Teaching is one of the most important (and often thankless!) jobs in our society. Each day, educators set out to mold young minds and guide them into becoming knowledgeable and rounded citizens. From droves of screaming first-graders to packs of hormone-addled teens, they go above and beyond to help these little daredevils discover their identities, passions, and talents. So it’s unsurprising that by doing so, they amass troves of observations about the changes that occur in these chaotic classrooms.
"What's the difference between the kids then vs. the kids now?" wondered user AlBen97 when they reached out to teachers of 'Ask Reddit' who boast over 20 years of experience. The thread immediately became a hit, inviting professionals to share their illuminating insights.
Whether it's new challenges educators face today or changes (both lovely and not) in kids’ behavior, we have gathered some of the most notable shifts in students across the years. So continue scrolling to enjoy these examples, and be sure to let us know what you think of them in the comments! Then if you’re interested in even more illuminating teacher tales, check out our earlier piece on the same topic right over here.
#21
Parents who can't stand to see their child get their feeeeeeeelings hurt for any reason. Parents who label their kids with mental health issues but never get them diagnosed. "Oh, she has anxiiiiiiieeety." It is actually an insult to the families who actually do have children with mental health issues to use it as an excuse to let your kid do NOTHING!
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34points
#22
The complete lack of interest in memorizing anything.
While the pedagogical value in, say, memorizing (for instance) times tables can be debated (and has been, over and over), kids these days not only won't, but seemingly can't. They're so used to just looking up info (read: Googling / Asking Siri) when they need it, they don't have anything "ready to go" in their heads so to speak.
Also, there's been a loss of imagination and the ability to relate to events in, for instance a story. I blame helicopter parenting and the inability for students to form their own experiences for that.
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32points
#23
My mum’s been a kindergarten teacher for more than 20 years and she’s noticed a shift in the parents attitude.
She says there’s less investment from the parents and they completely disregard her rules and requests.
Kids are kids, but parents should know better.
31points
So if you believe that increased technology use equals challenging student behaviors, take a step back and assess the situation. "Accept [that] kids have access to the entire world on their screens. Take advantage of that, both as a teacher and as a parent," Leiderman advised. At her house, everyone’s eager to discuss the captivating content they stumble upon online. "Is it reliable? Is it fair? Is it ethical? Moral? It doesn’t have to be anything serious. We go down silly rabbit holes and laugh a lot."
"It’s been like this for the past decade, at least, and I am so incredibly proud of who my children have become. They are well informed, they are involved, they are savvy consumers of information. They are unlikely to fall for scams or join a dangerous cult, and they can have conversations with anyone about almost anything. They are lifelong learners, open-minded, and accepting of others. I think this is the big change we all should wish for in kids," Leiderman concluded.
#24
As a student in high school that has a teacher that’s been teaching for 30+ years, he says the biggest change has been spelling and reading. Most students are unable to understand big words he uses and can’t spell for s**t. Even the simplest words are spelt incorrectly. He thinks this is because of autocorrect and students seeing words spelt incorrectly on social media.
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31points
#25
I teach in the United States at the high school level. The big thing I see is kids who have been helicoptered and catered to, who have all gotten trophies and goody bags, who have been given much with nothing expected in return, which is not how humans are wired. This has made students anxious and afraid of everything. They’ve never been allowed to fail, so they’ve never had the best opportunities to learn or figured out all they can do. They can not operate independently.
In addition to native speakers, I teach immigrant and refugee ELLs, and the vast majority of those kids are 100% happier, more secure, and far higher functioning in the world. They know how to navigate. They understand hard work. And they aren’t scared of every damn new thing they might face.
Ubiquitous electronic escapes don’t help.
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28points
#26
Three of my four parents are teachers with 20+ years experience. Their most commonly cited differences include:
1) Way more kids who used to be in special classes or schools now integrated into regular classes, basically to give them more dignity, cause constant disruptions and require so much attention it drags high-performing students down.
2) Way less patience among students in general.
3) Parents take kids' side way, way more often and look at the teacher as their personal employee, rather than as someone deserving of respect.
4) Kids obsession with screens--specifically how it mirrors their PARENTS' obsession with screens. My stepmom was literally telling a story about how she was in a parent-teacher conference talking about how this kid needed a lot more time away from screens and was totally unable to focus, and then the kid's mom looked up from her phone and goes "Sorry, what? I wasn't paying attention." IN THE CONFERENCE.
5) Kids just flat-out understanding that they have all the real power--they're not going to get corporal punishment, they're not going to get flunked and held back, and any bad behavior or academic failure on their part is going to be met with excuses, diagnosis, and special treatment.
Yeah, all three of my parents are glad they're retiring soon, and all say they'd never get into teaching if they were graduating today.
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26points
#27
My wife's a teacher, only for the past 6 years as well, but she says even in thay time she's noticed massive differences in the kids and how they seem to be losing respect.
Seems to be their parents had low respect for authorities and they've taught their kids to be even worse.
The problem is, kids know how to exploit their rights these days, their parents teach them that noone can touch or hurt them no matter what they do, so they use that to their advantage to get away with anything... They basically walk all over the teachers unless the teacher is really stern, but even then some kids are really disrespectful.
It's no wonder people don't want to teach anymore tbh. Low salary, the work is piling up higher than ever because of the immense amounts of paperwork and the kids are disrespectful.
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25points
#28
Changes in technology have made parents think the teacher is accessible at all times. these parents are, after all, digital natives.
My wife gets texts from parents during class, during dinner, at 11pm, etc and the parents are furious if she doesn’t respond within the hour.
Parents also expect to be able to see their child’s grade at all times - basically an assignment is turned in at the start of the day and they want to see the updated grades by end of day.
Kids are the same, it’s the parents who are so dramatically different.
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25points
#29
My wife's been a middle school teacher for 21 years. She says:
1. Parents are much more entitled and prone to complaining about their kids' 'rights' in school, instead of their responsibilities.
2. Kids are way more privileged than in the 90s. They demand things that were unheard of 20+ years ago.
3. Cell phones are a critical issue. See #1 above--parents are often more of a problem on this one than kids. Some parents will yell, scream, threaten, and otherwise *demand* their child's constant access to smartphones. It's often frightening.
4. Sexuality: Thanks to hip hop and general culture, creepily overt sexuality is far more common. Not the frequency of sex necessarily, but the constant content of everything. Breaking up 13-year-old girls grinding their a*s on young boys at dances, etc. is now a common thing.
5. Social media: Social media is a constant, oppressive and emotional thing in kids' lives. Overall, kids seem noticeably less happy and 'kid like' than 20+ years ago.
6. "Baby adult" syndrome: Kids are treated as baby adults (instead of kids), and their development shows it. The progression of development almost seems broken today. Conversely, the 'never need to become an adult' infantilization of grownups has a powerful effect on kids--adults forever role-playing life as 'children' in costume and behavior, rather than accepting and growing into adulthood and accepting responsibility for the world and those younger.
My wife gave a presentation a few years ago, and this is cribbed from it.
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24points
#30
I have been a teacher for 22 years and the changes I see are :
- parental complaints from parents who want to be a friend to their child and unquestionably believe what their child says. Children have always gone home and slagged off their teachers but when I started I never had to deal with an enraged parent who had bought a child’s view of what happened. I am always happy to talk with a parent and I want any child I teach to be happy and comfortable in my classroom but this isn’t about helping a child. These parental rages are about protecting a child from learning and from consequences. I pity their children even when it is the child’s lies that led to the complaint.
- parental complaints from parents who want to be a friend to their child and unquestionably believe what their child says. Children have always gone home and slagged off their teachers but when I started I never had to deal with an enraged parent who had bought a child’s view of what happened. I am always happy to talk with a parent and I want any child I teach to be happy and comfortable in my classroom but this isn’t about helping a child. These parental rages are about protecting a child from learning and from consequences. I pity their children even when it is the child’s lies that led to the complaint.
- sexualisation of children - often a result of unfettered internet access. The amount of sexual abuse that children suffer and the perversion of how they see themselves and their sexuality is depressing. They imagine that they should approach the most extreme sexual practices without hesitation because they see so much porn. (I am pro porn and happy for any consenting adult to do any sex act they want - I just don’t want an 11 year old to think that’s what they have to do.)
- loneliness - I watch groups of kids sitting in silence on their phones everyday. Not a word exchanged. Lots of humour and group observations get missed that way - they can’t navigate their own world so effectively as they are trying to manage their online world.
- fear of the written word - large page of texts are never used. Everything is a paragraph and a picture - so we structure their thinking for them.
- sexual abuse - is more discussed. It still happens a lot but we have more systems to help the children now. When I first started I was given a child yo help who had been raped by her father and was pregnant as a result. Her mother was going to chuck her out if she had an abortion and had supported the father as he had raped both his daughters for years. I was 22 and clueless- no one else helped. If that happened today I would have at least three people in school who are trained and would help the girl (and her mother.)
I am so glad I am not a teenager today. I was a b***h about my teachers and I would have had no sense at all when given the world of the internet.
I love the kids I work with. I am so proud of them and think they will find a way through the quagmire. Things will get better.
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24points
#31
They used to actually read books.
The only ones who do still read mostly stick to the YA series of the moment, most of which are written at about a 5th grade level. My students are primarily 8th and 9th graders.
We have a well-stocked bookshelf at our after-school (and we used to keep stacks of current magazines as well). Students would regularly browse for something to read during break times and before and after class. Now, invariably, every single one of them is staring at a phone.
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24points
#32
モンスターペアレント (monster parents)
at least that is what my Japanese uncle, who is a teacher, told me. Basically parents, who do not see the fault in their children but the teacher if the grades of the child are bad or something in the likes.
I wanted to hear some stories from him, but my uncle's been very discreet about it, he just mentioned that there have been an increasing number over the years (although by far not the majority) and that is all I need to know.
Edit: Changed "discrete" to "discreet".
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23points
#33
Accountability. Nothing is EVER their fault. There is always a reason or excuse. Why are you late? Because my locker is far from the class. Why were you using your phone? Well the bell hadn't rang. Why haven't you started to work? I don't have a pen...
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23points
#35
Not a teacher but everyone in my family is.
I had a teacher tells us kids learn differently now then before because of video games. (This was before Smartphones.) I called BS and said kids learn the same way they had years ago, it was teaching that was different. The teacher agreed and said they use to teacher in a spiral. Going over things over and over while teaching different subjects. Now, she said, they have to teach a subject and more on. If the kid didn't get it, oh well. I called it the "Hit and Run" teaching style. Others call it "Teaching for the test."
I know my kids not perfect. I had a principal call me into school because Jr. was failing math. Everyone was walking on egg shells because my darling was failing and they didn'tknow how to get him to pass. I said, "Let him fail, maybe then he will learn to turn in his homework!" I thought the teachers and principal were going to faint. "I wish more parents were like you." he said. Sadly, most parents aren't and it shows.
Advice from an older parent, parent like your grandparent or great grandparents.
Advice from an older parent, parent like your grandparent or great grandparents.
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19points
#36
I have 13 years of teaching experience. What I have noticed most is that the current society is really starting to infect our students. The general angst and anxiety that is being experienced by the parents is trickling down to the students. There are more anxious kids that are having a lot of trouble controlling their bodies and emotions. Many more in number than there used to be. Even the general population overall is more on edge. They are a lot angrier and a lot sadder than they used to be. And I work with all ages from 4-18. The world is full of fear and anger, and it's becoming a definite factor in the raising of these young people. It's almost unbearably sad. But you do what you can to bring some light into their lives, and help them experience empathy for others because we all learn differently.
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17points
#37
My mom has been a teacher for 18 years. Biggest difference I’ve noticed in her stories is that kids have gotten physically more violent. She thinks it is because parents let their kids do what ever they want to with little to no discipline.
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17points
#38
20 years ago when I was in high school, my freshmen English teacher who had been teaching for 30 years said, "The only difference I notice between kids today and kids from when I started teaching is that the kids today are a lot less optimistic about the world they are inheriting."
I've been a teacher for 15 years, and the difference I notice is in what the kids like. You don't realize how quickly pop-culture turns over until you find out a 4 year old reference is dated for kids.
Edit: Spelling
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14points
#39
My mum has been a teacher for over 30 years. The children's span of attention has dropped significantly over the years. They don't focus on one thing for too long, lose interest quickly and often seem like they don't even hear what they are told.
Their writing style has also changed. Writing in short-hand has become common and they're not as creative anymore.
Of course, that is a generalisation and some kids are still great.
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14points
#40
Respect and having support at home. So many kids these days have no support at home and it really shows.
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13points