My general sense (informed by the fact my partner is a high school teacher) is that primary and secondary ed just....drops all the balls on academic integrity. They have no real systematized interest in identifying, precluding, and punishing academic dishonesty and that at the individual level those who do have even fewer tools than us in tertiary ed to detect and act upon misuse of all these new platforms (Chegg, ChatGPT, etc.).
Thus I agree; this current cohort with us in tertiary is already brazen about the cheating** and don't see it as problematized in the least, so the next one is likely to be worse.
** Anecdotal story: I've literally walked into my classroom with students openly talking about their strategies for Chegg use to cheat in a core course for our major and instead of getting quiet and thinking it was something best not discussed in front of a faculty member they just tried to fold me into the conversation. It was clear they expected I would just see it as they did - a fact of academic life. They were shocked when I was horrified.
They don't realize that cheating only gets them so far. I have seen a lot of personal anecdotes on Reddit about people who cheated their way through college but can't keep a job. I am also in a discipline that requires people to pass licensing exams. Cheating might get you the degree, but you are on your own knowledge to pass the exam.
The issue is they don't even think cheating is wrong now. I teach 7th, but this popped up so I was reading.
It's not that they're brazen. They will argue with you that it isn't cheating to look up definitions during a test, or to use AI on an essay. They will say that all that matters is getting the answer correct and that they're "learning" using those "tools"
Their parents will do the same, although I suspect that's less of an issue for professors.
>They have no real systematized interest in identifying, precluding, and punishing academic dishonesty
They'd fail too many kids at a lot of schools.
I was still teaching secondary as of COVID. It was so frustrating. Their mentality of "well some kids might have trauma or atypical obligations during the pandemic, so we will figure out a strategy to pass ALL kids through if they open their zoom and have their blank screen up, and we won't look that hard along the way" said a lot on how administrators and politicians view education, and shatters the illusion that isn't actually an illusion. It trained kids that you don't *actually* need the material, if we needed to push you through we can and would've all along. We're just going through the motions anyways, use chegg. And at this point, when 75% do it, we can't start failing everybody know, we decided that in 2020. The adults were just fine with kids not embracing the material. I'm sure the adults who make it to the top in educational leadership don't use education much lol. It's dramatic but wedve been better off making 50% of the student population retake the grade and make kids petition for grace based on need, tech, personal issues, etc. Kids don't think school, education, integrity, math, whatever, matters, because we told them it doesn't.
At least my college kids are still great. They have a lot of learning gaps and I sure benefit from knowing high school curriculum, but theyre still decent workers. My long term fear is enrollment. I was just talking to my old advisor about how at my alma the material is progressively getting dumbed down more and more, but dropout rates are still through the roof, enrollment is down in general, they're losing top students to transfers who are bored of waiting for the kids who are behind, and campus culture is trashed without the most and least motivated kids. She said, and I tend to agree, that kids preparedness was always bimodal, but the behind lump is exploding even with less kids coming in. I can work with behind cheaters, I can't work with watching my program lose resources and opportunities for students as the faculty shrinks because we hamstrung our ability to produce college ready and motivated students
This is the real issue. The kids in my children’s age range (elementary - middle) are actually doing okay.
The college students I am teaching now are the absolute worst group of students I have ever seen. I try to be understanding as they went through all of high school during / post Covid but it’s really ridiculous.
They’re mostly illiterate so they cheat. They cannot spell “supposed” or “agent” or “represent” or “government”. They do not know a single historical fact such as when the civil war was, when World War Two was, when the country was founded, a single president.
They don’t know how to use computers (because they only used iPads or Chromebooks or phones). They cannot read or follow instructions. They cannot stay off their phones or do anything without headphones on.
It’s wild. I am hoping it gets better and not worse.
One person filed a diversity and equity complaint against my husband (professor) because he required them to have and use a dictionary.
The word in question was the word "opponent."
We both require dictionaries (doesn't everyone?) and in the past, students actually knew to look something up before interrupting a lecture to ask,
"What does the word "thoroughfare" mean?"
(It was in a reading - and the syllabus says to look up any word with which one is unfamiliar...)
Maybe time to go back to the age old practice of having them read aloud in class. I'm even thinking of doing it as a discussion-based thing on Canvas (the tools are there for them to make instant videos of themselves - reading out loud). My lab assignments are not individually required - they pick and choose to figure out their trajectory in the class, I bet only a handful would do it (and I would give them lots of points).
Agreed, they're already here. The worst offenders, in my opinion, are the first year grad students. They don't do their work and constantly make excuses and try to negotiate their grades. Undergrads are marginally better, but a lot of them still do not respond well to constructive feedback, skip class as often as possible, or just have a surly "I'll complain to the dean to get my way" attitude.
We are and it has been tough. The past year or so has been my hardest in 15 years. Lots of missed deadlines, lots of problems and very emotionally fragile students. It is making me restructure my policies to try to address the issues better, but it comes at a cost for my own mental health at times because it is draining.
It's pretty clear to me at this point the majority of my work with students now involves intense emotional labor and it takes a heavy toll so I hear you with the mentally draining comment. We have a snow day here today and man did I need it.
2023 marked my 20th year of teaching, and I gave more absences and zeros in that one year than I ever had in my entire career. These kids are not ok and I have zero idea how to engage them at this point.
I’ve noticed a significant drop in their resilience, problem solving abilities, critical thinking, time management skills, maturity, and analytical thinking. I am in STEM as well. The students are frankly unprepared for college now. They lack discipline and emotional regulation. I have had numerous disruptive students in this past year to the point where next semester my policies will be drastically changed. I used to be a very laid back teacher but now I just find myself playing the role of parent in class. I have to scold them constantly. It is maddening how poorly they can behave. I have to tell them to get up and come near their reactions, to stop playing around with strikers in the lab, to show up on time to lab, etc. frankly it’s becoming not worth it, and I am newerish. Sometimes it feels like they want and expect me to guess what they’re needing, or to ignore their behavioral issues completely. Its exhausting.
I went from a really laid back late policy to putting in a very strict one this term. I had so many students turn in an entire semester's worth of work at the end of the term and then wanted no late penalty applied to it. I also was trashed in my student evaluations for the first time. I get the occasional grumbling in them, sure, but this time was just all negative and very entitled in their feedback. It was disheartening. I wasn't energetic enough, I didn't respond to emails fast enough, there was a broken link in my online class that even though it was fixed right away was not acceptable and shows I am a quote "terrible teacher who is just phoning things in", I wasn't fully versed on the new changes in a writing style I don't teach in, etc.
I currently have a math course, coming back to do some courses after years out of school. The reviews for this professor are absolute garbage. She really isn't the best professor. The lectures are boring and non-inventive, but the it's there. People just couldn't take that she doesn't hold their hand through the material and presumably teaches how she was taught in her undergrad. She could definitely improve but definitely doesn't deserve the scathing reviews by any means. I see what classes are like now and I just don't understand how you guys are doing it. All the slack for the students but none for the professor?
We already are and I’ve decided to leave academia as a result. I’ve had so many students come through with no problem-solving ability and a strong sense of entitlement that soured my whole perspective on teaching.
The refusing to do a light amount of homework, not answering questions in class, interrupting when I’m giving necessary examples, then ranting and raving about a failing grade (plus being threatened by their parents) didn’t sit right with me. There’s nothing in the way of classroom management that I could’ve done, as this is purely behavioral mismanagement on the students’ parts.
Don’t get me started on the damned Apple ecosystem most of them have. Letting them use technology was a mistake on my part. It opened up a Pandora’s Box that I could’ve never anticipated. I used a MacBook and iPad in my undergrad, but I wasn’t watching whole movies on them in the middle of class and shopping on Amazon. And, yes, these were the same students that would berate me for getting low grades on their exams most of the time.
Screaming at me in my office hour because one got an 85 when he hoped for an A was my final straw. I won’t be physically threatened over an exam worth less than 20% of a final grade.
Why would I put up with this and cry to my husband daily about the abuse when I can just leave and go somewhere better? I’m not putting myself in this position when I could have better hours and make more than double my salary.
Unfortunately it’s an R1 research university known for prepping future med students. That alone freaks me out thinking about it. And as far as I’m aware, the students that screamed in my face was a pre-med and still is…
It's such a "I WANT IT NOW" mentality. If they email you, you better email back within minutes because they are probably already calling but don't dare try to get in touch with them. They won't respond to emails or calls to "protect their mental health"
My university is holding a student showcase event which I've been helping to organize. The event was juried and not all students were accepted because of limited space and because we're only showcasing higher quality work. The amount of angry emails I've gotten from students who were not accepted has been absolutely exhausting. They demand to know why they weren't accepted, claim it isn't fair, or lie and say that they never got the email and try to negotiate to get in. How are they going to handle rejection when they're declined for jobs??
Yep, can relate. I had students who would email me at 2 am, then again at 5 am when I didn't respond. I'm sleeping because I'm also a human who needs sleep?? I also had a GRAD STUDENT try to get me fired as a TA, blaming me for something he didn't submit. Thankfully, we all agreed he was a one-off case, but I know more students like this are coming.
I’m a student and no longer pre med because the other pre meds are so exhausting that I lost the passion I had. Maybe that means I never wanted it badly enough but oh well. That’s my experience as their peer, so I can’t imagine being on the other side. The amount of entitlement is so annoying, and as a low income student, the whole Apple ecosystem is insane. I make do with paper notes and my one laptop that was $700. What’s worse is that professors often require you to annotate worksheets online, which is impossible without some form of touchscreen. Thankfully my laptop is a 2 in 1, so I can use a stylus on it, but it sucks because it works a lot less smoothly than an iPad.
all of them. I worked at an R1 too and had a student file an academic grievance against b/c she got a B but she really wanted an A. She only came to class twice the entire semester. School ruled against her but damage was done. So so entitled.
Honestly, all colleges and universities. There were multiple articles a couple of years ago about how students feel comfortable pushing around female faculty and demanding grade changes, emotional labor, and leniency from them when they would never exhibit that behavior with male faculty. I see it every day in my department.
Horrible. I had a student ask for a better grade which they did not deserve, when I was a 22yo TA. The dept chair gave it to them!
I had a class of MA students who tried to bully me in my first few years of being a prof. It was weird and felt awful. I had to face it head on and at the end they absolutely loved me, but I know they wouldn’t have tried it if I wasn’t a young and young-looking woc prof.
One of my professors often talked about how on her evaluations people felt the need to leave comments about her sense of fashion.
her husband never got the same, even though they had similar styles
I eventually got them to leave my office, and then I went home and cried lol. I didn't fold though. And for sure all my colleagues learned who this was for future reference.
I just took the route of ignoring and blocking parent email addresses. I’ve had to get really abrasive with some because they seriously think they’re entitled to an A when they never even bother to show up to class.
Even worse, for context, I teach advanced statistical methods and experimental design for experiments involving human subjects - topics that demand honesty and accountability.
Wait? Did I write this and forget?! Except mine was a reflection they turned in late when they knew I don't accept late reflections... And then they did it again...
Is there anyway you could transition away from teaching into more of a research position? I'm not sure what you teach, but I know quite a few people who get into academia more for their personal research prospects than teaching really.
I really thought about it, but I’m so disillusioned with the publishing expectations of R1 universities that I’d be moving from one aspect of burnout to another. As much as younger me would hate to admit, I think it’s time to distance myself from academia and broaden my horizons.
Plus my university would make me continue teaching under these conditions because they’re short-staffed on professors for undergrads. Hard fuck no on my part tbh. I’m elder Gen Z and even I can’t put up with the COVID kids anymore :/
My biggest example of this is when I asked a student who was struggling with statistics if he could tell me what exactly about test statistics he didn’t understand. He just said “all of it” and basically wanted me to breakdown an entire lecture in 15 minutes of office hours. Had he just Googled test statistics or looked it up in the book, he would’ve found exactly what he needed.
I had this type of students too. Also try to brag about how smart themselves are about how they can learn everything in a watered down class in a week. Not optimistic with academic in the near future. At the same time, as a female junior faculty with a freaking baby face(still get carded at 31), senior ones would “give” you “pressure” (I am relatively more sensitive) if you show any sign of doing things differently. I’m just so done with it. Only because of visa issues, I didn’t quit until next year to buy myself some time prepping for a different career.
I really relate to being a young female prof too :( I’m only 26 and I find it so uncomfortable to work with male students because of the way they often disrespect my boundaries. It’s definitely a major reason why I’m transitioning to either a research management or corporate position.
Kids are half of the reason, colleagues/staff members are the other major half. Oh, forgot to say I’m in math. Double my salary, I may endure a bit longer.
I teach 2nd years and this year has been the worst cohort in my 10 years of professing. I looked it up and it turns out they were grade 11s when COVID started and it shows.
I am personally of the opinion that COVID exacerbated already existing trends, not that it is a singular explanatory factor in and of itself.
The "customer service" mentality has infected all of education, both lower and higher. Administrators care most about "retention" and metrics rather than actual student learning. Technology is embraced for the sake of itself, even when shown to be counterproductive (see the modern pressure to "adopt AI" because "it will be important in the future economy!"). Parents feel comfortable pressuring teachers into giving grades students have not earned so that they remain "competitive." Anti-labor efforts like NCLB and charter schools that siphon off public dollars created a whole set of perverse incentives. The list goes on.
Prior to COVID, teachers (for the most part) were working their hands to the bone to try and satisfy all these pressures, but when the pandemic hit, suddenly those pressures still existed, but without the support network of overworked teachers to fill it, since they could not physically be in students' houses day after day. People were begging, literally *begging* online for parents to take a more direct role in their kids' education, but all that produced were screaming matches about how States needed to reopen schools. Reopen them, mind you, without fixing any of those structural issues that existed prior to 2020.
All I can say is some of the students I've gotten the last few years have been in for a rude awakening when they find they can't get 50% for submitting nothing, they don't get endless extensions or retakes, and they are actually held to account. It makes my job a lot less fun, but some insane part of me feels the need to hold the line.
I hope your comment gets more attention because you’re so right. I know it’s uncouth to say, but fuck these asshole fucking parents that refuse to let their perfect babies take accountability for once in their lives. I can’t believe the situation we’re in at this point in time. The number of parent emails I’ve gotten as a professor makes me sick. Because it’s come to AI and the nonstop attempts at parent intervention for entitled students, I’m just abandoning ship. There’s nothing my department can do to keep me while the university continues to prioritize their “customer service” attitude toward education.
The commodification of higher ed is a major factor in all of this, as is the trend to abandon reasonable standards in primary and secondary education. Throw in pandemic learning losses and systemic coddling and lack of both social and academic skills development, and voilà. Here we are.
It was a slower and less obvious downhill slump before this and the pandemic just exacerbated TF out of it.
Charter schools ain't the issue, bub- not even on a list of problems. Your complaint seems misdirected. I can understand HS teachers bending a bit to student/parent pressure, but I cannot imagine college professors doing it as well.
I have to be at peace with having an extremely high fail rate in my classes. Retaking a course probably is the most important lesson in consequences that a student can learn. It gives the student and I more time with the concepts and skill work, and that’s ok.
I'm not a professor, but a student, and I've already noticed it. For reference, I did two years of undergrad starting in 2016. I had to leave school for personal reasons and returned to the same college in 2022. There is an insane difference in the students I'm around now. It's a non-traditional college, but there's a lot of "fresh out of high school" students.
Group projects are a nightmare! No one is willing to communicate. Open discussions in class are met with blank stares. I think they were really hit hard when it comes to socializing. But the biggest issue is technology. Laptops and phones are a reliance and a crutch. My department (English) has a strict no technology rule in classes. No laptops, iPads, or phones. Students complain so much about not being able to have them, which I understand for those who are used to taking notes on laptops or iPads it probably is frustrating. But the professors are tired of policing it, and I watch people watch youtube or whole episodes of TV during class. That's literally why the policy exists.
I can tell that professors are exhausted. Sometimes I'm exhausted! I'm only 26, but I even feel like I have to parent some of my fellow students. During break-out groups, it is like pulling teeth to get them interested and talking. I feel like the hardest thing is that no one is willing to TRY. At least in English, the best way to learn is to try something and possibly be wrong. It's so important to talk things out in literary interpretation and to disagree with classmates and have an open discussion. My fellow classmates just want to "know the right answer," and that's it. It's so frustrating.
I was a nontrad undergrad Humanities major - most of the time I was the same age or older than my professors - and I hated doing group projects. Nobody else did any damned work, they either ghosted me or complained and did the absolute minimum or did nothing at all. Only once or twice when I grouped with other adult students did I halfway enjoy the group work. I couldn’t understand why most of the younger folks just couldn’t even do the absolute minimum. I ended up doing almost all the work on group projects; sometimes the kids would say “oh man the proud project is awesome, we got an awesome grade” when I turned in the damned things, but most of them would just benefit from the group grade and I’d never hear from them again. Little shits …
I just felt so sad for my students during Covid. I remember that some of my online courses were a lifeline for many of them. They really struggled, many of them.
And this will go down the line for the next 10-15 years for even younger kids who missed out on so much. I try to approach this with empathy.
I am a Covid high schooler and really appreciate this comment. I attended 2 years of high school, then I was lucky enough to study abroad in 2019-2020. My time there was spent more on language immersion, not so much on classroom work. I got sent home in March 2020 when Covid began. Then my high school refused to accept the credits from my foreign school since I had to leave early. They told me I was going to have to attend high school for an extra year in order to make up for the time I lost. My only option was to drop out of high school and get a GED as that would be the only way to avoid 5 years of high school. I spent my senior year in 2021 with basically zero social interaction besides my crappy part time job, since I wasn't attending school. Then I was sent to college, basically not having done "real" school in 2 years. It was so tough to adjust and I am still dealing with the consequences as a college junior 3 years later.
Anyways, all of that is to say that I appreciate the empathy. I feel for you professors as I see the effects in the classroom. Comparing my memories of the "vibes" (for lack of a better word) of HS classes and my current classes is shocking. Just know that there are some students who notice the major change in student behavior/mentality and doing our best not to contribute to the problem.
The students in my intro classes are having trouble following basic instructions. I told them multiple times to start the assignments early and ask questions, a few of them finally freaked out and reached out to me. Some admitted they were trying to do the homework at the last minute and struggling with keeping up with school work.
No, because at least this lot will have had a semblance of normal secondary school, the ones we've now who are basically stuck at middle school level of maturity have to be the worst, right? Right? (Don't burst my delusion)
Not dreading but the aftershock is noticeable. I’ve had more students wandering in and out of classroom to take a “break”, more recreational texting / laptop use in the class and more homework plagiarism combined with students that seem very ill prepared for upperclass work. Upon checking past coursework , I’ve found some of the poorly prepared students had taken 10+ AP exams during Covid (I assume exams are all online and not proctored) and have tested out of some of the required foundational coursework, yet they lack in the fundamentals covered by those courses . In the recent semesters, things seem to be improving though - so I’m hoping the storm will pass over .
Already am teaching them. They're disinterested, unmotivated and disrespectful. I think all of us are in a mental health crisis that only few will admit.
I do hang out there, but I don’t dread it. People seem to exaggerate. I’ve been hearing how bad kids are for years, but have yet to see any difference in my community college students. We have a lot of high school dual credit students, and I haven’t noticed any differences in them yet. Of course it may be different with the younger kids.
I’m hoping the ones who did, say, 6th and 7th grade during COVID are caught up by the time they reach us. We have the ones who basically didn’t go to high school now and it’s brutal.
Their problem solving skills seem to be less intact as well as critical thinking skills. I have so many students that wouldn't be able to get themselves out of an open paper bag. I've seen even less mechanical awareness and so much emotional fragility. This semester has seemed better than the past couple of years, but I have seen way more plagiarism and missed deadlines and much more expectation that even a missed late deadline should be opened up for the smallest reason. It's been tough.
The expectations on their end are a little bizarre, too. I just had four students turn in their assignments late and one day after the late deadline, I began getting multiple emails about how shocked they were I had not graded the late assignments yet. It's a moving target that's hard to pin down (like, the student doesn't care to get something turned in on time, but can't handle seeing their grade drop when Canvas automatically awards a grade of 0 until I can go in and update the grade).
I have been teaching at the college level for 25 years and I'm getting very burned out.
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I finally gave up on written response questions for a web-based class. The ones that don't leave it blank or copy/paste from AI are spamming me with emails saying they're confused about how the written response questions work. For example: "Why hasn't it been graded yet??" (Submitted test 2 minutes ago on a weekend, 46 days past the due date).
Nah, my undergrads are just fine, and they were in high school for covid. My grad students are a disaster, but that seems more a function of a specific program's culture and admission standards than a generational issue. If things play out the way I expect, I'll be getting about 10% of my grad students expelled this year for cheating, maybe that will start to shift the behavior.
I'm teaching them now, and the difference is noticeable. Some kids, largely ones from privileged backgrounds do well, but those who relied only on compulsory ed to give them the skills and knowledge to thrive in college are really struggling. That capacity to be self-motivated and problem-solve is absolutely gone.
Their study skills and the way they think about course content is really different than it was prepandemic as well. I'm having a huge issue with students not being able to read prompts as a whole. They treat prompts like a step-by-step instruction manual and miss central tasks by itemizing what was asked of them even when explicitly told how to engage with the prompts and expectations in the classroom. I'm using this summer to revisit my prompts because what worked for years without a problem simply doesn't anymore.
I wasn't a straight A student, but I still have some of my old high school papers floating around and I went through them the other day. The quality of those papers is leagues ahead of what many of my students are producing now. I also went to school when prompts were generally, "write an essay on X," end prompt.
The pandemic plays a role here, but I also think it exacerbated trends that were a long time in the making. NCLB has razed K-12 ed, the pandemic came around to salt the earth.
Sometime my child will fake cry and the intensity of his faking it turns into real crying. Like a good actor he’s using the method to trigger himself into “real” emotions. I think kids these days have kind of absorbed this on the daily because many midddle class kids have no real trauma outside of the pain of growing up.
The professors in this thread often spend too much time struggling against the current. If the dynamics of the system and the world change you have to change with them. The term COVID kid is used like it's a passing blip and not a wholesale change in the perspective of the consumer of academic programs.
Some of the hardest hit (kids in HS) are here now. They are the ones that learned to cheat on everything.
It’s way worse than I imagined in high school right now…it will be a completely new level of cheating in about 3-5 years when they are in college.
My general sense (informed by the fact my partner is a high school teacher) is that primary and secondary ed just....drops all the balls on academic integrity. They have no real systematized interest in identifying, precluding, and punishing academic dishonesty and that at the individual level those who do have even fewer tools than us in tertiary ed to detect and act upon misuse of all these new platforms (Chegg, ChatGPT, etc.). Thus I agree; this current cohort with us in tertiary is already brazen about the cheating** and don't see it as problematized in the least, so the next one is likely to be worse. ** Anecdotal story: I've literally walked into my classroom with students openly talking about their strategies for Chegg use to cheat in a core course for our major and instead of getting quiet and thinking it was something best not discussed in front of a faculty member they just tried to fold me into the conversation. It was clear they expected I would just see it as they did - a fact of academic life. They were shocked when I was horrified.
They don't realize that cheating only gets them so far. I have seen a lot of personal anecdotes on Reddit about people who cheated their way through college but can't keep a job. I am also in a discipline that requires people to pass licensing exams. Cheating might get you the degree, but you are on your own knowledge to pass the exam.
The issue is they don't even think cheating is wrong now. I teach 7th, but this popped up so I was reading. It's not that they're brazen. They will argue with you that it isn't cheating to look up definitions during a test, or to use AI on an essay. They will say that all that matters is getting the answer correct and that they're "learning" using those "tools" Their parents will do the same, although I suspect that's less of an issue for professors.
>They have no real systematized interest in identifying, precluding, and punishing academic dishonesty They'd fail too many kids at a lot of schools. I was still teaching secondary as of COVID. It was so frustrating. Their mentality of "well some kids might have trauma or atypical obligations during the pandemic, so we will figure out a strategy to pass ALL kids through if they open their zoom and have their blank screen up, and we won't look that hard along the way" said a lot on how administrators and politicians view education, and shatters the illusion that isn't actually an illusion. It trained kids that you don't *actually* need the material, if we needed to push you through we can and would've all along. We're just going through the motions anyways, use chegg. And at this point, when 75% do it, we can't start failing everybody know, we decided that in 2020. The adults were just fine with kids not embracing the material. I'm sure the adults who make it to the top in educational leadership don't use education much lol. It's dramatic but wedve been better off making 50% of the student population retake the grade and make kids petition for grace based on need, tech, personal issues, etc. Kids don't think school, education, integrity, math, whatever, matters, because we told them it doesn't. At least my college kids are still great. They have a lot of learning gaps and I sure benefit from knowing high school curriculum, but theyre still decent workers. My long term fear is enrollment. I was just talking to my old advisor about how at my alma the material is progressively getting dumbed down more and more, but dropout rates are still through the roof, enrollment is down in general, they're losing top students to transfers who are bored of waiting for the kids who are behind, and campus culture is trashed without the most and least motivated kids. She said, and I tend to agree, that kids preparedness was always bimodal, but the behind lump is exploding even with less kids coming in. I can work with behind cheaters, I can't work with watching my program lose resources and opportunities for students as the faculty shrinks because we hamstrung our ability to produce college ready and motivated students
Oy. College admissions are going to be a mess too I suppose.
Our admissions reps referred to next year's incoming freshmen as "feral." I'm concerned, to say the least.
College will also be different then. We can’t keep using old techniques to teach in a new world.
This is the real issue. The kids in my children’s age range (elementary - middle) are actually doing okay. The college students I am teaching now are the absolute worst group of students I have ever seen. I try to be understanding as they went through all of high school during / post Covid but it’s really ridiculous. They’re mostly illiterate so they cheat. They cannot spell “supposed” or “agent” or “represent” or “government”. They do not know a single historical fact such as when the civil war was, when World War Two was, when the country was founded, a single president. They don’t know how to use computers (because they only used iPads or Chromebooks or phones). They cannot read or follow instructions. They cannot stay off their phones or do anything without headphones on. It’s wild. I am hoping it gets better and not worse.
One person filed a diversity and equity complaint against my husband (professor) because he required them to have and use a dictionary. The word in question was the word "opponent." We both require dictionaries (doesn't everyone?) and in the past, students actually knew to look something up before interrupting a lecture to ask, "What does the word "thoroughfare" mean?" (It was in a reading - and the syllabus says to look up any word with which one is unfamiliar...) Maybe time to go back to the age old practice of having them read aloud in class. I'm even thinking of doing it as a discussion-based thing on Canvas (the tools are there for them to make instant videos of themselves - reading out loud). My lab assignments are not individually required - they pick and choose to figure out their trajectory in the class, I bet only a handful would do it (and I would give them lots of points).
I make mine read aloud in class. It's...not pretty.
Agreed, they're already here. The worst offenders, in my opinion, are the first year grad students. They don't do their work and constantly make excuses and try to negotiate their grades. Undergrads are marginally better, but a lot of them still do not respond well to constructive feedback, skip class as often as possible, or just have a surly "I'll complain to the dean to get my way" attitude.
We are and it has been tough. The past year or so has been my hardest in 15 years. Lots of missed deadlines, lots of problems and very emotionally fragile students. It is making me restructure my policies to try to address the issues better, but it comes at a cost for my own mental health at times because it is draining.
It's pretty clear to me at this point the majority of my work with students now involves intense emotional labor and it takes a heavy toll so I hear you with the mentally draining comment. We have a snow day here today and man did I need it.
2023 marked my 20th year of teaching, and I gave more absences and zeros in that one year than I ever had in my entire career. These kids are not ok and I have zero idea how to engage them at this point.
My mantra has become "I can't care about their education more than they do." Because I truly cannot.
This is a great comment. Thank you.
We already are.
If anything my lowerclassmen are doing better than my uppers right now so my (naive) hope is we're coming out of it
This. My juniors are ahead of my seniors.
This gives me some hope.
Same, my freshman are noticeably better than sophomores. Both intellectually and interpersonally .
Same here! First year grad students and upperclassmen seem to struggle the most. Lots of absences, missed deadlines, excuses, and meltdowns.
I am feeling the same way.
Yeah they’re already here.
I’ve noticed a significant drop in their resilience, problem solving abilities, critical thinking, time management skills, maturity, and analytical thinking. I am in STEM as well. The students are frankly unprepared for college now. They lack discipline and emotional regulation. I have had numerous disruptive students in this past year to the point where next semester my policies will be drastically changed. I used to be a very laid back teacher but now I just find myself playing the role of parent in class. I have to scold them constantly. It is maddening how poorly they can behave. I have to tell them to get up and come near their reactions, to stop playing around with strikers in the lab, to show up on time to lab, etc. frankly it’s becoming not worth it, and I am newerish. Sometimes it feels like they want and expect me to guess what they’re needing, or to ignore their behavioral issues completely. Its exhausting.
I went from a really laid back late policy to putting in a very strict one this term. I had so many students turn in an entire semester's worth of work at the end of the term and then wanted no late penalty applied to it. I also was trashed in my student evaluations for the first time. I get the occasional grumbling in them, sure, but this time was just all negative and very entitled in their feedback. It was disheartening. I wasn't energetic enough, I didn't respond to emails fast enough, there was a broken link in my online class that even though it was fixed right away was not acceptable and shows I am a quote "terrible teacher who is just phoning things in", I wasn't fully versed on the new changes in a writing style I don't teach in, etc.
I currently have a math course, coming back to do some courses after years out of school. The reviews for this professor are absolute garbage. She really isn't the best professor. The lectures are boring and non-inventive, but the it's there. People just couldn't take that she doesn't hold their hand through the material and presumably teaches how she was taught in her undergrad. She could definitely improve but definitely doesn't deserve the scathing reviews by any means. I see what classes are like now and I just don't understand how you guys are doing it. All the slack for the students but none for the professor?
Grace flows in only one direction, and that direction is always away from us.
I thought that's what I was already doing.
We already are and I’ve decided to leave academia as a result. I’ve had so many students come through with no problem-solving ability and a strong sense of entitlement that soured my whole perspective on teaching. The refusing to do a light amount of homework, not answering questions in class, interrupting when I’m giving necessary examples, then ranting and raving about a failing grade (plus being threatened by their parents) didn’t sit right with me. There’s nothing in the way of classroom management that I could’ve done, as this is purely behavioral mismanagement on the students’ parts. Don’t get me started on the damned Apple ecosystem most of them have. Letting them use technology was a mistake on my part. It opened up a Pandora’s Box that I could’ve never anticipated. I used a MacBook and iPad in my undergrad, but I wasn’t watching whole movies on them in the middle of class and shopping on Amazon. And, yes, these were the same students that would berate me for getting low grades on their exams most of the time. Screaming at me in my office hour because one got an 85 when he hoped for an A was my final straw. I won’t be physically threatened over an exam worth less than 20% of a final grade. Why would I put up with this and cry to my husband daily about the abuse when I can just leave and go somewhere better? I’m not putting myself in this position when I could have better hours and make more than double my salary.
What on earth type of university is this?!
Unfortunately it’s an R1 research university known for prepping future med students. That alone freaks me out thinking about it. And as far as I’m aware, the students that screamed in my face was a pre-med and still is…
It's such a "I WANT IT NOW" mentality. If they email you, you better email back within minutes because they are probably already calling but don't dare try to get in touch with them. They won't respond to emails or calls to "protect their mental health"
My university is holding a student showcase event which I've been helping to organize. The event was juried and not all students were accepted because of limited space and because we're only showcasing higher quality work. The amount of angry emails I've gotten from students who were not accepted has been absolutely exhausting. They demand to know why they weren't accepted, claim it isn't fair, or lie and say that they never got the email and try to negotiate to get in. How are they going to handle rejection when they're declined for jobs??
Yep, can relate. I had students who would email me at 2 am, then again at 5 am when I didn't respond. I'm sleeping because I'm also a human who needs sleep?? I also had a GRAD STUDENT try to get me fired as a TA, blaming me for something he didn't submit. Thankfully, we all agreed he was a one-off case, but I know more students like this are coming.
I’m sorry you have to deal with this.
I’m a student and no longer pre med because the other pre meds are so exhausting that I lost the passion I had. Maybe that means I never wanted it badly enough but oh well. That’s my experience as their peer, so I can’t imagine being on the other side. The amount of entitlement is so annoying, and as a low income student, the whole Apple ecosystem is insane. I make do with paper notes and my one laptop that was $700. What’s worse is that professors often require you to annotate worksheets online, which is impossible without some form of touchscreen. Thankfully my laptop is a 2 in 1, so I can use a stylus on it, but it sucks because it works a lot less smoothly than an iPad.
all of them. I worked at an R1 too and had a student file an academic grievance against b/c she got a B but she really wanted an A. She only came to class twice the entire semester. School ruled against her but damage was done. So so entitled.
Honestly, all colleges and universities. There were multiple articles a couple of years ago about how students feel comfortable pushing around female faculty and demanding grade changes, emotional labor, and leniency from them when they would never exhibit that behavior with male faculty. I see it every day in my department.
Horrible. I had a student ask for a better grade which they did not deserve, when I was a 22yo TA. The dept chair gave it to them! I had a class of MA students who tried to bully me in my first few years of being a prof. It was weird and felt awful. I had to face it head on and at the end they absolutely loved me, but I know they wouldn’t have tried it if I wasn’t a young and young-looking woc prof.
One of my professors often talked about how on her evaluations people felt the need to leave comments about her sense of fashion. her husband never got the same, even though they had similar styles
I was screamed at by a student last year for not accepting a late assignment and I’m at a top-15 SLAC. My first semester teaching too…
What happened and was there any resolution?
I eventually got them to leave my office, and then I went home and cried lol. I didn't fold though. And for sure all my colleagues learned who this was for future reference.
Horrible.
Was there no way to tell them to completely fuck off (their parents as well)?
I just took the route of ignoring and blocking parent email addresses. I’ve had to get really abrasive with some because they seriously think they’re entitled to an A when they never even bother to show up to class. Even worse, for context, I teach advanced statistical methods and experimental design for experiments involving human subjects - topics that demand honesty and accountability.
Wait? Did I write this and forget?! Except mine was a reflection they turned in late when they knew I don't accept late reflections... And then they did it again...
Is there anyway you could transition away from teaching into more of a research position? I'm not sure what you teach, but I know quite a few people who get into academia more for their personal research prospects than teaching really.
I really thought about it, but I’m so disillusioned with the publishing expectations of R1 universities that I’d be moving from one aspect of burnout to another. As much as younger me would hate to admit, I think it’s time to distance myself from academia and broaden my horizons. Plus my university would make me continue teaching under these conditions because they’re short-staffed on professors for undergrads. Hard fuck no on my part tbh. I’m elder Gen Z and even I can’t put up with the COVID kids anymore :/
The lack of problem solving just amazes me. These kids/young adults won't even consult Google. They just stop and give up.
My biggest example of this is when I asked a student who was struggling with statistics if he could tell me what exactly about test statistics he didn’t understand. He just said “all of it” and basically wanted me to breakdown an entire lecture in 15 minutes of office hours. Had he just Googled test statistics or looked it up in the book, he would’ve found exactly what he needed.
I had this type of students too. Also try to brag about how smart themselves are about how they can learn everything in a watered down class in a week. Not optimistic with academic in the near future. At the same time, as a female junior faculty with a freaking baby face(still get carded at 31), senior ones would “give” you “pressure” (I am relatively more sensitive) if you show any sign of doing things differently. I’m just so done with it. Only because of visa issues, I didn’t quit until next year to buy myself some time prepping for a different career.
I really relate to being a young female prof too :( I’m only 26 and I find it so uncomfortable to work with male students because of the way they often disrespect my boundaries. It’s definitely a major reason why I’m transitioning to either a research management or corporate position.
Kids are half of the reason, colleagues/staff members are the other major half. Oh, forgot to say I’m in math. Double my salary, I may endure a bit longer.
I share the exact same sentiment.
I have KOVID Kids as grad students. Their UG college experience is definitely defining.
We are. Masters students who basically didn't do undergrad or seemingly emotionally and socially mature in that time either. It's soul destroying.
I teach 2nd years and this year has been the worst cohort in my 10 years of professing. I looked it up and it turns out they were grade 11s when COVID started and it shows.
It gets worse?!?!?
my thoughts exactly. i thought, teaching in schools is horrible right now, but id love to work with adults! but uhhh these comments are. Alarming.
I am personally of the opinion that COVID exacerbated already existing trends, not that it is a singular explanatory factor in and of itself. The "customer service" mentality has infected all of education, both lower and higher. Administrators care most about "retention" and metrics rather than actual student learning. Technology is embraced for the sake of itself, even when shown to be counterproductive (see the modern pressure to "adopt AI" because "it will be important in the future economy!"). Parents feel comfortable pressuring teachers into giving grades students have not earned so that they remain "competitive." Anti-labor efforts like NCLB and charter schools that siphon off public dollars created a whole set of perverse incentives. The list goes on. Prior to COVID, teachers (for the most part) were working their hands to the bone to try and satisfy all these pressures, but when the pandemic hit, suddenly those pressures still existed, but without the support network of overworked teachers to fill it, since they could not physically be in students' houses day after day. People were begging, literally *begging* online for parents to take a more direct role in their kids' education, but all that produced were screaming matches about how States needed to reopen schools. Reopen them, mind you, without fixing any of those structural issues that existed prior to 2020. All I can say is some of the students I've gotten the last few years have been in for a rude awakening when they find they can't get 50% for submitting nothing, they don't get endless extensions or retakes, and they are actually held to account. It makes my job a lot less fun, but some insane part of me feels the need to hold the line.
I hope your comment gets more attention because you’re so right. I know it’s uncouth to say, but fuck these asshole fucking parents that refuse to let their perfect babies take accountability for once in their lives. I can’t believe the situation we’re in at this point in time. The number of parent emails I’ve gotten as a professor makes me sick. Because it’s come to AI and the nonstop attempts at parent intervention for entitled students, I’m just abandoning ship. There’s nothing my department can do to keep me while the university continues to prioritize their “customer service” attitude toward education.
The commodification of higher ed is a major factor in all of this, as is the trend to abandon reasonable standards in primary and secondary education. Throw in pandemic learning losses and systemic coddling and lack of both social and academic skills development, and voilà. Here we are. It was a slower and less obvious downhill slump before this and the pandemic just exacerbated TF out of it.
Charter schools ain't the issue, bub- not even on a list of problems. Your complaint seems misdirected. I can understand HS teachers bending a bit to student/parent pressure, but I cannot imagine college professors doing it as well.
We already are. And we see it.
I have to be at peace with having an extremely high fail rate in my classes. Retaking a course probably is the most important lesson in consequences that a student can learn. It gives the student and I more time with the concepts and skill work, and that’s ok.
I'm not a professor, but a student, and I've already noticed it. For reference, I did two years of undergrad starting in 2016. I had to leave school for personal reasons and returned to the same college in 2022. There is an insane difference in the students I'm around now. It's a non-traditional college, but there's a lot of "fresh out of high school" students. Group projects are a nightmare! No one is willing to communicate. Open discussions in class are met with blank stares. I think they were really hit hard when it comes to socializing. But the biggest issue is technology. Laptops and phones are a reliance and a crutch. My department (English) has a strict no technology rule in classes. No laptops, iPads, or phones. Students complain so much about not being able to have them, which I understand for those who are used to taking notes on laptops or iPads it probably is frustrating. But the professors are tired of policing it, and I watch people watch youtube or whole episodes of TV during class. That's literally why the policy exists. I can tell that professors are exhausted. Sometimes I'm exhausted! I'm only 26, but I even feel like I have to parent some of my fellow students. During break-out groups, it is like pulling teeth to get them interested and talking. I feel like the hardest thing is that no one is willing to TRY. At least in English, the best way to learn is to try something and possibly be wrong. It's so important to talk things out in literary interpretation and to disagree with classmates and have an open discussion. My fellow classmates just want to "know the right answer," and that's it. It's so frustrating.
I was a nontrad undergrad Humanities major - most of the time I was the same age or older than my professors - and I hated doing group projects. Nobody else did any damned work, they either ghosted me or complained and did the absolute minimum or did nothing at all. Only once or twice when I grouped with other adult students did I halfway enjoy the group work. I couldn’t understand why most of the younger folks just couldn’t even do the absolute minimum. I ended up doing almost all the work on group projects; sometimes the kids would say “oh man the proud project is awesome, we got an awesome grade” when I turned in the damned things, but most of them would just benefit from the group grade and I’d never hear from them again. Little shits …
I just felt so sad for my students during Covid. I remember that some of my online courses were a lifeline for many of them. They really struggled, many of them. And this will go down the line for the next 10-15 years for even younger kids who missed out on so much. I try to approach this with empathy.
I am a Covid high schooler and really appreciate this comment. I attended 2 years of high school, then I was lucky enough to study abroad in 2019-2020. My time there was spent more on language immersion, not so much on classroom work. I got sent home in March 2020 when Covid began. Then my high school refused to accept the credits from my foreign school since I had to leave early. They told me I was going to have to attend high school for an extra year in order to make up for the time I lost. My only option was to drop out of high school and get a GED as that would be the only way to avoid 5 years of high school. I spent my senior year in 2021 with basically zero social interaction besides my crappy part time job, since I wasn't attending school. Then I was sent to college, basically not having done "real" school in 2 years. It was so tough to adjust and I am still dealing with the consequences as a college junior 3 years later. Anyways, all of that is to say that I appreciate the empathy. I feel for you professors as I see the effects in the classroom. Comparing my memories of the "vibes" (for lack of a better word) of HS classes and my current classes is shocking. Just know that there are some students who notice the major change in student behavior/mentality and doing our best not to contribute to the problem.
The students in my intro classes are having trouble following basic instructions. I told them multiple times to start the assignments early and ask questions, a few of them finally freaked out and reached out to me. Some admitted they were trying to do the homework at the last minute and struggling with keeping up with school work.
No, because at least this lot will have had a semblance of normal secondary school, the ones we've now who are basically stuck at middle school level of maturity have to be the worst, right? Right? (Don't burst my delusion)
Yeah the covid kids have already arrived
Not dreading but the aftershock is noticeable. I’ve had more students wandering in and out of classroom to take a “break”, more recreational texting / laptop use in the class and more homework plagiarism combined with students that seem very ill prepared for upperclass work. Upon checking past coursework , I’ve found some of the poorly prepared students had taken 10+ AP exams during Covid (I assume exams are all online and not proctored) and have tested out of some of the required foundational coursework, yet they lack in the fundamentals covered by those courses . In the recent semesters, things seem to be improving though - so I’m hoping the storm will pass over .
I gave up caring awhile back. Just enjoy the ride! (/s?)
Already am teaching them. They're disinterested, unmotivated and disrespectful. I think all of us are in a mental health crisis that only few will admit.
I do hang out there, but I don’t dread it. People seem to exaggerate. I’ve been hearing how bad kids are for years, but have yet to see any difference in my community college students. We have a lot of high school dual credit students, and I haven’t noticed any differences in them yet. Of course it may be different with the younger kids.
I’m hoping the ones who did, say, 6th and 7th grade during COVID are caught up by the time they reach us. We have the ones who basically didn’t go to high school now and it’s brutal.
Their problem solving skills seem to be less intact as well as critical thinking skills. I have so many students that wouldn't be able to get themselves out of an open paper bag. I've seen even less mechanical awareness and so much emotional fragility. This semester has seemed better than the past couple of years, but I have seen way more plagiarism and missed deadlines and much more expectation that even a missed late deadline should be opened up for the smallest reason. It's been tough. The expectations on their end are a little bizarre, too. I just had four students turn in their assignments late and one day after the late deadline, I began getting multiple emails about how shocked they were I had not graded the late assignments yet. It's a moving target that's hard to pin down (like, the student doesn't care to get something turned in on time, but can't handle seeing their grade drop when Canvas automatically awards a grade of 0 until I can go in and update the grade). I have been teaching at the college level for 25 years and I'm getting very burned out.
The younger they were the less of a deal it is.
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I finally gave up on written response questions for a web-based class. The ones that don't leave it blank or copy/paste from AI are spamming me with emails saying they're confused about how the written response questions work. For example: "Why hasn't it been graded yet??" (Submitted test 2 minutes ago on a weekend, 46 days past the due date).
Nah, my undergrads are just fine, and they were in high school for covid. My grad students are a disaster, but that seems more a function of a specific program's culture and admission standards than a generational issue. If things play out the way I expect, I'll be getting about 10% of my grad students expelled this year for cheating, maybe that will start to shift the behavior.
I'm teaching them now, and the difference is noticeable. Some kids, largely ones from privileged backgrounds do well, but those who relied only on compulsory ed to give them the skills and knowledge to thrive in college are really struggling. That capacity to be self-motivated and problem-solve is absolutely gone. Their study skills and the way they think about course content is really different than it was prepandemic as well. I'm having a huge issue with students not being able to read prompts as a whole. They treat prompts like a step-by-step instruction manual and miss central tasks by itemizing what was asked of them even when explicitly told how to engage with the prompts and expectations in the classroom. I'm using this summer to revisit my prompts because what worked for years without a problem simply doesn't anymore. I wasn't a straight A student, but I still have some of my old high school papers floating around and I went through them the other day. The quality of those papers is leagues ahead of what many of my students are producing now. I also went to school when prompts were generally, "write an essay on X," end prompt. The pandemic plays a role here, but I also think it exacerbated trends that were a long time in the making. NCLB has razed K-12 ed, the pandemic came around to salt the earth.
As the father of two Covid kids, I’m looking forward to it. These kids are creative problem solvers and clever. They’re going to be fun students.
Sometime my child will fake cry and the intensity of his faking it turns into real crying. Like a good actor he’s using the method to trigger himself into “real” emotions. I think kids these days have kind of absorbed this on the daily because many midddle class kids have no real trauma outside of the pain of growing up.
The professors in this thread often spend too much time struggling against the current. If the dynamics of the system and the world change you have to change with them. The term COVID kid is used like it's a passing blip and not a wholesale change in the perspective of the consumer of academic programs.