A Millennial Teacher Explains Why Gen Z Students Are Out of Control! 20 Years Later School Is INSANE
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
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Yep. This is among my long laundry list of reasons for leaving the classroom. Administrators were expecting us to be edutainers and clowns to keep students engaged. I found it ironic that administrators would preach the importance of students being their authentic selves in our classrooms, yet teachers NEVER felt like we could be our authentic selves in the classroom.
I taught high school English and was mostly assigned to advanced classes because of my experience and education. Even though I was rated ‘excellent’ on every formal evaluation of my career, as well as the fact that my students’ data reflected significant growth, administrators found it pertinent to critique my personality. I was never mean or rigid, but in the words of my department chair, I was probably “too professional and businesslike.” Yes, too professional to teach advanced literature and dual-credit college classes. When I presented my department chair with dozens upon dozens of cards, gifts, and emails from students (and parents) who thanked me for my teaching style and clearly felt like we had a warm relationship, it wasn’t enough to get him off my back. Even though I was highly involved in extracurricular activities and had strong relationships with students that reflected rapport and shared humor, it still wasn’t enough to appease him. He insisted that I was just too “old school for my own good” and that my expectations are “a bit too high.” And by the way, I’m also a millennial in my 30s…
He suggested that I observe another teacher who “excels in the personality department” (yes, those were also his exact words). I observed her 5 times that year. Each time, I found that she was teaching absolutely nothing of substance in relation to the course curriculum. Instead, her entire class period was filled with random Kahoots and other SEL activities. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with incorporating games and SEL into lessons, but when that’s the ENTIRE lesson and you’re praised for it…I just wonder what the overarching goal is. Do you want kids to be entertained and get inflated grades that don’t reflect their true level of mastery? Or do you want to actually help them learn to get better at the content-and yes, teach them to be professional and responsible along the way?
Once it became clear that customer service was the main goal, and that optics superseded substance, I knew there was no hope. What I will always hold dear is the fact that I made a positive impact on students’ lives-despite the challenges. I have former students who reach out to me yearly to thank me for the way I ran my classroom. Sadly, that just wasn’t enough for today’s administrators. And I know I’m not alone. I’ve spoken with many other teachers who were absolutely brilliant at their craft, but were pushed out because they didn’t give in to these new, soft policies that are doing nothing but a disservice to our young people. Shame, shame, shame on a system pushes out excellent teachers and celebrates incompetent ones.
Thank you so much for sharing! ❤ It sounds like your former school lost an amazing teacher, and you definitely deserved better treatment and more appreciation from admin!
I thank teachers like you who actually prepare my child to be able to handle the academic rigor of college. You had high expectations and that was seen as bad? Wow, we are not letting these kids live up to their potential and that's just sad.
This is an excellent comment. Thank you.
It’s because administrators feel threatened by- and jealous of truly good teachers. So they look for merit-less excuses to taunt those teachers to ultimately force them out of the profession for sheer selfish reasons. That’s where a huge chunk of the bullying in schools originates.
Your comment is refreshing. Unbeliveable. What your department chair told you is similar to what my admin told me. My AP told me "I see you teaching at this and that high performing school" when I was teaching at an impoverished low performing one. This honestly broke my heart, because I loved the school I was at and to me this was a passive aggressive way to say that I was too good to be at this school. Like you, I had so many students who would send me emails, letters, and gifts showing appreciation for me, and many times I would get positive emails and gifts from parents, too. Even with all that, it wasn't good enough for my admin and they pushed me to leave.
The American education system is doomed.
I’m African and came to the US grade 9. The difference was shocking. In Nigeria, you dare not sleep, eat, chew gum, argue with teachers or disrupt class but it was like the norm in America. Teachers had to baby students so they can allow them teach the lesson of the day.
That’s because educations isn’t free like here, they don’t value education at all and it’s sad
When I went to Kenya and visited schools, I noticed so many of the things that you have mentioned. Kids that sat on benches for hours super hungry to learn and super respectful of their teachers. Teachers and administrators who truly cared for their kids and families. They had so little but did so much for the families and the kids. Kids respect their elders.
even here in south america (atleast in the case late gen z) were taught how to be respectful and are still being respectful to their teachers and they wont distespect or its a free way ticket to actually failing the year ,like yelling can get u close if not kicked out if u scream 2 times and if u cheat well one way ticket to suspensión and getting a bad grade.
Yes, it's the culture or society we live in. Kids have the control. It's an absolute disaster.
I had a college classmate from Zimbabwe and I was blown away by how much stricter and more hard work school is over there! We sorely need that here.
I'm a Boomer. Being a teacher was one of the most honorable and respectful jobs that you could have. In my days a teacher walked on water. 100% respect was given and if you disrespected a teacher your parents would tear you a$$ out of the frame. I want to personally thank each and every teacher that I've ever had because without them I would've been a complete failure in life... Unfortunately, teachers no longer have students, but "Circus Animals" and teachers are now animal trainers. The saddest part is that it's safer in a "Safari" than a classroom.
Biggest FACTS ever💯💯
That’s exactly right.
We were expected to be STUDENTS!
LMAOO Omg that was funny but sadly true
I appreciate you; 33 year veteran teacher here. Retired 3 years ago. I loved being a Teacher. Everything she says rings sadly true.
As a fellow millennial, I'm saddened and frankly disgusted by the direction society is going especially in regards to the youth and how they're being brought up. Kids no longer have to take responsibility for themselves, they can come up with any excuse in the book for an "easier hand" at life - and don't even get me started on the lack of attention span. Sit through a chapter on a book to learn? Forget about it - when we have endless 20 second tiktok videos to flip through. I still don't have tiktok and refuse to get it. We as a society need to take a few steps back and make some policy changes. Personally I also think banning tiktok and snapchat would be a good start! Facebook and instagram are already damaging and distracting enough to the world. Now we have AI thrown into the mix.... When I first started university we didn't even have google (or at least it wasn't as advanced as it is now). We had libraries. NOW kids have things like Grammarly helping them write papers?? Give me a break. 🤦♀
I'm not familiar with Grammarly. I thought it was set up to help you write better; use good spelling, and grammar. I think what you're talking about is how that sort of technology is used as a crutch. IOW, the students don't learn spelling and grammar, since they expect something like Grammarly to correct it for them.
This has been something I've heard about repeatedly from educators, talking about technology. Math educators have complained about calculators, for example, because oh, since the calculator can do the math for you, you don't need to learn math. That sort of thing. That isn't true, BTW. I've appreciated having technological aids, to check spelling, grammar, to do mathematical calculations, but I know how to do those things. I just use the technology to deal with the tedium of some work, and to catch me when I slip up. I think that's the appropriate use for it, not as a substitute for using your own skill.
I remember college professors saying many years ago that with improvements in technology, we won't need to teach math anymore, because it will be done for us. That's a really silly, and dangerous notion. We still need to have skills of different kinds of thought, because that enables us to see things that people without those skills can't see. We really shouldn't expect machines/AI to do that for us. As I've seen, they're not capable. All they can really do is, again, act as aids that help inform our analysis.
Well TikTok is a distraction and Chinese manipulation. I guess Trump was right
As a student I only use grammarly, for punctuation only. I'm not far behind, but my sentences still need some work
@@mmille10 I'm a 14 year old doing gcse english,I use it for spelling certain words if I don't have a dictionary on me.
I'm fine with google being so advanced, Libraries are cool, but sometimes they don't have what you want, with google and other search engines I have the ability to find research articles and other info i wouldn't have been able to find at my local library. And for AI like chatgpt, I feel like it depends on the use, like for example in my dad's research class he teaches is college students how to use chatgpt because it's really useful for researching, the writing is crap, but if you run it's writing through a text analyzer to pull sources from it it's really useful. On top of that the way AI writes is pretty obvious idk how many people can tell, but just at a glance i can generally tell if it was written by ai or not, but there's also programs that can figure that out for you if need be.
I'm a substitute in the Central Valley of CA, and a few days ago I subbed for a 6th grade Reading Comprehension teacher. The teacher had six separate classes over six periods. I know this might sound controversial to some of you, especially if you're a teacher, but I quickly realized that the issue many of the students had with reading was not that they had difficulty reading, it was that they simply did not want to read. They just wanted to sit there and talk, daydream, or goof around. I'm not saying it was all the students, but it was the majority of them. Many of them were just too lazy to read three simple paragraphs, which were at the 3rd or 4th grade reading level, and answer basic questions that came afterward. They were supposed to annotate the reading, but circled and underlined random words instead. Did I offer my help? Sure. When I tried to help them, though, did they listen or put in any effort to follow what I was saying? No, of course not. They wanted to joke around and wait for me to tell them exactly what to circle or underline. Same goes for answering the questions that came after the reading. Some students gave random, nonsensical answers. Why? Because they were too lazy to flip the page and review the reading. They just wanted the assignment out of their faces so that they could go back to doing nothing. I understand that there are students with genuine learning difficulties, but I think schools oftentimes confuse learning difficulties with laziness and poor behavior.
I totally agree!!! 💯
I am a sub on the other side of the country from you (the Atlanta area), but I've had the same experience many times.
Is this an issue all over central California? I only ask because I live in Modesto, CA. My daughter is in 4th grade and attends the GATE program. I figured once she hits junior high I’ll be sending her to private school or homeschooling.
@@angelica4885 It mostly a substitute problem because students tend to be more whatever when it not their main teacher who they see every day. To be honest it not like this is a new thing this actually happen a lot for decades now.
@@angelmendez2211 Is it mostly a substitute problem? No, not at all. Over the past five years, I've spoken with teachers in 15+ school districts in my county, across grades TK through high school. I've spoken with teachers who have taught 20+ years. There has been a significant decline in student behavior. As one teacher told me, we now how children raising children. That teacher used to have 1 or 2 "troubled students" per class, now he has 5 or 6. I substituted for one first grade teacher whose 4th grade class actually made her cry, in front of the class, because of behavior issues. Yes, there have always been behavior issues, especially for subs, but as one 1st grade teacher told me, "Something has changed." If anything, teachers are afraid to speak out about how bad things are getting, out of fear of losing their jobs. I even spoke with a custodian at one rural school who told me, in her 23 years working at that school, she had never seen such bad behavior and that the administrators and the school board feared doing anything about it, because of the parents.
I am a millennial almost close to being Gen X... and we never punched out a pregnant teacher. We were more into waiting for baby pics and getting excited to throw a surprise mini class baby shower for said teacher. Today's Gen Z just don't care about anything or anyone and are psychopaths. I help a relative with home schooling her kids and I always tell her to keep them home schooled. Those sweet boys don't need to be exposed to the violence, aggression, gaslighting, cruelty and nastiness of public school students of their generation. Those sweet boys are also levels above smarter than the fight everyday kids in public schools. Those boys are in middle school and one is in high school level in their programs, but the mannerisms and intelligence (the sheer knowledge they have) is college level. Those boys read at college level Science and Social Sciences. I love discussing Science, Literacy, and History with them. It can be difficult because they know so much more than I do, but I am so proud of how my relative raised them. They are super smart, gifted boys, but so humble and kind about their knowledge and know how. I get so teary eye, because the students I deal with who are of the same age range (12-16) aren't humble and kind enough to let me teach and do my job. She (my relative) is doing the paper work to transfer one of our younger cousins (fifth grade now) into her home school program. He truly needs it because due to his speech impediment and learning disabilities, I feel that he would benefit my relatives' teaching style. He would be able to built better confidence and self assurance. He may even overcome his speech impediment and show improvements. The public school system isn't for different minds. I say this with experience as a formal SPED student myself. I think if I were home schooled I would've learned so much more than in the public school system of teaching. The public school has its benefits, but as a disable person it is very destructive and cruel place to be, especially with neurological and social disorders. I hate how the school system is turning into, especially now with how Florida politics is going. It is not good! No Bueno!
Home school your kids if you have any, folks. Especially in Florida.
Agree. Even in First Grade - they are like feral animals with no concept of civility, kindness, sharing, etc. From their parents they have learned that saying "please and thank you" "excuse me", etc. are how suckers act! They are very aggressive and violent - from watching violent video games and wrestling, etc, at home with the parents - This will be my last year teaching.
@@elizabethhennessey6437 For a multiple of reasons, everybody can't home school. However, the next choice should be, private schooling, if possible. Next, good charter school, with high expecations and good discipline. Last choice, a selective enrollment school. If none of this is possible, well, cross your fingers and hope for the best.
I'm looking into teaching in a private school where parental involvement is mandadory, expectations and consequences are clearly defined and real learning can happen, not just babysitting. Wish me luck.
I love Florida's politics. They don't put up with the woke crap.
@@elizabethhennessey6437 Anyone who has been a private school will tell you the kids aren't necessarily better and in some cases, they are the same or worse!
I am a late Gen X. I attended school from 1980 until I graduated from high school in 1996. The teachers I had would have been fired based on today's "standards". I put that in quotes because there aren't any standards in education anymore. I had very strict no nonsense teachers. We had a clear, concise curriculum. Now I'm not saying there weren't flaws in the schools I attended because there were. In fact, the change really began with my brother. He just made 38 in June; some of the teachers I had, he had as well. The new crop of teachers at that time were very different than the veteran teachers back then. The veteran teachers didn't take any of his crap, and he got the message loud and clear.
When I began to substitute teach from 2013-2017, I saw the changes. The curriculum was gutted, everything was about reflection on their feelings about the subject. The work turned in was sloppy; and the students were treated like babies. They were always called "friends"; and given rewards for doing basics, every little thing was given a reward. I refused to participate in that. The kids would ask for a reward just for classroom cleaning, and I said NO!! My generation and your generation will have to deal with the cultural fallout from this. I weep for the future!!
I just want to point out that much of this change was a fake response to old teachings style being too authoritarian, which was true. The solution to that is empowerment of students, giving a say is not the same as coddling. I was lucky to work at a school that gave students lots of democratic input into what would be studied, what projects to do - and this came with increased responsibilities at every level, including janitorial duties and many more.
@@MemeMemeson Just the other day my older brother (GenXer born 1970) was telling stories from his school days and how he had a teacher pull him BY HIS EAR to the principal's office.😂
Back in my day, as a gen X student, the teacher was the focus. Teachers weren't just there to facilitate group work. Students were expected to listen to the teacher without rewards or constant praise. Those were given, but not daily! Now, students expect rewards and praise as part of the deal for listening/not being disruptive. I think Bill Maher summed up the changes this way: parents used to tell their kids to put their jackets on if it was cold. Now they ASK, "Would you like to put your jacket on?" Constant negotiating. I feel bad for first year teachers, they are trying to please so many people. Teachers shouldn't have to walk on eggshells to do their job.
Agree!
Yeah I can't help wondering if some of the problem is parenting. All this "peaceful parenting", "positive parenting", and other BS forms of parenting. And that someone who is coming from having a dysfunctional Homelife, yet I still understand these basic concepts. Parents still have to have basic authority over their children. I can't help wondering if, this constant negotiating that modern parenting forms teach parents, and this constant pandering to the children's feelings, and seeing any form of negative consequences, disciplining or dare I say it spanking is somehow a cardinal sin of parenting, is now coming out in the classroom. Because, if parents are parenting their children in these new fangled ways rather than more traditional, Conservative forms of parenting where the parent is the authority figure and expects obedience from their children, and there are consequences for not following the rules, of course the kids are going to go to school and treat their teachers like that right? The parent has taught them that there are no consequences for bad behaviour, and that they don't have to follow rules or anything, and everything is to be negotiated and should be negotiated, of course the kids are going to go to school and treat their teachers the way their parents have taught them it's okay to treat people.
I don’t remember “group work” at all.
Yes - there might a few times in different classes that students would pair up or get in small groups of 4 or so for a challenge, game, project or special assignment for that day but I don’t remember this occurring regularly. For the most part, we individually sat at our desks and focused on the teache, each raising our hand to be recognized and called on to speak or answer. It wasn’t a perfect way but there was order and teacher respect.
I graduated HS in 1987. I always went to public schools, although they were better than average ones. I don't remember there being much wasted time. We studied academics and core subjects. Teachers were not activists and they were not there to be our buds. We almost never discussed current events and politics. We studied European History, World History and US History, Physics, Latin, Chemistry, Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus. The AP classes were very challenging and there was a sense of being in competition with our fellow students to get into a good college. My HS actually felt like a college. We had two-hour block classes that alternated every other day. We had an open campus where you could come and go freely. There was even an unofficial smoking section of cinderblock planters behind the concession building. It wasn't condoned, but it was maintained and tolerated. My wife is a teacher today. I am astonished at how much time she spends addressing behavioral and non-academic issues. She spends way more time on required paperwork rather than grading papers. So many bad parents out there. She says it mostly comes down to how supportive and disciplinary the parents are in the home.
I'm a Gen-Xer; I went to school in the 70s and 80s. Teachers didn't put up with our nonsense, and corporal punishment was still allowed in my school district at the time. My parents would back the teachers if I misbehaved in school. We had grades, tests, and homework. I remember having to memorize all the state capitals, US presidents, important historical dates, scientific facts, multiplication tables, grammar rules, proper spelling, etc. Expectations were clear and the consequences for not meeting them were clear as well. Trish, you're nice, smart, articulate, and you know how to present content in an engaging way. You're still a great teacher. :)
Thank you so much!!! ❤️
I went to school during that time and at least where I was, things were changing and now, we're seeing the results and it's not good.
We must be close in age. The 70's were my childhood and the early 80's were my high school years. I do not remember kids misbehaving in class. We were held accountable. I got into trouble one time in 5th grade and I had honestly not done what the teacher was accusing me of. My mother did not care about anything I had to say on the matter. As far as she was concerned, if I was in trouble in school, I was in twice as much trouble at home. Now I work as a substitute teacher and it's amazing how much things have changed. It's really hard to see.
@@iluvmysix I'm class of '88. My wife is a teacher as well. She has some difficult days, to be sure.
@teachertherapy
I have been watching your videos every day and coming home from my middle school teaching job. I realized the reason I can’t stop watching them is because I feel validated!! Thank you ❤
I taught for 22 years and I taught to different learning styles but I had high expectations for my students as well. Mind you, I was a special education teacher for most of my career. Along with teaching the core subjects, I was also teaching life skills such as cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, making beds, and anything else that they needed for life. I taught sign language as well because I had non verbal students and sign gave them a voice. While doing ALL this my expectations were high and I let the parents know that on the first day of school. As I saw that I was getting docked on my evaluations at the end of my career for having high expectations was my ticket to exit the education field. No one is going to disrespect me on my job daily. WHAT CAREER ALLOWS THAT?
Exactly why that field isn't worth it.
I'm a millennial, class of '06. Everything went pretty much as you stated. On my end, our parents and teachers from first grade onto high school, set us up with the expectation that we were to learn at school. Our teachers connected with my parents and my classmates parents often to convey any triumphs, tribulations, and/or behavioral highs/lows. But usually if we were good, we'd get no news to send back home. No news was good news! I was lucky enough to be raised with a mother who believed that what you're taught starts at home and the teachers word was law! Even if we felt the teacher was unfair, we rarely talked back to them. That was a job for our parents. I even remember getting sent to the principal's office as a kindergartener. I rarely misbehaved after that! The teachers, administration, and even staff took their jobs seriously looking after us and we were expected to listen to their wisdom and authority. Especially if they were directly teaching us. We knew that whatever the teachers were showing us was important enough to have our parents make us attend school all day so we paid attention even if we were bored. There was a lot of boredom! It pushed our attention spans and challenged us to keep going forward. We were encouraged to ask questions for understanding also because the teachers (besides books and parents) were mostly the only ones we could rely on for information. I'm glad youtube exists now though.
I grew up in the south and our school system wasn't the greatest so I feel fortunate enough to have made it past high school. There was a big emphasis on getting your work done and every teacher assigned homework no matter what subject. You were expected to have those grades up because every 9 weeks report cards were getting sent out. Cs we didn't want but we could work on but I better not have had any Ds, or Fs! Those consequences came when that report card came home!! Don't let the teacher call our parents or tell a family friend what we did in school because our parents, grandparents, and anyone close enough to our family was going to let us know!! I also know people that were held back classes/grades because they failed.
I can't believe that today a lot of kids just get passed through. Gamifying everything doesn't work all the time either.
I am roughly your age. Makes me glad I was through with the academe by the start of the 2010s when all this garbage became full-time! 🤦♂️🤦♀️
Gen X here. Finished my first degree before the internet. Most of my childhood would be considered boring. I'm really interested in how the workforce will handle many of these expectations gen Z has. I just stopped teaching a year ago and my experience was that a little over half my students were as described and were (importantly) enabled by their, mostly, Millenial parents. A sizeable number of parents were more traditional. Kids have always tried to get out of work or shift blame. What's is new is the adult response from parents and even administrators who don't want to work hard being an adult. Some of these are from my own generation.
I can't recall the exact year, but in the early 2000s I began hearing adults talk about education as a product and the students and parents the consumers. Education as business metaphor. George Lakoff showed us how important frameworks/guiding metaphors are.
Extended childhood could also be another factor. I started working when I was 17 and married at 21.
Don't blame us millennial parents. I have been petitioning the school to help me with different learning challenges my student is facing. They never help and don't review for 504/IEP. I said if he is really doing that poorly, just hold him back. They said, we don't hold kids back because we've found it causes more negative attitudes about school. OK then, do what you want.
52 y/o Gen-Xer here. The accountability was on US. The fear of low grades/zeroes combined with the fear of a flogging at home because of it...were quite the motivating factors. School was much more of a Dictatorship and makes me appreciate the 1980s. 😂😂😂😂😂😂
I don't know why you're complaining, since it was your generation that raised and taught the Millennials.
@@Hammerhead137was mostly poc whining the kids failed. Now Baltimore school pass classes whe the best student in class is failing and at math and reading levels 4+ years behind.
@@Hammerhead137 umm, no. Millennials were raised by boomers. Gen x children are Gen z.
@Hammerhead137 This makes no sense. Millenials were not raised by the preceding generation, they were raised by boomers. They were only raised by Gen X if Gen X had the kids in their early 20s or teens. It's Gen X who raised Gen Z and it's Millenials raising Gen Alpha.
@@dapperfan44 Thank you for the clarification. I thought the boomers were Gen X.
'84 Millennial here. I went to school from '89-'02 and appreciated every year of it. The teachers were teachers, students were students, and we were left to be accountable to our own actions. Whenever we misbehaved, we were sent to the principal's office, parents got called to come to the school, and whatever outcome came of it was set in stone. There was no negotiating, no pacifying, or making excuses for us. WE HAD TO DEAL WITH IT AND LEARN THE LESSONS. Now, it's all in the name of gaslighting the teachers: "Oh, you didn't build a relationship with the student..." "Don't die on every hill..." "Don't give them a 0..." "They're just children, they just say things...".*sigh* etc. And when you bring misbehavior to certain administrators' attentions, it gets to the point of blaming you for having "ineffective classroom management", and when the "support" gets too much, they turn on you and say they "don't know how to help you anymore." I went through 4 years of public school teaching with this defeatist mentality, not on my end, but on the higher ups end. It was cloaked with too much pride and fear of being ostracized on the parents' end. Instead of the admin working with the parents and vice versa respectively to help support the teachers, there are instances where they can and will come up with tactics to turn on the teacher and eventually get rid of him/her.
As far as improvement is concerned in this area, we have got a LONG WAY to go.
‘86 Millenial here
I have a hard time getting into what went on during my K to 12 years because I think some of what went on is the reason people have NO empathy for teachers nowadays.
In elementary school I had a teacher who was there when my father attended the same school. As my Dad put it “she was a b***h back then too.” She was a spinster in a generation where that was looked down upon and as it turns out she had Borderline personality disorder. When I say she was vicious and had a trigger temper I mean it. The school knew she was a problem and looked the other way (Union reps kept her employed) until a parent lawyered up before calling CPS after one particular bad incident. CPS decided what she did constituted as child abuse and the school could be held accountable for allowing it to happen. She was forced into retirement that week.
In high school 11th grade chemistry was my first real experience with a pathological liar. Enough about that.
And something that drove me crazy about the baby boomers running the school… why do they conflate high achievement with good moral character? You could NOT get an adult to listen to you if an honors student were doing something deplorable or illegal. They got away with so much it sucked. Of course, in a post Brock Turner world hopefully this has changed.
Sorry you had such a negative experience with teachers! 😭❤️🙏
@@TeacherTherapy I appreciate it. I know you were a great teacher and you did the best you could do
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
We talk about closing the “school to prison pipeline” and the lack of consequences, lack of responsibility, lack of respect is only serving to guarantee many of these kids end up either arrested or fired many times over as adults. There’s no way an adult could even think about pulling any of the foolishness people feel entitled to in the classroom out in the workplace or with a cop.
The schools are aiding and abetting the "school to prison pipeline"
@@Donley76 That is true. But the parents are products of the same type of schooling. School use to be a type of refuge. Think of all the immigrants coming to America in the 19th and early 20th century. They didn't have the best home lives, in fact many were barely fed. The schools had a proper curriculum where they learned English and other basic skills.
Basically this. Everywhere in life there are consequences. There is nothing wrong with having negative consequences for negative actions. School is the place where this can be a learning opportunity when the stakes are low.
But now admins have made the calculation that they’ll just be “nice” to students to benefit THEMSELVES, and then things can get figured out when the student has reached adulthood.
I teach college and I’ll tell you that the result is low discipline and low self-advocacy because no one has cared enough to expect more from them.
The sad thing is I think they are pulling it with cops and many do get away with it or cry victim if something bad happens.
More prove of the failed Obama era academic theory based policies that have had disastrous consequences. Many people were questioning these things when they started to become the rage, but of course those who questioned were called all sorts of names. So called restorative programs have never worked, all it does is encourage bad behavior and systematically destroy the education environment for students who really want to learn.
You are spot on! I retired from teaching in June of 2020. As I recall my teaching career, it was great in the 80's and 90's, but really began to take a nose dive around 2,000 with NCLB. The job grew increasingly harder each year. The laws, expectations and policies implemented really felt like there was an underground movement to destroy education.
No child left behind was indeed the beginning of the end. I began teaching right after Bush left office. The only thing I liked about NCLB were the small class sizes. I teach an elective, so I will always see the all kids, no matter what there levels of learning are. But at least adjust the class sizes. I can't teache a class of 33 with 12 IEPs.
@dclae1135 - There has been a persistent and calculated war on the public education system since the mid 80s by the Right wing Religious Conservatives . Look it up. The Constant Experimentation on the classroom size and addition of middle schools, length of classes, etc. Then NCLB and beyond. They hate that they pay taxes for other peoples kids education instead of just being able to send their children to private religious schools or just private schools. Ask an evangelical. That’s where this all stems from. But it’s not just Conservative politicians that have helped usher this all in,politicians from every party are bought by these “ Religious Organizations”. Are a gander back to those given roles by presidents to head DOE with Devos being the last completely unqualified abject moron. Our system is so nonsensical we let silicone valley drop outs that got lucky in place and time buy and force curriculums on entire school districts.
I see a lot of Teachers on here complain about the current generations while praising the latter teaching generation, but they are the ones that helped usher this in. I remember back in the late 1989-1990 helping organize a student walkout in high school to help force better pay for the teachers in our school district. But they weren’t perfect and could have drawn more attention to all the unnecessary experimentation that had started being implanted in the mid 80s. They could have gone to the local news and did interviews to notify the community of this unnecessary meddling. Blue collar community for the most part and parents worked and tried there best, but they can’t be expected to work 2 jobs and keep up with the politics of our education system.
Imagine what it is like for the kids stuck going to school in our current system who want to learn and go home. They have the added stress of what’s allowed to go in classrooms today ( according to the reports by teachers that come on and comment on this channel it’s tragic and horrible) plus all the BS stuff we all dealt with when we were in school and the added horror of 24/7 no escape thanks to social media.
The religious right is already reaping the benefit of their long war with some states allowing govt money to be used for religious education now. The rest will follow and with the republican religious minority long con on the judiciary, there is nothing that can be done for generations to come to stop them. I hate to say they all don’t care about who gets hurt in the process of their corrupt need to hold and regain power, but most either don’t care, or don’t know just how deep there churches and representatives hands are in all of this. To sad, supposedly a beacon for freedom and democracy, but ending as another example of why and how power and the need for control corrupt . Preachers don’t even attempt to teach the actions and beliefs of Jesus these days, they’ve turned there flocks so toxic over the years that they believe Trump is Jesus like and the Jesus in the Bible is an SJW. The 2 nd sword is def the lack of reality being entertained by the far left, pronouns and fluid gender identity. Division is such a great tool,to,keep,the masses at each other’s throats rather then the unity that would rip apart those with power pulling the strings. TL such a rant, sorry for that.
I always try to tell this story every year to my students. I have taught orchestra for 13 years. In 7th grade I walked into class saying "Yes! Mrs. O isn't here!" She came around the corner and took me into the office to talk. She readjusted my attitude and I was all happy with the class and this was 2000. Thanks for sharing. All that you are sharing is true.
I'm an "elder millennial", graduated high school in 2001, and now I teach middle school. I honestly hated any time our teachers tried to spice up lessons with things meant to appeal to us kids, and now it's all we're expected to do. Many of my students are incredibly entitled, acting like I'm insane for asking them to follow basic rules like not being on their phones in class. Thankfully our admin is cracking down on that kind of thing, but it doesn't help with the other side of the problem - the song and dance we're expected to perform. It doesn't matter what "engagement strategies" we use - you can't make extremely unmotivated kids want to learn, especially if learning involves effort. They're very helpless and expect everything spoon fed to them. Meanwhile, we're being told to create student led learning opportunities. But that requires effort and engagement from the kids. Some of the kids thrive on the challenge, but that's maybe a handful. Everyone else just gets confused and wants to be told what to do, and then they don't do it. I kind of want to quit but i do like teaching. I just wish teaching was what I got to do all day, instead of babysitting
By the best rule-of-thumb definition I've heard for "millennial" if you graduated in '01, you're over the border into Gen-X by a few months.
The definition?
If you were old enough to understand what was going on on 9/11, but not yet out of high school, you're a millennial.
That said, I don't imagine that the experience of watching 9/11 during your freshman year of college was that different from watching it during your senior year of high school.
Class of 2002, I hated it too!
I graduated in 2007. I moved states often due to being a military family, so I went to many different schools. I saw the writing on the wall after 2000, when I hit 6th grade.... lazy, disruptive kids frustrating teachers to the point where they walk out. Parents that didn't give a damn until their kid got suspended. I think No Child Left Behind paved the way for how things are today.
Gen Y. I remember some lessons were made to be fun and we would get excited for them. It was not the expectation to be entertained so it was a real treat when it would happen. High school classes mirrored college classes for me so much that when I got to college I felt fully prepared for them. Punishments were more serious and teachers could punish students easily. There wasn't as much awareness about how hard teachers worked back in those days and I don't think there was as much appreciation for them.
I appreciate my English teacher and my history teacher that taught their high school classes similar to a college class in those classes did prepare me.
I was born in the late 1950s. We worked hard, with our teachers setting the example of how to work hard. There was some misbehavior, and a series of escalating warnings and consequences were applied as needed. Kids who dedicated their time to failing failed. Kids who tried to stop failing were helped. It's very very simple. I now teach music. Guess what? Most students still do the work and succeed. Some dedicate themselves to failing, and fail. What's different now is that too much of society is too willing to encourage youths to throw their futures into the garbage by encouraging them to throw away their time.
I’m a clinical scientist in the pharmaceutical development industry, and I see why we tend to recruit talent for abroad. The U.S. is producing a generation of full-grown toddlers at this point.
Totally agree!
Absolutely.
Immigration is the only thing keeping the USA afloat! Without them, it won't be too long before the country implodes on itself... 🤣🤣🤣
I’m a ‘78 Gen X/Xennial. I don’t know what the administrative support for teachers was like, but I know the rules got enforced. There were a few troublemakers, but no one ever hit the teacher. The serious troublemakers got suspended or expelled. We had to read different classic lit. All our research was done with books because the internet didn’t exist for us. We actually talked and worked things out, even if it meant arguing and fighting. Sometimes we were friends after the fight, usually not, but nothing else happened after that. I’ve heard the horror of what it’s like now. Even my own kids don’t care to learn anything. I feel like if we didn’t hold them accountable, no one would. My kids get closer attention than most students because they’re special needs though. My son checked out a book, loaned it to a friend, and the school was asking us to return the book or pay for it. When we told them what happened, the school transferred the fine to that student. I was shocked cuz that undermined the whole lesson of, you borrowed it. It’s your responsibility. It’s definitely different now than when I was in school.
Social skills and communication skills have been hindered by so many channels (social media, multi mode video games like Roblox, etc).
Millennial here who loved reading novels as a class! It's so sad to hear they don't do that anymore in a lot of schools. (I work as a tutor, but not a regular classroom teacher.)
I had a sixth grade reading class where that was all we did and then we did that all throughout high school.
One of my core memories is of my fifth grade teacher reading us “Where the Red Fern Grows”. In the beginning about half the class couldn’t have cares less. Then, bit by bit, as more kids got invested in the story, they’d shush the remaining disruptive kids. When our teacher got to the defining scenes with Big Dan and Little Ann, we were all passing around the Kleenex box. I think that’s the first time I had ever seen the entire class deal with “big feelings” at once and for one tiny moment all the cliques and petty stuff just didn’t matter anymore.
Im so glad i grew up in the 90s and graduated in 2004 before the world got so crazy, no cell phones .
You nailed it as usual, Trish!!👍 I was a teacher who saw the handwriting on the wall of public education a decade ago and left a tenured position against the advice of just about everyone - including colleagues who meant well but were in denial, and family and others who meant well but were simply clueless about the things you articulate so well in this video. Trying to reinvent myself and build a new career from scratch felt in many ways like trying to rebuild a plane while continuing to fly it, and for a few years afterward it was rough going. But not a day has gone by where I’ve regretted my decision. If anything, things have gotten even worse in public education since I got out, especially since COVID. Nowadays when I hear stories from teachers still in the trenches, I think to myself “there but for the grace of God go I” and thank God I had the good sense to get out when I did. I’m certainly not surprised at the difficulty many schools now have finding and keeping teachers, and the many people voluntarily leaving the profession; the only thing that surprises me is that it’s taken this long for the chickens to finally come home to roost.
Thank you!! I'm glad to hear that you escaped early! 🙏
I'm a retired teacher. I grew up in the 60's and 70's. You are speaking truth. I hope we can get back to accountability in education.
They only want to hold us as teachers accountable. Nine times out of 10 it is for all of the things that are out of our control in regards to the students, their families, home lives, and whatever is making them not be interested in school or achieve.
Another baby boomer here. Graduated HS in 1980. Both my daughters (38 & 40) are involved in the school system here in Ontario, Canada. One is an ECE, the other is an EA. It's a complete joke! I can't believe how these kids have zero discipline and hit teachers, throw fits, not to mention words that come out of their mouth! This isn't education anymore. God needs to be put back into the school system again. That's where education went wrong by taking Him out of schools.
i was born in 73, and had a teacher names Sallie Walker for 6th grade. When we came into her history class that day about Greece, both sides of the front blackboard had cursive writing on it. She told us to get our notebooks out....as she started writing on the side blackboard, which she had never used before. After 20 minutes, she erased the front board and started writing again. That was the lesson, copying notes off the board. I became a teacher in 98, and quit last year. I did 14 years in California, and 10 internationally, and the students have been completely enabled and coddled. I got, "in trouble" once for saying that if the students were behaving like this in a school in africa, you would be beaten. A true, and non-emotional statement. Just like a tree is green and cookie monster likes cookies. I quit the next day, Trish helped me recognize the abusive reationship i was in with teaching, and quit, and have never been happier
Well students were calling teachers the B word in the 90's. I started teaching in 1991 and have seen the worst behavior ever and parents coming into schools to fight teachers. The latest things teachers are experiencing is nothing compared to years ago. Principal did micro managed and bullied in the 90's. There have been different struggles in education for many decades and the biggest difference is the new generation of teachers are using their voice and leaving.
I am a GenXer and no none of what happens in the classroom would have been tolerated. There were some outbursts, but they were rare and the students had consequences. Classes were sometimes fun because I do love to learn, but also could be boring. It was up to me to bring "fun" to the subject. I learned early on that if I did not find something I liked, I would be miserable. I was miserable with the other kids, but that is another story. I also have a background in theater teaching English I have had group work, weaved in movies, taught film, I even had the students do a puppet show and that was a total fail. I have tried entertaining the students and be friendly with them; I was bullied from day one and I was 43 so I thought it would be a good age to start.
I remember the first day I entered a room, it was a Senior class, and I could not believe we were going to release them to the world in 10 months. Students are not more mature now they are less. Students bully teachers and subs. They are proud to push adults out of the room. They run everything, and the Admin and other teachers support the students. I just need to "adjust". I am still teaching, but on Zoom. There are small differences, but not good for students, just for me. They are not expected to have video on, some listen, but most do not and think that they should be able to make up a grade for an entire year through BS extra credit. I do not have to manage a classroom that is the only plus.
From my perspective, the biggest mistake was taking the teacher off the stage. I remember when I heard "no sage on the stage", and I thought so how are students learning...they are not for the most part. The big thing now is full inclusion here in California anyway. So now we have motivated, unmotivated students, non-English speakers, and SPED students in one room of 30+...and we are supposed to reach everyone one of them. I am old school in many ways, you know, phones should not be in hands, students work....crazy things like that🤨 most other teachers are not on board with this. It is all about creating relationships and not about teaching. I am supposed to feel sorry for certain kids...no; how are they supposed to build resilience...they love to throw that word around, but then no one makes the students actually you know go through "hard times" to build it....I am all for support, but that does not mean they do nothing...WTAF.
For the last two years, I have wanted to leave. Last year I received independent study position, but I was pushed into a classroom and ended up back on Zoom at the independent school. It was crazy. This year, I am currently going to coding boot camp, because I need to leave teaching all together. Two of the campuses I have not only been bullied by students, but by admin and teachers. I have a group of teachers actively trying to keep me from the position I was supposed to have because they did not want me there...crazy! I have worked on three campuses. I was at the richest one (many students from rich families) but also with some of the poorest students, it was bad, and I did not think it could get worse...it did. I ended up at a school with mostly middle class students and they are actually worse behaved because they expect to run things and they bullied me even more. I thought my issue was the classroom, but it turns out it is not...last year I struggled at the end of summer and am finding myself struggling again to go back. I truly hope that education gets turned around, but it is going to be awhile and I know I am not sticking around for the worst part...it is getting more dangerous to be in a classroom every year. Who know maybe I will go back if it actually turns around, but at 50...once I am out, most likely not.
Thank you so much for sharing! You explained everything so well! ❤️
“It is all about creating relationships and not about teaching”
BINGO! And as a college instructor this is devastating post high school because you have a whole generation of students most in need who were passed along by adults who were focused on/bullied into being focused on relationships and not teaching.
@@startrekpersonthe last time I looked my teaching qualifications mentioned’Teaching’ and ‘learning’ in the unit titles. It was , is and always should be about teaching first and relationships second .
@@peterboss3836 no argument here.
Girl u are speaking the truth!!! I can relate wholeheartedly to everything you said. I'm Gen X and been a para for over 20 years in the DMV. I guarantee you what you are saying everyone in the field have felt this way at some point in their educational career. They should use ur videos in workshops for staff and parents.
Late Gen X - Teachers cared about you, and because they cared about you, they had standards. Even when I thought a teacher was lacking in the PR department, I still respected that teacher. The really good teachers knew their subject matter and had a passion for passing it on, and the best teachers challenged you to rise to their level. Mediocrity was a dirty word, and I still remember my band teacher: On time is late; early is on time.
That last sentence is close to my philosophy too!
Gen x, My high school band teacher was awesome and did a whole lot for our small town. We accomplished big with a small band! I liked most of my teachers in high school. There were high expectations
No way....my band director also. "To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late." Still remember that from 1983.
My mother is astounded when I discuss the issues I face today as a teacher. As a kid in the 50s and 60s, you were not to speak until or unless spoken to. While that is extreme, I think it teaches deference to children, and a return to that level of self-discipline would be welcome. As you said, removing the foundational stones now has cracked our house and it's tumbling quickly. Unfortunately, admin is just as much to blame as parents; again, as you said, you're playing social worker/parent/etc. simultaneously, and admin WILL dish out punishment for failing to comply.
The new assistant principal at the title 1 middle school were I teach said " it's all of your responsibility to be more entertaining than social media. My colleauge , a veteran teacher of 15 years, responded " I can, but that wouldn't be appropriate". I straight tell kids I'm here to teach and not entertain, we can have fun on some days but other days we need to skill build and establish a thing called a "work ethic" .
When you spoke about "Mr. Graf", it reminded me of an algebra teacher I had. His one big rule was "no questions before, during or after class." I got really far behind because I was really sick for 3 weeks at the beginning of the school year. My parents got me a tutor. In only 2 one hour sessions, he took me from mainly F's to A's & B's. So if your kid is failing, please find a tutor! They can really help so much!
When WAS the appropriate time for questions, then? Questions are how students clarify and learn! I've been an honor student all throughout my life, including college/university and would be so dead if I wasn't allowed to ask questions!
@@meatballhead15 My point exactly! And to have a tutor who could get me up to speed in such a short time, well, I wonder what else I could've learned in that class. My teacher never should have said he was a 'teacher' He was more like an automaton.
Millennial here in my 30s, I teach early college students at the university level, and I have had a great experience with Gen z. I refuse to lower writing standards and see growth in majority of my students. So, I give so much respect to all you teachers. You all are amazing ❤👩🏻🏫
First, I was class of 2007 so we could have been in school together! 😊
In general I think the pendulum has completely swung. When we were in HS, it was zero tolerance which led to cracking down in some cases too hard. Now in fear of that and the desire to change and be “student centered” there’s been a movement largely led by former zero tolerance students to zero consequences.
Zero tolerance was not perfect, zero consequences and being cool with kids isn’t the answer.
The school-to-prison pipeline IMO is a way to guilt schools into not disciplining kids who have such messed up homes that you can’t really expect the school to make a major difference in their lives. But they CAN make sure that disruptive students don’t prevent others from learning. I don’t necessarily agree with arresting kids for disrupting school but I don’t think the pipeline nonsense is a reason for ditching discipline.
The school-to-prison pipeline is very overused and misapplied. This is a way to excuse some misbehaviors and an excuse to not have ISS/OSS at some schools. With the restorative practices movement in popularity, some want to use that as an alternative to punishment.
@@jennifersnelling1265 I don’t personally believe in restorative practices as they are applied to high school settings, especially those with serious behavior issues.
Class of '07 here as well, and I agree the pendulum has swung too far over. There were kids that were disruptive because they wanted attention they were lacking at home. Usually, they got it from the Vice principal of the class and security officers that watched over the ISS, but they were removed from the class and did not further disrespect the teacher's authority in the classroom.
@@vancexel problem is authority is now bad no matter how you spin it. Either it’s white supremacy, not equity, not valuing relationships, authoritarian, or .
Yes. The school to prison pipeline was one of many Obama era policies that have had disastrous results in the real world.
I agree with you, but I also want to emphasize that education in "our day" (and I mean millennials, LOL) wasn't all rainbows and puppies. There was far too much emphasis on evaluation over actual education. I remember the "grade grubbing," getting upset over getting a certain grade - and for what, really? Most of us who graduated during that era didn't really know that much, but were told how smart we were because we got good grades. None of that actually matters in the real world. What ended up happening is that the generation above us shaped an educational culture where actual LEARNING was never the goal, and that has morphed into something much uglier 20 years later, and now no one has any respect for the integrity of the school system. I am all for calling this system out for what it is - but I'm reading all of these comments here that say a variation of "in our day we were angels, we had consequences, and now it's completely changed!" NO. The current state of affairs right now is a direct reflection of all of us - our parents and now we have allowed it to get here. That is the real issue.
Exactly, I'm an older gen-z, graduated 2019 with no expectations and depressed. Got good grades, was well behaved most of the time, it kinda felt it was my duty to represent latinos in this manner. A lot of teachers told me and my mom that I had potential, even tho I felt like I was always left behind, had to do because English is my second language. Even when getting good grades, there's was this pressure that if i didn't do well enough in the exams, i was not going to get into college or good scholarships. So I gave up, and today I feel like my high school years were a lie and a scam.
I am an early GenXer and have been a teacher for over 30 years. As a student, we were held accountable at school and at home. That said, we had some teachers that were marking time, did a lousy job teaching anything, and knew that there were no consequences for them because of tenure. When I was a teacher in the late 80s and early 90s, we were starting to see the "What did you do to my little Johnny?" and "Everybody is a winner" coming to the mainstream in education. I vividly remember one staff meeting where we were asked for suggestions on how to improve students' ability to read. I said, "Let's worry more about how well they are reading and less about how they feel about it." You would have thought I suggested stringing the kids up by their toes. When I had kids in the mid-90s, my oldest, who was diagnosed with ASD, started in public preschool. I am a SPED teacher and made it quite clear to the school that I knew the law. The first school system he was in pulled out the stops. They made sure that every t was crossed and every i was dotted. This was a small city, and I am sure they had been sued multiple times, so they wanted to keep me happy. Near the end of his first year, we moved to a small town. It was night and day. One example is that I didn't know what the principal of the school looked like until I saw his picture in the paper when he retired. He didn't come to meet me when we enrolled and didn't attend any of the IEP meetings (just the teacher and speech therapist were there). It was a disaster, so I chose to homeschool him and his siblings. As I was homeschooling for 20 years, I still had connections to education. When the kids got older, I would sub a couple of days a week. When teachers found out I was homeschooling, they told me that was the best thing I could do for my kids. These are the teachers that my kids would have had! Fast forward to when I went back to teaching full-time in 2019. It was insane before the pandemic, and after COVID started, it was even worse. The district wouldn't let us give grades under 50, even if they never showed up in class at all. This continued through the 2021-22 school year when all the students were back in the buildings, but Covid protocols were still in place. Can you say "Lord of the Flies?". This past year, 22-23, was our first full year of "normal" school, and it was so much better. The "Every student gets a 50" disappeared, and students would flunk classes or get "no grade" if they had more than 5 unexcused absences in a quarter. I think that schools are heading back in the "students need to take responsibility for their education" direction. Or at least the High School I teach in is. I don't think it will go too far in that direction, and I don't think it will go back to "everybody gets an A". With 5 more years before I can retire, it would be great if they could be like last year.
I love listening to your videos as I think we're the same generation. I had a great time at school in the UK, but have been home educating my daughter now for 1 year and plan to continue. The behaviour is unbelievable in classes these days. My daughter has focus issues, instead of drawing her closer the teacher put her to the back of the classroom because she wasn't disruptive enough to warrant 1:1 attention with a Teaching Assistant. They also told me to take her to the doctors (because she couldn't focus) now with homeschool she's above average in every topic....we can't make everything easy for kids.... Life is hard.... They need to struggle and there is beauty and growth in that!
Thank you! I'm so glad to hear that you're able to homeschool your daughter! 🥰
Question: Is today's school an actual "learning environment?" . . . I had a student at age 18 get a computer programming job, making more money than most teachers, and he LEARNED IT ONLINE (whereas our school had a basic computer class) . . . Many kids get stuck in mandatory Math or English classes, in which they have no interest, and many high schools have cut vocational programs. So yes, for most kids, being in school is "doing time" (That computer kid "couldn't wait" to get out of high school)
That's a great point! School is no longer seen as the ticket to a better life for many students for various reasons, and giving everyone a gold star and a passing grade no matter what they do has made this issue worse. I'm going to think about this more! 🤔
The issue is that they need those mandatory classes. Now if we actually had, for example, a coding class; it could be required to have all math classes completed before doing it. The issue I see is that, students will skip to what they want to learn without actually learning what they NEED to learn...like basic reading and math skills. I am taking code right now, and math is needed at least to understand formulas so you can actually do the code.
@@feistyphoenix289not sure about the person that OP mentioned but personally i dont learn that way.. I have to learn the thing that has the prerequisites before the prerequisites otherwise the two wont connect and the challenge of not having the 'required' background knowledge makes it more interesting
The math you learn in K-12 education isn't necessarily that useful for coding. CS degrees require the math they do because they're aiming for broad education to prepare you for multiple possible specializations, but unless you're going to do very specific things there's little reason to need to know calculus or linear algebra before writing a line of code.
Some of the broadly useful math for programming doesn't even require much math to learn. When one of my kids was 7 I taught her boolean algebra and set theory that I didn't learn until college. It's not hard. It just requires the teacher understand the material and being willing to put forth enough thought to be able to frame the material with words and concepts the kid can understand.
Gen X kid here. I hated school growing up. I got really good grades, took mostly advanced classes for every subject, generally studied the night before tests, and lost much of the information that I learned. I absolutely hated learning, so I understand the making fun mindset.
I don’t think education is a one-size fits all, but a teacher can’t exactly customize for dozens of students. For kids, I think there should be a balance between learning to sludge through tedium still succeeding and finding joy in learning. Both are important.
Homeschooling my kid has been an interesting balance between those and trying to adjust when I want him to push himself harder. The most important thing to me as his teachers beyond the material itself is to relate what value this knowledge has, what it’s used for and how it is for his own benefit.
I never understood why any classes mattered or how I’d even use most of it - it’s just what you did. I always wanted to be an artist, so it all seemed boring. I am an artist now who wants as many opportunities for my son as we can give him, so I do value his education in all subjects.
This! I was expecting this when my daughter was in middle school. Pandemic plus spoon feeding style of teaching, we all decided with the agreement of my daughter that we switch to homeschool. It was a shock in the beginning. She struggled reading a textbook and taking notes from the textbook. That was in 2022. Now, she knows how to read and pick out the important points. And whats with every kid has to have a chrome book in public schools? I didn’t like that shift. Maybe for highschoolers but this was from the little ones up to 12th grade. Our district made that shift in 2018. Her entire 4th grade was a mess because of that and you have a kid watching lewd videos in school because they didn’t have the firewall up properly. 🤦🏻♀️
I am an older millennial grew up in a conservative, republican town and my experience was just more in line with today's students. Sadly, for me it was just pass him and the no child left behind act and was much easier to pass me. I mean don't get me wrong I did try in school but social skills I was aloof and ignorant. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in middle school, that was the only one we read in school between the books you mentioned. I feel like a lot of this is teachers and administrators not caring mostly because of the crash of 2008 and lack of funding in education and things being run very corporate and spinless and gutless school administrators. there’s also somewhere there is a lot of nepotism between principles of school administrators, and the fact that people are also on a pure power trip especially within the last 20 years. Probably the reason kids get away with somethings more than everybody knows everybody and a lot of times you’re just labeled.
As a mellenial, my school was exactly how you described. Teachers had more authority and parents did not blame the teachers for their kids acting like an ass. We would get in trouble when whe behaved badly. Personally, I shutter at the idea of where this pandering to toddlerism is going. We will have a crisis in competency in a lot of work fields. We are already seeing it. So, yeahhhhh things are not going to get better if this keeps up. Really appreciate your videos. Thank you for sharing.
I’m 29. When I was in middle school/high school a lot of our classes were consisted of lectures/notes but we also did have a lot of creative project based learning. I did have some assignments where we were able to choose what project we did - paper or making a song or a poster presentation etc. I liked that as someone who was very shy and would always choose the paper option. The only behavior was obnoxious boys saying inappropriate but the only time I witnessed students being rude to a teacher was with a sub.
Great video as usual, Trish! Very well said. I am a young millennial/old gen z (depending on what year you think the cutoff is haha). I graduated high school in 2016 and even then, I agree with everything you said. We knew it was OUR responsibility to do the work and listen to the adults in the building, even if we didn’t care for them. I liked most of the teachers, and with the ones I didn’t like, myself or other students would never even dream of disrespecting them. My mom is retiring from teaching after 25 years because she can’t deal with all of these issues you talked about!
Starting up the year again. I've said it before and I'll say it again--if these kids aren't better this year by some miracle, I'm switching careers in a few years! It makes me so sad, I've wanted to be a teacher since I was in middle school but this has been the worst time to get into education, period. I don't know if I want to deal with this for the next 20 years of my career.
Become a private educator in a small school. Trust me, you can reach consensus in small groups in regard to consequences.
Congratulations on attempting to pivot and do something else before it's too late. Best of success in whatever you choose. I ended up becoming a Truck Driver and just finished my 20th year.
@@victorygarden556 Maybe, but from what I know the private schools near me don't pay anything. Despite the kids, I am currently in a REALLY good district for education. I make about 56k a year before taxes as a first year high school teacher (with a masters degree), so... it'll be a give-and-take thing if I ever end up somewhere else, for sure.
I make a livable wage off teaching and I'm really fortunate in that. Can't imagine how bitter I would be if, like many other educators, I were being paid less than 30k a year to put up with being abused/bullied daily by 14 year olds while being gaslit by admin into thinking it's my fault :')
@sawyerk641 That's a good point! When I left charter school to teach in private school, the original offer was $28,000 dollars even though I had a masters degree and previous teaching experience! 😭
@@TeacherTherapy $28K??? With that offer...I see you slinging your purse over your shoulder and walking out. There's a GIF that encapsulates that perfectly. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I work at a school as an instructional aide. When I first started working at the school I experienced some culture shock both from student behavior, lack of discipline, and the lack of high expectations from the students themselves. Parents need to sit in a classroom so they can see how poorly their children behave, it's ridiculous. Another thing I absolutely dislike is PBIS it does not work for middle school. Maybe it's not being integrated at my school at all levels how it should be. This year we had a lot of 8th graders with 2 Fs or more which disqualified them from walking the stage to promote. Well admin made the decision to let them walk. It pissed off a lot of staff. I'm a millennial myself and we would have never dreamed of being so disrespectful to our teachers. I remember in high school word got out that a girl called a teacher a bitch. Everyone was talking about it and were surprised. She got suspended from that. Hearing a teacher being called a bitch is not out of the ordinary where I work. There is so much cussing and all they get is a slap on the wrist. These kids are going to grow up and be out there in society and that's a scary thought.
Edit: typos.
Millennial. The coolest teacher I had was def my 11th grade history teacher. He fought in Vietnam and had many war stories.
I'm Gen X, attended a public grammar school K-5, a private school for Junior High, a second private school for High school. High school I took one truly practical course as a math requirement: Business Math, which goal was to teach students practical world finances. I do think schools should teach more practical knowledge to students, compared to diagramming sentences (I learned absolutely nothing from that), useful math. Not all students go on to a four-year college, many will go on to a trade school and make really good money.
....graduated in 1991. I was never asked, by my parents, with each school year, "Do you like your teacher?," "Is he/she nice or mean?" It was total personal responsibility on my ( the student) part. If I earned an F, it was not due to the teacher's lack of planning. I was held accountable.
I was a grade school student in the 1960's and jr & Sr high school in the 1970's. You sat in your chair and behaved. You kept quiet unless the teacher called on you or asked if anyone had questions and then you raised your hand and waited until you were called on. You got in trouble if you broke the rules and the punishments were things like: Points taken off, recess taken away, have to stay after school for extra work, got to principal's office, not allowed to go to prom, etc. Parents also worked with teachers for the good of the student and there was mutual respect. Parents supported teachers. Assignments were cookie cutter and were definitely not tailored to us. Most were not "fun" unless it was a subject or assignment the student was interested in. Drill and kill was the order of the day. There was no grade inflation. You respected your teachers. We had some teachers that we really disliked. What makes me smile is that they are now the small group of teachers that are my favorites. They were the ones that were the toughest on us, pushed us the hardest, demanded the most of us and were also the ones that I learned the most from and not just the from the material in their prepared lessons. It is to them I owe the most.
Hello. I'm a "Millennial Parent" of two school age children (12 and 10) in a Wisconsin public school system. We have a new superintendent that has started in the system this summer. He seems to be wanting to engage with the community and be accessible instead of, as he said in an interview, "Being like Zeus high atop of Mount Olympus." He is hosting a district wide open house this week at one of the high schools. I am hoping to talk with him about his plans and overall beliefs about education in general. However, I also want to ask him his thoughts about the challenges teachers have been faced with over the last several years. I know a lot of you have struggled very much. I have so much respect for teachers and I want to be a parent advocate for teachers. So for those of you who have left the profession, what are the most important things that would need to change/improve for you to consider going back into teaching? Current teachers please feel free to answer as well. My goal with this is to present this to the new superintendent as a means to start a bigger and continuous conversation with him and/or other administrators. Thank you all for what you do for society and be well.
Thank you for advocating for teachers! ❤️
I graduated high school in 2009. The main issue is bad parenting! I was scared to cause disruptions in class because I knew when I got home, it was my ass. Also, like you said, you had to mold yourself to each teacher. If you didn't understand something, you used your resources.
Wonderfully done video Trish! Keep them coming!!!
Thank you so much! 🤗
Another refreshing video, Trish 🙏 I graduated high school in 2009. Back then you either got with the program or you went to alternative school. Those were the only two options. Had you done with kids do today in schools you probably would’ve been sent to jail and graduated from there. I’m not kidding. In the school district I was in as a student discipline policies were no joke. To this day that school district still has strict policies, but their alternative school is overcrowding to a point where there’s a wait list. When I first became a teacher back in 2013 things were a little bit loose but nowadays they’re more loose to the point where everything is out of control and is a complete shit show. I’m glad that I graduated in the year before everything fell apart in the 2010s.
I'm still amazed at how quickly things went downhill! It would be interesting to do a study on how social media has affected students negatively. It seems like a perfect storm of problems from multiple directions collided at once to create this disaster, and it's only gotten worse after 2020. 🥺
Another millennial here, and everything you say is exactly correct. Our troublemakers were some of the better behaved kids today.
So true! 😭
These kids are bold! I’m a Gen Z and I’ve never seen students called these teachers nasty names in front of their face. They would talk bad about their teachers in private but they wouldn’t do it in front of their face. There were kids that would be mean to teachers but they wouldn’t go as far as calling them derogatory names. Like I understand the idea of giving children a voice and respecting their feelings but at the same time, that doesn’t give them to right to think that they can do whatever they want and not suffer consequences. Even as an adult, you still have to follow rules. Without rules and boundaries society wouldn’t be able to function. Children need to understand that.
Im not a teacher but im in the military and the same thing is happening there- its awful. Im a millennial and I have to hold hands of younger generations who are just petty and disrespective. I cant speak for everyone but thats my experience.
I'm class of 2006 and I went to high school in Miami, FL. You're spot on! Even with the most boring classes with the most strictest teachers, we were expected to follow directions, or fail. They did not baby us. And we actually learned! I can only imagine how bad today's high schoolers are compared to when I was in high school. Things weren't always so perfect in my day, but I'm sure today's kids are incredibly entitled, narcissistic, and wayyyy more rude than they ever were back in my era, especially with all this social media and smartphones, which weren't a thing back when I was in high school. We had cell phones, just nothing fancy like today. When I was a senior, MySpace was barely taking off and the iPhone still hadn't come out. If teachers had trouble keeping students off their phones back then, I can only imagine how bad it is today. And I'm sure social media is warping students' minds, affecting their self-esteem, drastically lowering their attention spans, and bringing cyber bullying to crazy levels like never before compared to when I was in high school
I graduated in 2020 so i guess i’m earlier gen z, but this is crazy for me to hear. My APUSH and AP Bio classes were like the hardest I ever worked in my life and those teachers were not playing around. Shame that standards are changing :/
I'm from the same era. I finished in 2011 so I saw the shift and the favoritism and targeting some teachers would do for some students. Teachers did push us and really explain things. They will help you if you needed it. Thankfully, I had many teachers explain shit to us.
My history teacher didn't say the Nazis were bad. He gave detail as to why they were effective army and the context to their bad deeds. I will also say yelling is poor classroom management. The teachers were mad and very unfriendly. I didn't like that.
Being fun isn't a sin I had teachers like that but they did that with their personality and side comments. They added to the lesson.
Edit: I was mobile. Sorry about that.
Wow didn't say Nazis were bad what was wrong with that teacher. I feel like a what is happening in the teaching world is power trips from school administrators, crash of 2008 and lack of public education. I also feel kids are more influenced from stuff online and no one does anything. In my time I was born in 84 but raised in a very conservative town in California. The mindset was if you did anything bad one of two things, they came down on you like a ton of bricks and never really explained what someone did wrong. If you were being pulled no one said anything.
Beautiful as always, Trish. Thanks for the truth. Be blessed.
I so agree with you about much of learning is boring and hard!!! The expectation of students today that learning should all be fun has really set them up for failure. Whoever started this really damage the learning process.
I'm probably one of your older viewers. I started 1st grade at 5 years old in 1967 because my mother was a single mom who wanted her kids in school to quit paying for childcare. In addition to being responsible to get myself and my older brother up in the morning (as my mom had a shift job that started at 6am) and off to school, at school I had to know how to sit still, study independently at my desk, read what I was given (including the textbook), listen well because the teacher mostly taught from sitting at her desk, or while she was writing on the board, memorize, and do my homework every night. The expectations were the same for all, there was no individualization. We had strict dress codes. Girls wore dresses, but since we also had physical education, we were required to wear shorts under our dresses. If we spoke during a time we were to be silent, if we were late coming in from recess, or behaved in anyway that violated the rules, we could lose our recess, receive a spanking, write a single sentence 1,000 times, or have to go see the principal and have our parents called. I would say my high school was much the same. We were expected to listen to the teacher, take notes, copy down the problems worked on the board, I had homework every night due the next day, and tests were in class and I only had my brain and the study time I took to prepare in order to do well. I had favorite teachers, but honestly I liked them all, with the exception of only one teacher in 12 years that I can honestly say I did not like, or was a bad teacher. Both of my parents instilled in me that education was important because it led to college and well-paying careers, so I respected both my teachers and the educational process. There were no computers. I didn't start using a computer until 1987 when I was working on my Master's degree. Bottom line, I was expected to do my part in the learning process, and through that I discovered I can learn anything I set my mind and will too. Set me down in front of the world's worse teacher and I will still learn as learning is up to me not someone else.
Fast forward to today...I literally have had students tell me they can only learn if someone sits right beside them and helps them every step of the way, and believe it or not, this came from college students. The educational system as it is today has set young people up to be needy, intensely dependent, and high maintenance, so it's no wonder we are seeing many of them suffering from anxiety. Weak educational leadership has enabled this x 1,000. I had a college dean say to me, "Just give them an A and call it a day." This past week in an advising training session, the director of Student Services (who has never been a classroom teacher) beseeched us that we have got to do better at advising. Why? Because too many students were coming to her at the last minute to be advised. Professor after professor spoke up and stated the main problem is that students fails to show up to their advising appointment (even if it's a Zoom appointment). Her response was, "Well I know they routinely forget these appointments, but people...we have to give them a fighting chance!!" What does that even mean? Why is our showing up, but the student no showing suggesting that we are not giving them a fighting chance??? Administrators with their heads in the sand expecting things that will never happen because the students are dropping the ball, laying the blame on us, and expecting us to fix it. Colleges are conforming to the unmotivated student, all over the place, and it scares me for the future of our country. It is also giving our higher education system a horrible reputation.
I read a book written by a pediatrician/psychologist who saw the change in children's behavior over the years. His theory was the introduction of media that made adults look stupid. The 80's and into the 90's were full of teen movies (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Buehler, and others), TV shows (The Simpsons, Family Guy, Married With Children, etc.) and a whole slew of shows on Nickelodeon that all showed the messed up adult (a lot of them were educators) along with the kid(s) who saved the day, or solved the problem. I'm old enough to remember when TV portrayed adults acting like adults, and the kids were the ones messing up but learning important life lessons. At some point, these roles reversed, and I can't help but agree that modern entertainment content has disparaged educators, parents, and adults in general.
Sorry I wrote so much!! I just have a lot to say, and I've experienced so much similar to your story over the years. Thanks for reading!!😄
Thanks for sharing! I totally agree with everything you said! 🥰
OMG I see it now, but I remember my mom saying, "they make all the adults look stupid, why?" I was a teenager and did not see it, but now when I see it I have been known to yell at the TV and then think my mom was right...now they are the ones with the wisdom...and they are not wise...
I'm a high school teacher in Australia, and I can agree with this 100%. Maybe not *as* badly - if workplace violence occurs (e.g. student on teacher assault) that student can be expelled, charged etc, but it is becoming pretty crap here. I channel a lot of my teachers from the early 2000s and maintain the expectations that my teachers had for us, and while I get a *lot* of pushback from kids, and even from some parents, I'm lucky in that our union is pretty strong and I can say "too bad, I am doing my job whether you or your kid like it or not," and the union will stand behind me (and, our principal has been a strong union member her whole career, is a Principal Union Rep and has our backs too which makes a huge difference). But, the thing you were talking about (maybe in a different video) about rewards based behaviour management systems - we're seeing that here too. It's 100% bullshit, and a lot of us, while giving it lip service, still do things like keep kids for lunchtime detention if need be, but again - if the teachers' union wasn't as strong as it is, I can't imagine we'd get away with it.
Awesome job Trish. Spot on!!
Thanks Mr. Peterson!!! 🤗
Graduated HS in 2010.
I currently do some PA announcing in HS sports, and it amazes me how brash parents feel towards officials. I've also caught flak before for mispronouncing names or other truly accidental mistakes in the moment. When kids understand that I'm just trying to do the best I can, understanding that I can't please everyone, it boggles my mind how parents look at sports these days. So many parents live vicariously through kids that it's nuts.
And do parents take me aside to voice their issues with me, for a 1-on-1 conversation to iron out some things? Absolutely not. Kids handle things like that WAY better than their parents.
As far as in-school stuff goes, yep, we had expectations placed on us, and we knew what to do. One thing I do slightly disagree with you on (12:09). I do think that at least some motivation for millennials was based on fear ("don't do this, don't do that" - and we weren't told what we could do instead). But yes, we were able to make our own goals and dreams. These days, it seems like kids aren't really allowed to have imaginations, or whatever dreams they do have are really simple (being a CZcamsr and such).
Mentioning grades, I remember either my junior or senior year of high school, the admin got rid of D grades because so many kids were doing just enough to pass. That was quite a wake-up call then. To hear now that kids pass because of being troublemakers, unruly to work with, and all of that... it's sad.
I do think some things from ~ 15 years ago were too strict (with zero tolerance), but as you said very well, it's gone too far in the other direction. I really feel empathy for teachers these days. It's a bummer, hearing about teachers who have so much placed on them - in part because parents don't want to do their part in raising their own kids.
My local district has had shooting threats called in a lot in recent times as well. There were at least 3 occasions of that last school year. In my day, other than an occasional bomb threat that resulted in a lockdown, we knew not to cross that line. Another knock from me on parents for letting that foolishness stand.
My son was a student at Prince George's County public schools district n during virtual learning and how he would as ways tell every wensday how the teachers always used to convince the why to do work they would say you would fail but nobody failed because of covid 19. In sixth grade kids use to fight and cause drama for the teachers most of the time the teacher was powerless. Our school had the PBIS reward system but at the of his time at the school they let even the kids who acted up go to the PBIS events. One example is feild day in sixth grade they let even the kids who acted up and curse the teacher out loud go. I took my son out of public school and home school them one year later my son mental health is better and he is getting passing grades.
I went to school in the early 2000. I was doing 4 hours of homework a night plus sports and extra curricular activities. Sports practices were never more than an hour - all focus was on academics. Now my students are in practice for hours and think that ten pages of reading is too much. I can’t get them to do any homework at all. My teachers were brilliant, interesting, and tough. We idolized knowledge. Now, the anti intellectualism is a battle I am losing.
I love your comment about teachers being expected to give Ted Talks everyday. So true! We are forced to be psychologists and motivational speakers, especially since the pandemic! An excuse for everything 😂. I find it ironic that most school psychologists are the least social with staff and students.
I am visually impaired students and I do a lot of my learning online. So I’m not really sure what it’s like in public school. But when I started my homeschooling journey, teachers held me accountable for what I was getting done and what I was not getting done. Now the particular school that I send my schoolwork to does not even grade it. Most of the time it is very difficult for me to actually get my school. books and curriculum. I really enjoyed learning before when I just had started. I loved learning and doing a lot of projects. I am I’m a nerd love school. But now I can’t even get my teachers on the phone. I feel like I’m trying to get my teachers to be excited about learning not the other way around.
I am so thankful and grateful that I went to school in the late 80s and started high school in 1996. It was exactly like a college in my high school. We learned to research, read, write, communicate and have discipline. Insubordinance was absolutely not tolerated
Was laid off in June after 6 years and in all honesty, after 14 interviews this summer, I don’t think I’m going back. It’s not about actual education anymore. First 2 years for me were awesome. Now…….. looking to bring my skills elsewhere.
agreed! it is so much harder to even apply to a teaching position than other jobs, it's just not worth it.
@@junipershull23skidoo so true...all the information they want on an application is so extensive....and often i dont even know what the pay is so why bother with the hassle.
It's UNBELIEVABLE how a teacher in Ohio can have the EXACT same negative experiences in a school as a teacher from Florida, Texas, New Jersey, etc. It's like all the students, administrators and parents are all reading from the same handbook called, "How To Get Teachers to Quit, Retire Or Fired". It will be rare for any teacher who began teaching in the past 4 years to stay until retirement, which would be 21 years from now. NO WAY! Truthfully I believe it's being designed that way just for that reason. Teaching in the 90s and early 2000's was soooo much fun and I will always cherish that time. I took early retirement 3 months into the new school year because I just couldn't take it anymore!! I am grateful and appreciative of my career and overjoyed that I was able to make my exit with 96% of my pension and 100% medical benefits. I feel badly for my fellow soldier teachers I left behind who desperately want to walk away but can't for another 2 or 3 years because they are trying to hold on for retirement benefits. The SADDEST part is these are excellent veteran teachers, like myself, who still have so much more to offer to students and new teachers. I ALWAYS say that there is no way this generation could be my doctor, lawyer or service me in any way that requires a degree because Hunty, these kids aren't receiving a proper education and are unmotivated to learn through no fault of the teacher who is made to dumb everything down for students and not give authentic grades. There is no challenge, accountability or consequences for students anymore and therefore no incentive for them to be successful academically because they KNOW they will not fail or be retained. A generation of fools that were set up for failure in life because it's easier to let them be dumb and pass them then it is to set up behavioral constructs to address them. Good luck America, you're going to need it!
Excellent comment! Thanks for sharing! ❤️
Young gen Xer here. I graduated in 1997. Teachers were definitely not therapists. It was OUR responsibility to complete our assignments on time or face consequences. If a student was disrespectful they were sent to the principals office and were either going to have to serve in school suspension, be fully suspended out of school or get expelled. The current school system is definitely not preparing kids for life. In life we have to do things we don't want to do, even when those things are mind numbingly boring, we have to push through. Lord, help us all with these zoomies. I'm raising one. I'm tough on him at home. In the past the teachers would be supporting the parents with the same level of toughness. Now I feel like no matter how tough I am on my son he sees it as a joke when he's at school I'm made to look like a joke to him. Since teachers can't hold students accountable anymore. Parents and teachers used to be a dual force pushing a child into success whether the child is happy about it or not. Life isn't happy happy all the time. Anyway, I'll just continue to strip my son's room of everything entertainment wise except books when he isn't performing in school. See? That's an example there. It's not FUN to be "mean mom" but it's necessary. Too many parents want to be their kids friend. That's an issue too.
I was born at the ass end of the baby boom. School was serious! We had encylopedias, film strips, and overhead projectors! We had shit loads of homework. And sometimes even though i may have put forth what i felt was A grade work it didnt mean i would get an A! In school there needs to be back up support! Between school administration, teachers, & most important, a responsible parent! Everyone now wants to be no fault! Its not my problem, my fault, or my job!
I agree with all the points you mentioned in this video. In my time as a student, my main concern was not to get in trouble with my parents and, since my teachers had the power to make that happen, I would adapt to each teacher and try to comply with their expectations in order to get good grades while attempting to behave decently in class. The few times I got in trouble in school, the teacher's take on the situation was never questioned by neither the school nor my parents, and I was forced to take responsibility for my actions. Each time, the grounding from my parents and the special supervision from my teacher would end up teaching me something invaluable: humility. I would realize that the world does not revolve around me, that expectations had to be met, often times with hard work and, eventually, I would even learn to respect the subject I disliked after I was basically forced to understand it and get, at least, somewhat good at it.
Today I dearly treasure my school and teachers from the past, and especially those who got me in trouble because, I always knew deep down, no matter how young and impressionable I was, that the responsibility of learning was primarily on my shoulders. I'm very thankful for how they contributed to my life even when that contribution was presented in the form of corrective actions, added pressure, additional work or stress.
You hit the nail on the head Trish 👍 I can relate to most things that you say, even though I am Australian, and agree with everything that you say 😊 When you ask how old we are, I’m beginning to feel really old 😮 I was born in 1964, so I guess that makes me a Baby Boomer 😮
I attended a Lutheran primary school here in my state of South Australia. Every morning we were taught Scripture for the first hour or sometimes two. Our academic standards were high and our lessons were traditional and structured. (But not as much as in my mother’s day.) Teachers were held in extremely high esteem. We ‘knew’ that it was the teacher’s job to teach, and it was the student’s job to learn.
We were also taught really good values based on the 10 commandments and the Gospel which have set me up for a meaningful adult life.
My high school was slightly different because it was at a public school, but we were always told what good kids we were compared to other students in other schools in the state, by our teachers. Again, teachers were respected for being teachers, and as students, we knew it was our responsibility to learn. My experience as a student may not be that of a ‘normal’ student in Australia, as I grew up in a fairly isolated (at the time) rural German Lutheran community. My father was also a migrant from Germany who grew up in Germany during the war, and he wanted his children to have an education because he didn’t have the chance to. Both my parents saw education as a privilege.
It was a shock for me becoming a teacher and experiencing children and also adults with so many different values to me 🤔
I am almost 60 now and now work as a relief teacher. That means I can choose my days that I want to work, and I try not to to get too upset with the latest educational trend that the government comes out with 😕 I also feel that many younger teachers and staff respect me because of my age. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s just that I’ve been around for a long time but somehow have managed to survive 😂
Thanks for sharing!!! ❤️
I am 41 years old and have been blind since birth. So my school experience was unique. I had some great regular classroom teachers. I remember two history teachers into English teachers in particular. I was semi integrated in early primary school, and when I moved in change schools I was fully integrated from then on. I have to say, school was a struggle. What was even more of a struggle was my dysfunctional Homelife. Having said all that though, like I said, I had some great classroom teachers. A couple of them even noticed that things weren't great at home. But at the same time, they weren't my therapist either. They were my teachers. And I certainly remember, while there were yes they were naughty kids in my class, I hear the stories from this channel and I just can't believe what students do today. Some of the naughtiest kids were pretty much the bullies in my day. And they tried to hide it from the teacher because they knew that if they were court, they would be in trouble. I can remember, if kids were talking in class, or basically acting out, they were told to quit it and they often did. If they didn't, they were sent to the principals office, and the whole class would go quiet because we all knew that that kid was in trouble… Serious trouble. I mean… All kids i'm sure have missed behaved at school at some point. But the point is, my memories of school is that if you did, there were consequences. Most kids, even if the teacher told them off in class for something, they would quit doing it, and stop pushing the boundaries. I very rarely remember a kid being sent to the principal because often a shop telling off from the teacher was enough. As for assignments? It was just a given that you turned assignments in. I always tried to turn assignments in, but when things were happening at home that wasn't always possible. But at the same time, I knew I would be in trouble if I didn't, and that would add a lot more stress. But, at the same time, I knew I had to turn the assignment in. I don't know… I just remember that it was understood that you turned assignments in. I cannot believe that these days, students don't even turn assignments in that there were no consequences. I can remember not turning assignments in and being scared of the consequences… No matter how dysfunctional a students Homelife was, you still had to do the work. That was my experience with regular classroom teachers. With special Ed teacher is back in the 80s and early 90s it was a totally different ballgame. Some of the cruellest people I have known were special Ed teachers of that year. Certainly in the area of special education, a lot of work needed to be done. Because, I would say, that special education back in the day most likely attracted the wrong kind of person. But I do remember one or two special Ed teachers that were awesome! I also do remember that back in the day, for me as a blind student, there was a lot of difficulty with researching as I couldn't just pick up a book and read it like everyone else, I had to have a lot more help getting assignments done. Nowadays, with adaptive technology coming along as it has, it would be a lot easier for blind students to do independent research, and get assignments done, and they wouldn't be the same level of "excuses". Oh and another thing I remember from my school days… Like you Trish, there was some group learning and interactive learning. But I actually hated it. I much preferred the teachers that lectured you and took notes on the board. I used to take a recording device into class and record the lecture because I would find taking notes distracting, and back in the days when you used things like a Perkins braille machine, they were very noisy and would distract the rest of the class. So I would record the lectures. But I have always learnt better that way… Listening to people lecture and talk is my preferred method of learning. From what I can gather, these days it's almost as though it is a sin to have the more traditional lecturing form of learning. Which is a shame really, because it's assumes that everything has to be interactive, group centred, and all this sort of thing. And I can't help asking the question… If we're all supposed to pander to people's learning styles, what about learning styles of people like me that preferred to be lectured? Anyway, that's my take on my own schooling days. It is incredibly nuanced, as like I said, being a disabled child back in the system in Australia back then, and having a dysfunctional home life on top of that, meant that my school days were not the run of the mill's for everyone else. But at the same time, I certainly remember, that there were things like consequences for bad behaviour, and we were certainly expected to put our own effort in and pull our weight. We were expected to read books… I remember reading braille books… And we were expected to do assignments around those books. Some of the books I remember reading I absolutely hated and couldn't get into them, but I read them anyway because that was what was expected of me and I understood that. But at the same time, I read some really good books as well. You kind of just did the work back then and did what was expected of you. You knew the teacher called the shots and you accepted that, whether you liked it or not. Truth is, we didn't always like what the teacher expected of us, but we knew we had to do it. Set you up for adult life really… When you have to do things that are boring or that you don't necessarily like, but you are expected to do because that is what is expected of you. We I believe a raising a generation now that are going to go into the adult world and get a massive culture shock because, they will be expected to do things whether they like it or not, there will be expectations placed on them, and they won't know how to deal with having those expectations placed, and having to conform to them whether they like it or not.
Well someone at least knows how to write a good thesis
Hey I'm a 35 year old millennial and I was in middle school through high school from 1999-2006 and my teachers held us accountable for our work, they actually taught, we had to take notes, study, research. I'm a history teacher and this is my second year, from what I've seen and heard they want us to use less of our teacher voice and experience and knowledge we gained in college and have student led class. This is not good if the students don't understand anything. There are major gaps in the curriculum and my students are babied. My school has something called day 0 where students can turn in weeks of missing work to get a passing grade and my school does curving which is bumping up the students test grades to meet a specific quota; if a kid gets below a 55 on an exam (30, 25 percent) we have to bump it up to a 55 if a kid gets a 62 we bump it up to an 80 its not truthful. Kids know if they do the bare minimum they can still pass.
millennial here, but young enough to be confused for Gen Z. i remember teachers actually teaching the class, not babysitting and desperately trying to get us to learn. kids back then were motivated save for the occasional slacker, but even the slacker would get help from the teachers after class to try and get them motivated. teachers were also involved with their students, making sure their home environment was safe. we referred to our teachers as either Ms., Mrs. or Mr., and then their last name. teachers didn't bring their personal life and views into the curriculum, the school library didn't have sexual books in it, school was my safe space away from home and for good reason: no drama, no political bs. i have two small children of my own. i just taught my 3 year old to count to 50 and she can already do basic math equations on this educational game on my phone i let her play for about a half hour to an hour. she can read books and she loves to read. my son just turned 1 and so far can only babble. im working with him on teaching him to walk right now. but i also sing to him the ABCs and i count to 10 everyday with him. im honestly thinking about just homeschooling, because i do know how to teach effectively. back when i was just a teenager i was tutoring students who were behind in my classes for free and got them to understand better than the teachers did anyway
I am Gen Z, I graduated high school in 2016 and college in 2020 with a degree in foreign language and education. I did all the practicum and student teaching, I still have my license which for some reason will expire regardless of whether or not I use my certificate to tutor, since my teaching has to be done through the public school system to maintain the license or otherwise I must pay to take more classes to keep my certificate. I planned on entering the public school system as a US career (I was planning on going to Japan) but after subbing post COVID I threw away that plan. I witnessed much disrespect and stupidity in my high school days and experienced it doing practicum, yet somehow I had enough patience for it. But after the lockdowns it went from terrible to just disastrous! I remember my elementary and middle school years had more expectations, rigor, and respect than my high school years or the high schools I student taught. Not to mention, as you said, I was not allowed to have a personality. My Christian faith needed to stand outside the front door of the school every day when I walked in, yet any other worldview was welcomed to be expressed inside those doors. All in all, it took me a long time to see that my high school experience was just the beginning of the downhill spiral of the education system here. I'm married now with a newborn and I plan to homeschool my children for them to get so much more out of schooling than their peers will if this craziness continues. I appreciate your channel and you voicing all these things. I hope it makes a difference. :)
I am Gen X. I was reading by age 3, so Kindergarten was about socialization and was half day. I learned to tell time and write cursive. As a left handed kid, the school brought in a parent to teach us how to write properly. We read tons of books. Third/fourth grade brought Judy Blume and the Mouse and the Motorcycle. The goal was to set us up for more advanced grades. We were taught to pay attention to details. We had a dress code to follow. We discussed cultural differences (my school was majority Christian with a few Jewish students, and a bit diverse racially). We had a teacher who was a wheelchair user, and were taught to embrace all. I started playing clarinet in 5th grade and continued through school. Junior High had team rooms, which was a failed experiment. Imagine 100 12/13 year Olds in one space with no walls between classrooms. Distraction city. High school, our classes were 30 or so. There was expectations that we could follow directions, write a essay and have the reading comprehension to pass Government. If you did not pass, you did not graduate, period. Corporal punishment was still a thing, we received paddling, detention or written essays as punishment for poor behavior.
I agree with u but I don’t think memorization is necessarily the way to have a students academic success. I am a genXr & I never made below a 85 from 8th grade till graduation… However if u were to give me a test today about “facts” I’d probably fail. I realized that after helping my kid with history.
I did however retain so much of of my science facts because I had 3 awesome science teachers in junior high and high that made learning a fun environment with meaning…Hands on learning. Im also not very good at algebra but am very good at geometry because again the teacher I had was one who showed how to apply it to real life and I loved the hands on instruction….I have retained all that info.(I’m in my 40’s)
So students need to be dedicated to their school career but just grading success solely on homework turned in a test taking will not help anyone in the long run.
Some systems are horrible, many students and their parents are horrible
But there are lazy teachers who do the bare minimum _ but then again why would a lot of teachers want to go out of their way for kids who just don’t care and parents who back them up.
The good students always lose out in most of these situations.
One thing you said really struck me. Teacher are supposed to make students "like" them. I don't remember that being an issue at all in my school days (late 80s and through 90s). I didn't like plenty of my teachers. But it wasn't a thing. Arguing, personal insults, refusal to do work, shutting down or having a meltdown over little things, unable to deal with any constructive criticism of their work. It's a tough world out there for teachers right now. The kids who want to learn, who come away from an activity wanting to learn more- those are the ones I have to focus on.
GenX/48yrs. I was in grade 8 (1988) when my middle school STOPPED using the wooden paddle.
And while I’m not a fan of corporal punishment, I have to admit, it was all downhill from there.
At school you read 1984. Today we are living it.
#Facts! 💯
I’m an after school program teacher and these children are very disrespectful and stupid, might not be their fault but facts are facts!
I’m a millennial. When we struggled, adults may not have handled it the best, all the time. Plenty would make you feel stupid. But others would encourage and help you get past that hurdle. I’ve heard people say for years ‘I don’t care if my child never learns math or reading. I will love them regardless!’ That’s great. You should love your kid. But you should also want them to enter the adult world as prepared as possible and you should want them to struggle the least mount possible. That means tutors, or professional intervention. Maybe it means medication. Not because your child isn’t good enough, or so they ‘fit in with the normies,’ but so they can get a job that pays whatever bills they may have in another decade. I taught myself a lot because the teachers were often burnt out. I’m pretty sure one had a nervous breakdown. He just lost it in the middle of class because he asked me to turn in my project, and I had already turned it in a week ago. When another kid said ‘I think hers is on your pile of other projects behind your desk.’ I actually loved teaching myself, because I was actually an early self-starter. I would have loved online school and actually begged my parents to let me do that in high school because so many teachers were burnt out. I would have been insulted if I didn’t grasp a lesson, and adults just said ‘it’s fine. You are special just for being you.’ I’m sure natural self-starters, early maturers, and high achievers still exist. I’m sure many are bored to tears and frustrated because the gifted program started meaning ‘same lesson, but 2-3x the homework.’ I can’t imagine what it is now. When the effects of ‘no child left behind’ stated and I felt that school was becoming mostly a refresher of things we learned in recent years with a few new facts thrown in, I acted out. But I kept my grades up because like you said, we had incentives.
My parents cared a lot about grades. Not like ‘if you get a B, you are grounded’ but because I had demonstrated what I was capable of doing. If my grades dropped below a B, when I’d been getting A’s, I would have to have a conversation. If I was just slacking, that wasn’t ok… not because of the grade but because adults don’t get to just do the minimum. I also couldn’t wait to be an adult because I felt like having to ask permission to use the bathroom and/or eat a snack was patronizing, even in elementary school. I wanted to drive myself before I could reach the pedals. I wanted to have my own place so I could make my own rules and follow my own schedule. Even in my 30s, I don’t miss childhood. It was over-rated. It was the same amount of responsibility but half the autonomy. I swapped studying and the 4 hrs of homework you would start getting in middle school, for bills and budgeting. Otherwise it’s the same, but I get to live on my terms. If I don’t like the place I spend 8 hrs at every day, i can swap it for a better environment. If I need extra money, I can cover a shift for someone or watch a friend’s kids, instead of cleaning out the whole garage (on top of usual chores) for $20. If I am bored of whatever I’m reading, I can stop, and read a new book. There were a few years of a learning curve with adulthood, and some traumas that had nothing to do with my adult status and could have happened at any age, but I am happy to be here, instead of the past. Kids are all terrified of adulthood now for some reason, which is sad. They don’t even realize that autonomy is worth whatever boring stuff you have to do every day.
I’m an early genz(2002), I’m a year away from getting my teaching certificate for high school biology. In my academic life I was blessed with college educated parents who cared about learning, excellence, and persistence. I didn’t get a cellphone till I was twelve. We had an i pad but could only have it half an hour a day(no CZcams or tv shows, just video games like temple run or fruit ninja. I was constantly socializing with other kids, playing video games with each other in person (sharing fairness cooperation) building cardboard armor and forts at the park, constantly playing dolls, and building legos and pretending with them. I was lucky to be in “gifted” programs k-12 (funnily enough in 5th grade I was in too high a grade level for math that i and the other “gifted” kids played cool math games for a year straight) I saw what went on in the regular classes. I worked my butt off in high school and in college. But my story is a near miss, had i been born 5 years later to different parents I could just as easily become a feral iPad kid. We have to have to have to look at the parents!
PREACH!
After five years of it never getting better, but the same issues rearing their ugly head (after trying three different schools), I got out.
I could feel my health starting to be affected, and it wasn’t worth it. I love teaching. But, nowadays, as a teacher, even though you hold the title, they make it to where you’re not allowed to.
You just become the the body in the room so they can collect attendance.
It’s not about the kids and their well-being, anymore. And that’s why I left.
I totally agree! I'm glad you were able to leave for your health & and well-being.❤️
Everything is flip-flopped now in society. The authority figure now bows to the subordinate in the classroom and in the workplace.
I'm gen z, just graduated HS, and my parents never let the stuff kids do now fly. I was a camp counsellor this summer and the ammount of poor behaviour that parents would either defend or outright deny was baffling. I had a kid throw things at me, smack others around him and throw temper tantrums at an age where his emotional regulation should have surpassed that response, and admit that he got kicked out of every other camp he's been to and yet the parents denied that and claimed he's never had issues before.
The more they try to "fix" education, the worse it gets. All the responsibility for learning is now on the teacher with little to no accountability on the students' end. I am SO LUCKY to be teaching high school seniors in a college dual enrollment class at a good school this year because my students are great kids and so much more motivated.
Agreed! I think having motivated students could persuade me to teach again, in spite of all the nonsense. The horrible attitude of my students was the straw that broke the camels back for me! 😭💔
Graduated in 2005, 90% of the crap allowed today wasn’t tolerated back then. I remember having regular lectures, homework and required to respect our elders or face consequences
I'm Class of 2006, and also a substitute teacher to high schoolers, so I feel ya girl!!!
Everything you said is spot on! Nailed it! Hence the reason for the teacher shortage and it’s only going to get worse.