Today Vs. Then: 37 Teachers Share The Most Profound Changes In Students

I started in 1997. I have several observations:

1. Kids are not curious. They have the world at their fingertips but no academic interests.

2. Phone addiction

3. Maturity. When I had 8th graders between 1997-2006, I had to watch for kissing in hallways, making out under the bleachers. Now, my 8th graders don’t know how to communicate let alone be in a relationship. My 8th graders play tag in class. It feels like they are 4th graders. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad not to see all the making out and PDAs, but there was definitely a shift when the iPhone came out in 2007.

4. Litigious parents… get a life. Let your kid problem solve and figure things out. Build character and perseverance instead of “clearing their path” and threatening teachers and admin o er the slightest thing.

I’ve been teaching since 2016. Reading stamina seems to be the biggest one.

Shorter attention span

Less creative play

Worse fine motor skills

Writing (mechanics, handwriting, and ideas) are much weaker

Less support at home

But my gosh they can figure out how to beat the Chromebook filter in no time.

They literally have no concept of consequences.

The number of stories I have read, videos I have watched, and incidents I have witnessed where a young student gets into serious trouble simply because they refused to follow simple instructions just amazes me.

For example, young man was told to leave a McDonald's (not sure which city, didn't catch that part) by a police officer and he just simply ignored him. Finally left, only to walk around to another door and go back inside. Officer arrested him, and he was completely confused as to why. Between all the cussing and other words we are not allowed to say/type it boiled down to "I'm hungry, so I'm going to get something to eat!".

I found a video of myself student teaching in the mid 90s. Something I must have had to do for my practicum. I was teaching a lesson on direct/indirect objects. There were 26 kids sitting in rows, facing me, listening, raising their hands, and answering questions. The lesson was (upon reflection) pretty straightforward but not very exciting. Then I turned them loose onto some sentence writing and circulated around the room to check in here and there.

So besides the very 90s fashion choices, I was blown away by what I saw. The behavior of the kids was like something out of a time capsule. I remember having 1-2 “hard” kids, but there they were answering questions about indirect objects. No one was yelling, swearing, crying, or having a tantrum.

Kids now are belligerent when you ask for their phone —straight up refuse. I have to call admin to come get phones. They just say no like I gave them an option.

I’ve never had a kid destroy property and scare the class until this year, and I’m lucky that I’ve made it this long.

I run a knitting and crochet group at the high school I work at. Most of the kids are interested in crochet. As I'm teaching them, I have noticed quite a few kids lack the fine motor skills to manipulate the crochet hook and yarn.....like way beyond the "I'm a beginner" sort of mistakes one would expect to see.

There's a total lack of independence or ability to do anything for themselves. Honestly, there is a lack of motivation to do anything slightly difficult.

15 years in: kids do t have hobbies any more. They think playing on their phone is a hobby.

For about 70% of them, their mental age is nowhere near their chronological age. Especially middle schoolers. Their mental age seems to match their reading grade level.

Two things
1. Attention span has dropped in increase proportion to cell phone appeal. We fought texting twenty years ago. Now we fight the universal dopamine dispenser.
2. Respect for authority and leadership. There were always some kids who challenged your authority, but they could usually be dealt with early in the year and they either cut it out or found themselves in alternative school. Students now see no difference between a teacher and a student, getting upset when the teacher uses a phone, lighter, knife, or unblocked website to do part of their job. "You're not supposed to have a knife!". No, child, YOU are not allowed to, as a STUDENT. I am not restricted because I am an ADULT doing my JOB.

#2 is probably fanned by our systematic inability to make good on the discipline promised for #1, and due to growing parental and political attacks on teachers.

Fine motor skill seems to be way down. I teach instrumental music, and kids figuring out where to put their figures and how to maneuver them has gone way down since COVID.

Attention span of a goldfish and it has to be entertaining or else they totally tune out. This is 2nd grade. Also the rudeness towards others, kids and adults.

My (high school, foreign language) first 3 years were at a good public school. A competitor for best school in our state. My next and current 3 years were at a public charter which ranked DEAD LAST in the state for all high schools. My reason for moving was location and necessity and survival.
The kids at my current school are quantitatively, qualitatively, and gut analytically much less intelligent in all respects. It's fascinating in a sad way. All humans are programmed to learn a language, so we all have the same machinery. But my former students believed in their machinery and my current ones don't - they just assume everything is too foreign and it's just funny and embarrassing to talk different.
So my change was quality of students. Deep south - I hate to say it but they are as dumb as they come. I start a new job next month at the best school in the state. Hopefully they still care.

At the start of my career, on days leading up to and day of an assessment my mornings would be absolutely devoured by students seeking extra help. Like, a full hour before the first bell I'd be circulating around answering questions and I would have to make a turn order and consolidate kids who had the same questions.

Last three or so years? Absolutely silent. One kid might come in and ask me one question they didn't really need to ask and just want some reassurance.

You are going to see a lot of the same responses, so I thought I'd add a couple of variations:

1) level of curiosity . . . almost non-existent today. When I started in the 90s, there were always a handful of students in every class that wanted to know "why?", but in recent years, it's either "just tell me the answer" (If they haven't already Googled it) or "who cares? Just mark it wrong".

2) parents' belief that any parent-directed time out of school (vacations, family reunions, etc.) are just as - if not even more - valuable as being in school. (On top of this, I am expected to provide makeup work for students that have missed days for this - ha!).

At the highschool level it's participation in extracurriculars. It's hard to get kids to join clubs and what not.