Are the Negative Stories Concerning Gen Z and Alpha Students Truly Exaggerated?

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Current Events » Are the Negative Stories Concerning Gen Z and Alpha Students Truly Exaggerated?
I've been seeing a lot of online stories claiming that Gen Z and Alpha students are either out of control or can't read at their required level. Do you believe many of these tales are wildly exaggerated or is there some truth in them? If you're a teacher who happens to be in charge of students from the current generation, what are your thoughts?
going by my high school experience i'd argue that out of control students reading well under their age level is normal in this country.
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Giacomo_Hawkins posted...
Every generation whines about the youths.

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This sounds normal, sounds like nothing changed since I was at highschool.
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- Philip J. Fry
Being out of control? Probably exaggerated.

Not being able to read? I believe that one.
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My sister has went to school with Gen Z (older millennial), along with work, and she sees that stereotype. I do think it's a little exaggerated.

I've had millennial classmates that were barely able to read as a senior in highschool.

Do I think COVID remote learning as affected them? Sure. Not all their fault though.

Older generations were raised differently, but overall work ethic is going to be largely based on the individual.
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The teacher subreddits would have you think so. Not sure why they'd lie. I think the stats back it up.
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Arcanine2009 posted...
I've had millennial classmates that were barely able to read as a senior in highschool.
when i went to college english composition was a requirement for every freshman, i remember proof reading other students work in that class and holy hell did the majority of people fresh out of high school not know how to read and write at a high school level.
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Quando il gioco e finito, il re e il pedone vanno nella stessa scatola
Perhaps
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Kids had trouble reading even in the 80s and 90s

I went to school then and I remember most of my classmates always were very slow readers. The teacher would have someone read for the class and 9 times out of 10, the person picked had a lot of trouble. I never understood it because I've always been a strong reader. Never had trouble with it. I was the only person in my kindergarten class that could read. In fact, I legit do not remember learning how to read. I have no idea how I picked it up. At some point I just learned it.
I mean yeah there are kids that are out of control, not the majority. Same kids get into trouble constantly.

And yeah there are kids that read below their level. On the other hand, kids that are smart can excel much more than they were allowed to in the past. One of my kids will practically have a years worth of college credits by the time shes done with high school.
I remember back in grade 9, which would have been 2001 or 2002 depending on which part of the school year it was. Our teacher one time got so exasperated with certain students in the class, that she sat down at her desk, put her head down, and talked to us about being respectful or something, I don't remember exactly what was said, but she did say, "I'm not naming any name." Meanwhile, the 3 or 4 students that everyone knew she was talking about all stood up, with one pointing at himself, and another doing a silly dance, and I don't remember what else.

But basically, there have always been students that are out of control.
I've had better experiences working with Zoomers than Boomers. They have an idea of how tech works and are overall just sharper. Boomers are criminally clueless.
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pegusus123456 posted...
Being out of control? Probably exaggerated.

Not being able to read? I believe that one.

This.

My kid definitely has friends who are WAY behind her in reading ability.

It also I doubt is a Zoomer and Alpha phenomenon specifically. When I was in school I definitely knew a lot of people who sucked ass at reading and I'm sure the same applied to earlier generations as well.
The commercial says that Church isn't for perfect people, I guess that's why I'm an atheist.
I believe it's the opposite: most studies indicate that the youth these days are almost TOO under control and it's stunting their independence. They don't party, there's a rise in religiosity etc.
The difficulty reading I buy.

---
Source:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/americans-dont-party-enough-heres-183050076.html

I have no idea, what I can confirm is when I was a senior in highschool in a fairly well off community there was a sad number of kids who could barely read, so I don't think it's new
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everyone here went to well adjusted high schools, i went to one set up like a fucking prison filled with angry inmates. bomb threats each year, search dogs each year, massive fights each year, gun scares each year, students doing hard drugs in the bathrooms.
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I don't think they're exaggerated, but I think the severity now is about the same as it was in years past. There have been dickhead kids since time immemorial, and illiterate buffoons since time immemorial. It is true that some disciplinary measures nowadays are not as severe as in years past (expulsion is incredibly rare nowadays), but the kids being pieces of shit hasn't changed.
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Test scores in my area have been in decline for years so I'm going to go with yes.
Kids are too tame nowadays. These teens arent rebellious enough.
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monkmith posted...
everyone here went to well adjusted high schools, i went to one set up like a fucking prison filled with angry inmates. bomb threats each year, search dogs each year, massive fights each year, gun scares each year, students doing hard drugs in the bathrooms.

Yeah I live in rural Midwest in a farm area and went to a small school in the middle of cornfields. Our entire high school was 100 kids and I remember in high school in the early 90's stories from some of the bigger city schools where they had trouble with people bringing weapons to school and had hired security and was frisking students.

Our biggest issue was the janitor complained about people spilling soda on the floors and bringing food into classrooms so it became this big thing where they were cracking down on that and we joked that at the tough schools they frisked for gun and knives and in our school they frisked for pop and donuts.
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If Gen Z and Alpha students are dumber than previous generations, then it's the previous generations fault for sucking.
--I understand your opinion. I just don't care about it. ~Jedah--
No.

I'm a teacher.

They're cooked.

We're cooked.
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LordFarquad1312 posted...
No.

I'm a teacher.

They're cooked.

We're cooked.
Then as a teacher you can see the writing on the wall. You did what you could, but your students parents were just too dumb and selfish.
--I understand your opinion. I just don't care about it. ~Jedah--
I coach at a high school. It may be exaggerated, but if it is it aint by much

nocturnal_traveler posted...
If Gen Z and Alpha students are dumber than previous generations, then it's the previous generations fault for sucking.

Agreed. I will say that, in my experience as a teacher, anytime you're dealing with a student who is particularly difficult when it comes to behavior or academic achievement - and I'm not talking about getting C's or B's, I'm talking about being nearly illiterate or having barely any competency when it comes to basic mathematics - the moment you meet their parent or guardian, it generally makes sense.

I can't tell you how many times I've asked myself, "Gee, this kid is such a problem, I wonder how he ended up that way?", and then the moment I meet the parent or guardian, it's like, "OHHH...yeah, totally makes sense."
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The children that Ive taught in the last few years definitely have worse social skills, attention span, problem solving capabilities and struggle to think independently compared to those I taught earlier in my career.
Glob posted...
The children that Ive taught in the last few years definitely have worse social skills, attention span, problem solving capabilities and struggle to think independently compared to those I taught earlier in my career.

It's definitely a result of having access to technology. It is difficult to foster problem solving skills when students don't have to actually struggle to learn information. A lot of exercises that I had to do in elementary school, such as looking up 10 vocabulary words in the dictionary and copying down their meanings, were actually incredibly valuable. Having to peruse a dictionary in order to find where a word belongs teaches a level of pattern recognition, and having to actually copy something down from a book onto a piece of paper teaches attention to detail.

But nowadays, I don't know if students do this anymore - more often than not they probably have access to technology that tells them what a word means, sounds it out for them, uses it in a sentence for them, and so their learning is all about instant gratification due to technology.

It makes life very difficult for them when they get into high school. So many students struggle with math because unless they encounter a problem that they know how to solve from start to finish, they don't even dare to *start* it because they're not used to struggling through failure. A lot of parents have a hard time with it too, because they're not used to their kids experiencing challenges, and I'm of course the bad guy because I'm trying to teach them how to grow.
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Look at everyone you grew up with. How many turned out bad, how many did what they wanted, how many are simply just fine and mature mentally and emotionally?
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SSj4Wingzero posted...
It's definitely a result of having access to technology. It is difficult to foster problem solving skills when students don't have to actually struggle to learn information. A lot of exercises that I had to do in elementary school, such as looking up 10 vocabulary words in the dictionary and copying down their meanings, were actually incredibly valuable. Having to peruse a dictionary in order to find where a word belongs teaches a level of pattern recognition, and having to actually copy something down from a book onto a piece of paper teaches attention to detail.

But nowadays, I don't know if students do this anymore - more often than not they probably have access to technology that tells them what a word means, sounds it out for them, uses it in a sentence for them, and so their learning is all about instant gratification due to technology.

It makes life very difficult for them when they get into high school. So many students struggle with math because unless they encounter a problem that they know how to solve from start to finish, they don't even dare to *start* it because they're not used to struggling through failure. A lot of parents have a hard time with it too, because they're not used to their kids experiencing challenges, and I'm of course the bad guy because I'm trying to teach them how to grow.

Yeah I hear this. Teaching a kid to do things is the struggle of teachers now. Basic things even. Not just school things like reading and math, but stuff like how to initiate a conversation, how to find context in a story and use it to answer questions, how to click a button on a PC with a mouse. Its weird what people have taken for granted . Reading is just going to get worse because they just watch kids saying things on youtube now.
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archizzy posted...
Yeah I live in rural Midwest in a farm area and went to a small school in the middle of cornfields. Our entire high school was 100 kids and I remember in high school in the early 90's stories from some of the bigger city schools where they had trouble with people bringing weapons to school and had hired security and was frisking students.

Our biggest issue was the janitor complained about people spilling soda on the floors and bringing food into classrooms so it became this big thing where they were cracking down on that and we joked that at the tough schools they frisked for gun and knives and in our school they frisked for pop and donuts.
the rumor at my school was that the security guards were former prison guards, honestly they looked and acted like it. random searches and patdowns were absolutely a thing, metal detector wands too. they never did put in metal detectors at the doors though. lots of pull down barriers between sections of the school though, i guess in a shooting event they'd just seal off the shooter and write off the students in that section.

the school building was a 4 story box, in the middle of the box was the lunch room and library divided in half with a 4 story ceiling and skylights at the top. with the way classrooms were built you had the inner ring of classrooms with windows overlooking the lunch room and library, it was common for a class to be disrupted because someone chucked a milk jug at one of those interior windows. made for a great way to witness food fights, they stopped handing out milk bottles specifically because the ones they had for lunch originally were vaguely shaped like those german ww2 stick grenades, and if you lightly unscrewed the top and threw it in a high arc you could make a glorious mess.
Taarsidath-an halsaam.
Quando il gioco e finito, il re e il pedone vanno nella stessa scatola
SSj4Wingzero posted...
It's definitely a result of having access to technology. It is difficult to foster problem solving skills when students don't have to actually struggle to learn information. A lot of exercises that I had to do in elementary school, such as looking up 10 vocabulary words in the dictionary and copying down their meanings, were actually incredibly valuable. Having to peruse a dictionary in order to find where a word belongs teaches a level of pattern recognition, and having to actually copy something down from a book onto a piece of paper teaches attention to detail.

But nowadays, I don't know if students do this anymore - more often than not they probably have access to technology that tells them what a word means, sounds it out for them, uses it in a sentence for them, and so their learning is all about instant gratification due to technology.

It makes life very difficult for them when they get into high school. So many students struggle with math because unless they encounter a problem that they know how to solve from start to finish, they don't even dare to *start* it because they're not used to struggling through failure. A lot of parents have a hard time with it too, because they're not used to their kids experiencing challenges, and I'm of course the bad guy because I'm trying to teach them how to grow.

Yeah, technology is certainly a major factor. It affects adults too; I know plenty of adults who now cant watch a film or an episode of TV without needing to look at their phone.

The failure thing too. Its so important that children experience failure and learn not just to cope with it but also to use it as a positive experience because its an opportunity for learning and growth, but so many parents seem to want to protect their children from it.

The thing Im noticing more these days that Ive pointed out to a few colleagues and they all seem to agree is that children now only have one voice, one tone or mode of communication. Even Grade 5 children seem to be talking to their parents, their siblings, their teachers, head teachers, all in the same way, regardless of circumstance. They struggle to realise that saying bruh to a head teacher is not appropriate, for instance. I feel like Covid was a big part of this because so many children just werent getting that variety of social interactions at an important developmental stage.
Ugh, someone's blocking me in this topic, making it completely unreadable.
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This is the first time I've seen it as a bipartisan issue. Even the most academic and progressive proponents for youth have been sounding the alarm for how smart phones and ungated internet access have been fucking them up in the classroom and in personal life.
And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?
It's Guide
pegusus123456 posted...
Ugh, someone's blocking me in this topic, making it completely unreadable.
Which post numbers are you not seeing?
Humble_Novice posted...
Which post numbers are you not seeing?
28 29 33
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So? I deeded to some gay porn. It doesn't mean anything. - Patty_Fleur
pegusus123456 posted...
28 29 33


I think gfaqs is failing on you. This has happened to me, they're all different people and I doubt any have beef with you. It seems to reset within the hour, in my experience.
And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?
It's Guide
Evening_Dragon posted...
I think gfaqs is failing on you. This has happened to me, they're all different people and I doubt any have beef with you. It seems to reset within the hour, in my experience.

Posts quoting someone that's blocked you will also be hidden from you.
pegusus123456 posted...
28 29 33
It's Glob.
rick_alverado posted...
Posts quoting someone that's blocked you will also be hidden from you.
oh :v
And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?
It's Guide
Wtf kind of schools did you guys go to? Most people I went to high school with could read just fine even the burnouts which is who I hung out with (2000 - 2004 USA public school btw).
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Aren't they actually better behaved than Boomers, X and Millenials when it comes to partying, drugs, etc?
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pegusus123456 posted...
28 29 33
turn off the "hide ignored quotes" in advanced settings. for some reason, it hides posts quoting users who blocked you too
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NO2_Fiend posted...
Wtf kind of schools did you guys go to? Most people I went to high school with could read just fine even the burnouts which is who I hung out with (2000 - 2004 USA public school btw).
I was in public high school from 2004 up, and I hadn't heard of anyone illiterate at all. IIRC NJ had really strong schooling at the time. It was a bit of a shock to go online and learn just how awful other states were. When people said public school was bad, I thought they meant how fucking long it took to get to new lessons, not actual fucking illiteracy.
And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?
It's Guide
I knew one guy in high school, a friend of a friend, who said that he couldn't read, but I always just assumed he was exaggerating, if not bullshitting completely, especially as he said that none of the teachers had caught on.
NO2_Fiend posted...
Wtf kind of schools did you guys go to? Most people I went to high school with could read just fine even the burnouts which is who I hung out with (2000 - 2004 USA public school btw) .
There's your problem. Zoomers are just entering high school, and their brains have been rotted by neglect. Same with Alpha. Early 2000s was the last era of a decent education.
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_____Cait posted...


Yeah I hear this. Teaching a kid to do things is the struggle of teachers now. Basic things even. Not just school things like reading and math, but stuff like how to initiate a conversation, how to find context in a story and use it to answer questions, how to click a button on a PC with a mouse. Its weird what people have taken for granted . Reading is just going to get worse because they just watch kids saying things on youtube now.

And the biggest "problem* with technology is that it is set up to work and work very easily.

A lot of today's kids grew up with technology that was relatively foolproof so they didn't have to do a lot of 90s and early 2000s troubleshooting that a lot of us on this board probably had to do. Most students aren't familiar with a file directory, or changing extensions, or creating shortcuts, or troubleshooting basic computer issues, and so on, because in the school system, they're generally given pretty decent technology that is rather reliable and generally works. So despite growing up with technology, I find that a lot of their digital literacy is actually *really bad*.

Glob posted...
The failure thing too. Its so important that children experience failure and learn not just to cope with it but also to use it as a positive experience because its an opportunity for learning and growth, but so many parents seem to want to protect their children from it.

I feel like that means, in some ways, the school system that a lot of us grew up in didn't really encourage or permit failure, and it's created parents who aren't OK with their children experiencing it too. Frankly speaking, a lot of the issues that kids deal with are just as common in the parents of the kids.

Nowadays there has been a lot of discussion about how cell phone usage is really bad for kids and social media is not good for kids' self-esteem, but nobody seems to really tackle the issue that excessive social media usage is really bad for the *parents* also. So many parents' ideas of how to raise their kids and what their kids should be accomplishing comes from family vloggers and social media shit online that really gives a skewed perception of what life is like.

Glob posted...
The thing Im noticing more these days that Ive pointed out to a few colleagues and they all seem to agree is that children now only have one voice, one tone or mode of communication. Even Grade 5 children seem to be talking to their parents, their siblings, their teachers, head teachers, all in the same way, regardless of circumstance. They struggle to realise that saying bruh to a head teacher is not appropriate, for instance. I feel like Covid was a big part of this because so many children just werent getting that variety of social interactions at an important developmental stage.

Yeah, that can be a problem. I don't think that covid can really be a huge part of it for the students I teach - in suburban NY, we went back to alternate-day in-person instruction around 6 months after we first closed schools. I just cannot believe that missing out on 3 months of school and 3 months of summer break activities (many of which, frankly speaking, still continued despite epidemiologists' suggestions) can be the root cause of things so many years down the line. I had to have this conversation where a parent claimed that COVID-19 was the reason her son wasn't doing the work in my class this past year, so like, March of 2025.

Like, please. Yes, the pandemic was not great, but the pandemic is not the reason that your child smokes weed, cuts class, and doesn't do his homework 5 years later.
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Though not an English teacher, I can definitely see a difference in my math students pre- and post- covid. I'm now starting to get the students who were distance learning 4-5 years ago. They would have been in 5th-7th grade roughly then. There are many many key concepts in number, quantity, algebraic reasoning, and ratios and rates that they are quite poor in and it hinders their abilities in my high school Integrated Math courses.

Not to mention the compounding effect remote learning had on social and behavioral development which makes teaching even more difficult than usual.

And our school district had a relatively strong response to Covid compared to neighboring districts. Our students were 1-1 with chromebooks and staff were doing the best they could with distance learning. I can't imagine how bad it must be for some of these other areas that weren't prepared nor had the technology to do any kind of productive teaching.

Unrelated to covid is the undeniable affect social media and unrestricted phone/internet access has had on these generations as a whole. People claim that it's just a "generational thing" and that we've seen this before but no we have not. Not even the television has had an even remotely comparable impact on how youth consume (mis)information, disengage from their surroundings, and have been stunted in social and emotional development. Unregulated "AI" is only making things worse in that regard.

You can point the finger at bad parenting, and there is a responsibility they play in all this. But in case you haven't noticed, the world is on fire and many parents are just barely trying to survive in this hellscape we call modern society.

The problem, no matter how you dice it, is that unregulated late capitalism has caused kids to be stunted in their academics, qualified teachers to leave the profession, and families to struggle to hold things together.
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Its going to get worse. The kids that were in school during covid are academically and socially stunted, but will probably still develop into functional adults over time. The ones that were just entering day care / kindergarten during covid are fucked though. A large amount of them are years behind where they should be just in basic motor skill development never mind everywhere else.
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Current Events » Are the Negative Stories Concerning Gen Z and Alpha Students Truly Exaggerated?
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