Today Vs. Then: 46 Teachers Share The Most Profound Changes In Students Of 2024

Been teaching middle school for 12 years. Kids are now testing lower then ever. I’d say, I have around 10 - 15 middle schoolers that are testing at a 1st - 3rd grade level. Student also lack the ability to be resourceful and persevere. They give up the moment something gets too difficult. They can’t write and can barely hold a conversation. The parents are also getting lazier and dumber. I really feel like a lot of my parents should have had their tubes tied so they’d never have kids.

I am a newer teacher but just the past couple years have shown me that parents DESPERATELY need better rules/boundaries when it comes to tech. Elementary schoolers don’t need brand new iPhones or to be playing video games for hours unsupervised.

We have our own kiddo and I absolutely will not be giving her access to a smart phone until high school.

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'm an art teacher but god damn their handwriting is sh*t. Comically big, completely illegible, letters not formed correctly, not within lines/margins if it's on loose leaf paper - straight up looks like a 1st grader wrote it. And this would be reg ed junior high...

Sometimes I feel so frustrated at them not getting incredibly basic art concepts and techniques, such as copying a similar value/line/angle or whatever, then realize they can't even write a letter g correctly, and it makes sense. They really cannot compare the likeness of something, be it letters or where a line should be placed. Concerning, as this was not something that I dealt with 10 years ago, outside of students with special needs. I have to use projects I used to do with middle schoolers with my high school classes. Projects I used to do with elementary are now used at the MS level. It's sad and scary to see the regression.

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.

I just finished year 34, all in upper elementary and middle school.

Back in the day, I'd have one or two kids in a class who didn't give a flying f**k and who did literally nothing. Now it can be a third of the class. It's mind-blowing.

I will have several assignments over the course of a trimester where *less than half of the class* will get the thing done and turned in. Nearly every assignment will have a couple of kids who write their names on and then turn in *blank pieces of paper.*

For the first time, I'm having multiple kids not bother to finish their iReady diagnostics—they'll just sit there looking at the screen for several days until the window for administering the test closes.

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.

When I sub, I *rarely* see students reading books or drawing for fun (even in art class); they mostly use their laptops/phones to listen to videos or play games (with no headphones, of course — because f*ck other people, right?), but even more baffling are the ones who are told to put devices away that just sit in complete and total silence and do nothing but stare at the desk the entire class. They don't do worksheets, they don't do homework, they don't draw; nothing.

I'd definitely goof off or draw a little in classes I found boring, but I literally can't imagine not doing a single productive thing the entire day. These kids are turning school into a prison for themselves, rather than "I overall like this, but there's a few classes that suck."

They even get home room and recess now! I never got that. :(

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.