30 Teachers Share The Main Differences Between Students Then And Now

I think it's more than this, though, at least in the US. I grew up with commercials teaching that a healthy breakfast was a bowl of sugary cereal in milk, two slices of white toast, and a cup of orange juice. We were taught to eat "grains" in the form of bread or pasta at every meal. Fat was bad, but a sugar-coated pastry for breakfast was good. Soda was and remains the primary drink. Those of us inundated with these ideas are now parents and grandparents passing on this same faulty nutrition to our kids and grandkids. We need to dramatically alter the American idea of nutrition and get our children off the massive amounts of sugar and empty carbs.

Please try not to judge parents with kids using iPads at restaurants. My youngest is special needs and gets overwhelmed in social settings very easily. He does best when he can focus on one thing and block out everything else. So he wears his headphones and watches his tablet while he eats. We still interact with him, but it lets him center himself. Thing is, he doesn't "look" special needs, so people judge us as parents for it. Well they'd judge even harder if we didn't give him this tool and he melted down in every restaurant we go to as well. So it feels like we just can't win. He's incredibly smart, he can read at his age level, and he can be bored just fine. It's his surroundings that overwhelm him. And he struggles socially, but we are working on that. So please cut us some slack, you have no idea what's really going on in our lives.

I recently read a thing that being bored is actually essential, as it develops and stimulates creativity and allows one to better understand themselves and thus to have better emotional intelligence. Telling kids to get cleaning when they say they're bored isn't as bad as giving them the tablet when they start screaming, but it's still bad.

All of My thinking… Simply Can’t get that Why🤦🏼‍♀️ The Kids are sitting with IPads when I’m out eating. Where did the Crayons & Paper go… U could sit & talk with the Kid at the same time…. It’s like Kids are a disturbing now! So that They have to be sat On Hold!! See,Not Heard!! In so many ways Cause Mummy & Daddy are busy with There Big Life On There Screens & Social Life On Internet… Jobs with Giant No Home time… Fitness so Ego Can look good… Socialising with friends… The List is Long. I see so much from when My son was born (24 yrs) that are completly chocking just SAD & Heartbraking for the Kids & Future,Cause its like Parents today just don’t care….

My daughter asks for my phone when we are waiting for our meal at a restaurant so that she can play a game WITH me. We take turns playing while the other person watches, and talk about the game as we go. Really makes the time pass faster.

So True! I was a server as second job, and we would always give the kids the kiddie menu, with crayons. They never touched it, just wanted the mom's phone or the i-pad. Made me sad, I have fond memories of going to eat dinner with my kids, and playing the games on the kiddie menu with them.... way to much technology for kids that are way too young.

[Not so] humble brag about your kids huh

So if a 2 year old starts screaming at a restaurant and ruining everyone's experience, they should all just expect the 2yo to deal with the boredom? Maybe the parents go out once every few months and don't want a nightmare for other people, but they will be judged by wankers like you no matter what.

No they don't. I know of families who have never had a book in the house.

Kudos to you! My Mom was a librarian, so it was natural for her to read to my sisters and myself every night. I really believe that this makes a huge difference in language skills and encourages kids to read themselves once they have the skill set.

Same here. I read to my 18-months-old twins every day at least a few minutes before we go to daycare (up to a half hour when they wake up early enough), I leave them with a heap of books when I take a shower and return to them sitting in the armchair in their room, side by side, each with a book in hand. They know their stuff. E.g. they know a goose from a duck, though they can't say either but make the sounds, they speak some two-word sentences and some two-syllable words, they correct their pronunciation when you repeat a word back at them correctly - not always, of course, but I haven't seen that with any of our friends' children. In public, they often just watch and "comment" what's happening, since I give a running commentary, too, for example "See, that's a pigeon's call. Now here comes a bike. Look at those flowers, those will turn into blackberries soon." I still have my phone in hand, often, but I also got books on there, so...

Most used to. Not so much anymore

When I was a kid (1960's) each of us was encouraged to talk about our days plus our parents would talk about theirs. Plus TV was off. I haunted the local Library and talked to adults all the time (was hyperlexic). Guess that helped. Pity that kids today aren't talking as much. As so often, the parents don't see themselves as part of or more, the source of the problem. Young kids don't need a phone or IPad - stop using it for babysitting!

Yeah, but previously, TV time had to end whenever you left the house. If you were not at home or at someone's else's home, you could not be watching TV. Now you can watch TV literally anywhere, anytime. And people do. Not saying I'm any better. Just last night I was watching old Reno 911 episodes while walking the dog. Seriously. I was really into it and didn't want to stop, but the dog really needed a walk. So I took TV with me. Just because I could.

Even watching TV you're still seeing people interact, you're still hearing words. Maybe that's the difference??? It's better than nothing perhaps... No real idea, just a suggestion!! 🤷

Yeah, I was born in the early 90s, and my family rarely talked during dinner (if we did, we often argued, since I had 4 siblings), because we all would have assorted books lying open next to our plates. It's different now, because we're visiting and WANT to talk to our parents, but believe me, teenage me (or my siblings) would have found any way to not talk at the table.

No. In Denmark parents did not talk more with their kids in the 1970-1980s. Actually the state had a campaign named " have you talked to your kids today" to remind parents to talk more to their kids. However we talkee a lot with our friends whom we played with outside all day. Kids do no do that anymore.

I am so glad too. At least in my school in the 90s it was fashionable for women to come out but not men. One of my best friends came to school in drag on Halloween and got beaten up pretty bad. He eventually unalived himself. I also had another best friend who did not feel comfortable to come out until after high school.

The last three kinda end it with a negative note.

I found 2 good things: 1) Less homophobia (tolerating others) 2) Bullying is less acceptable I found 5 less desirable outcomes: 1) Harder to solve problems (it's not on wiki, I'm lost vs. Being patient enough to read a book or fundamental philosophy/curiosity) 2) Socially unpracticed 3) Entitlement 4) Throwing around bullying and homophobia too easily. Am I way off here?

Big time! Homophobes for instance SHOULD keep their absolute cràp to themselves, they SHOULD know to be ashamed of it and they SHOULD suffer social consequences for it. Damned foolishness.

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Uhm, no? Read again... and these are the main reasons I have given up becoming a teacher, to begin with. There are some positive points here, yes... but overshadowed by the negatives greatly.

Hmm. The rest of the south consider Alabama as inbred. You'd think that they'd work on changing that image

Yeah I also live in Alabama and I have heard people say the f-slur in the hallway and in the gym at least 3 times and they don’t see anything wrong with it.

That's a meaningless point. That's been true for ALL generations of people. So what? The point that OP is making is that the assumption of especially high tech savvy is incorrect. They can click on apps. Compare that to gen Xers who learned how to manipulate DOS and BASIC as just a regular part of dealing with computers when young. It's the accomplishments of gen X combined with the ubiquity of ipads that has people thinking that kids are somehow just broadly "good with technology." The opposite is true.

They've been saying that now for about 2 decades and all we have to show is less technology and more entertainment. There's been plenty of time to prove your response right and nothing has come of it, nothing. Just because you are always on your phone or tablet does not mean that your tech literate, or literate at all.

No, they're using it for entertainment, not education. Not the same. You don't learn to code by playing games. Most office jobs require actual computers, and schools do, too, now at an earlier age. Teaching keyboarding sometimes happens instead of PE and fine arts.

Ya eventually maybe, but like Jonas said, all generations have done that. Essentially the school system is putting more stress on the teachers with zero compensation and the result is, you have kids that can't even write their own signature! We are teaching kids computers but fail to teach them cursive handwriting? The school system is a joke.

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You are mistaken if you think those kids will be able to create something of complexity and value

I am a teacher. During the pandemic, while teaching a class on Zoom, I had a student ask for help finding a paper he (supposedly) wrote. I agreed to help. After a few minutes of having him click on a few things, I asked him where files normally get stored when he downloads something. I'll never forget his response: "My computer doesn't have files." Look, that's really ignorant, right? For the record, he had an Acer laptop running Windows. The kicker is that when I said, "Of course it has files. I'll help you find the ones you need," he argued. I spent 30 minutes arguing with a kid about whether or not his computer has files, since every time I asked him to search, click, whatever, he argued. Not only was he computer illiterate, he was antagonistic about it. Sheesh.