the future.
#54
I think the whole "Gen Alpha can't read or write" thing is being blown way out of proportion.
I'm a university professor, so there could be some survivorship bias here since students who can't read or write don't make it to university. That said, my last batch of students didn't perform any worse from the ones I taught when I first started back in 2010.
I technically haven't taught Gen Alpha yet, but I've taught students who are only a few years older. I don't see any reason how things could have changed that drastically in such a short time.
And if you're talking about the youngest Gen Alpha kids, well ya, they're only two or three years old.
#55
High school math and physics here. I will answer with a resounding...kinda.
The top end kids are better than they've ever been. Society will have plenty of doctors and engineers going forward.
The middle-of-the-road kids have less desire to sit with confusion than before, relying mainly on AI and Photomath to do most of their work for them.
The idiots have always been idiots. That has not and will never change.
As far as basic skills go, most seem fine to me. And I don't teach in an affluent area. My kids are all rednecks.
What do you think ?
Kelly Scott 4 hours ago
I hope all these poor stupid students have rich parents. Because they'll be living with those parents the rest of their lives. But hey, with kids this dumb, that's just more opportunity for the ones who aren't.
Kelly Scott 4 hours ago
I hope all these poor stupid students have rich parents. Because they'll be living with those parents the rest of their lives. But hey, with kids this dumb, that's just more opportunity for the ones who aren't.
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