15 teachers share the biggest changes they've seen in their students since the pandemic.
Teachers have always had a hard job.
But years of COVID have thrown yet another wrench in the education process, adding the logistics of Zoom classes, lock-downs, in-school surges, mass death, and now brain fog into the mix.
This mass upheaval has hit students and teachers alike.
In a popular post on Ask Reddit, teachers shared the biggest differences they've noticed in their students since COVID hit.
1. From HobbitInHufflepuff:
High school teacher here. These kids hit two major disruptions: Going remote, and coming back. Most kids learned almost no content when teaching was remote.
There are always those few who will learn no matter what, but honestly, having the ability to have a video game or fun website on in a different tab with no one able to tell was too big a temptation.
Not to mention the kids who were forced into childcare roles of younger relatives during school hours, or those in families that had more people than tech and had to prioritize who could work when.
Some amazing kids rose to the occasion, other kids just acted like regular kids. They are slowly recovering now. But a significant minority did better when school was remote.
One girl had a hard time focusing, so she brought her phone into the kitchen and cooked all period while also answering all the questions and participating in all the activities.
And one boy, for whom socialization was the hardest thing, burned through online classes once he wasn't held back by having to deal with people.
These kids had a much harder time on their return (and unfortunately in the boy's case, his success during remote school meant some of his services were taken away only for him to crash and burn once he was brought back).
2. From thejonfrog:
A lot of students got used to not handing in work on time or at all. During the pandemic, kids were getting passes because of tech problems and so on. We were told just mark it down as incomplete and move on.
No reason was needed to be given. Now I'm finding that when I give a project and tell them to work on it at home, I have, at best, half my kids who will, and the others are shocked that I was being serious.
It will be interesting to see if they get back into the swing of things as time moves on.
3. From joalheagney:
As a high school teacher in Australia (which is notorious for how we screwed up our latest Internet upgrade).
I've noticed students might have a shorter attention span overall, but boy, do they switch on and pay attention for the first 10 minutes. It's fricking eerie. Welcome, but eerie.
4. From youritalianjob:
To put things into perspective, I am a chemistry teacher:
There are big gaps in knowledge, especially mathematical. Asking basic algebraic questions leaves a lot of blank faces when in previous years it was a non-issue for most students.
The attention span has dropped to almost nothing. In previous years it was understood that cellphones shouldn't be out and if you were on a Chromebook you should be doing work. That's a huge issue at the moment.
Almost everyone seems burned out. While there are still a few exceptions, there seems to be an overall desire to not be in class that I have not seen.
Before, it was an issue in the beginning of the year but would subside as we got to interesting stuff. I have not felt motivated to do the interesting stuff this year (I still am) because they show just as much enthusiasm as when I just give a worksheet.
5. From StanYelnats3:
Post pandemic students have even shorter attention spans. Distractions are a major problem. Getting back into the structure and focus of in-person learning has been more difficult than expected.
6. From nctm96:
Besides the obvious ones, something that I didn’t expect was that they are so loud. They’re completely unaware of how much noise they make.
Pre-pandemic, even young kids were used to being in public places where they had to be quiet- school, church, libraries, movies, etc.
As soon as we came back in person, it became extremely evident that these kids had spent the past two years in the comforts of their own homes and on classes with mute buttons.
Even if they’re just sitting there doing their work, they’ll tap their hands, feet, pencils, they’ll hum to themselves, they’ll make any and all noises far beyond what I had ever seen before.
And it’s really hard to get them to stop, because they don’t even realize they’re doing it. (I teach second grade)
8. From Akairichii:
Involvement in extracurriculars is at an all-time low. Fine Arts programs are failing due to student numbers, lack of teachers, and funding.
Programs are being cut at all levels. Not enough students are joining and there are not enough teachers for the students who do. Great times.
9. From Parki2:
Inner city teacher here. As others have said, the attention span is lower. Many kids don't watch tv, they just play on their phone. Most may watch a show while being on their phone. It's all about new content.
Something else is the spoon-feeding they want. If a quick Google search doesn't give an immediate answer, it's hopeless.
They won't click a link to read three paragraphs to find an answer, they want Google to give them the paragraph out of context, with the bolded part.
On top of this is parents. Kids in many new aspects have a relationship with their parents that is friend based and not parent-child. Kids run wild and do what they please with little repercussions.
Parents expect you, the teacher, to drive their kids even though we see the kid for an hour a day. It's all just passing the buck.
10. From ChrisNEPhilly:
A lack of maturity and many don't remember how to behave in the classroom setting. My 10th graders act like middle school kids.
11. From Rotkunz:
I work with teenagers at risk of dropping out of the system. What we've found quite clearly is that the pandemic has been another straw on the camel's back.
When you've already got a million things fighting against you (risk factors) adding another one on top of that is not going to help.
Also when comparing to other students, a lot of the students I work with don't have comfortable home lives, so being stuck at home during lock down has been even more of a negative experience.
12. From piratefaellie:
I work with younger kids, elementary but usually like K-4, and they have never learned or don't remember a traditional classroom structure, and as a result, they are extremely hard to control/get the attention of.
No attention span, extremely distracted, talking over me way more than usual, and really a lot of them don't know how to listen.
It's gotten extremely overwhelming, I can't control a classroom anymore without stopping every 5 minutes, but maybe that's just on me lol
Also, like another commenter said, they are afraid to try things by themselves and need a lot of extra help even for basic tasks.
13. From memilygiraffily:
I teach kindergarten and a bunch of my students hadn’t really been around other kids since maybe age 2. A lot of them were thrown about the concept of being with a group of kids all mostly doing the same thing.
We would call everyone to sit in a circle on the carpet and some of them would go over to the little kitchen to play with the microwave or try to lay underneath a table.
The TA and I would tell them it’s story time and the children are on the carpet now and the kids would genuinely be like, “got it. You all are doing story time. I will be over there in the little kitchen putting these fruits in the microwave.”
For some of them, it took a long time for it to sink in that they were in a group of children who were doing school. Some of the children seem starved for adult attention and act out for attention moreso than in the past.
I have a few that are quite naughty until they receive a lot of individualized mom-type nurturing. Which is probably what they need since some of their younger years were more rocky.
A lot of the preschools were running on a skeleton crew that had a ton of kids and not enough staffing so the children didn’t receive the structure and probably attention they’d normally have had.
14. From Forever_Man:
My current group of freshmen are functionally as mature as 7th graders. It makes sense, they missed a lot of the traditional middle school experience. The pandemic caused a lot of arrested development.
I'm so sick of telling kids that they cannot fart on each other while I'm trying to teach.
15. From zazzlekdazzle:
I have noticed changes in my undergrads, but as a scientist, I want to be careful not to mistake correlation for causation. I don't know if it's the pandemic, generational changes, or something else.
My students now seem very emotionally and intellectually fragile in a way they weren't before. They are terrified of any sort of challenge or assessment. They do not want to engage with active learning much at all.
They don't want to be graded. This is not the same as saying they are just checked out of the educational process, quite the opposite.
These students seem very eager to learn, but the process of being in the presence of unfamiliar information and challenging themselves to understand it seems to drive them to distraction.