'I have seen students who can't write a complete sentence': Teachers share the innumerable ways their students are significantly behind

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Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor
Feb 26, 2024 8:00 PM EST

It's no secret that many kids are getting left behind in the education system. When I was a kid, America was all about not leaving kids behind in this exact setting (when I was a kid, I thought it was about getting left behind at the grocery store), but now that it's been 20 years since that initiative, many kids were promoted when they shouldn't have been. 

The emergence of the smartphone and the younger generations' unfiltered access to social media has not made more technologically savvy kids. Instead, we have a generation of kids who know how to look up YouTubers but can't use a Microsoft Word document. Things sound much more dire when you read the stories of teachers trying their best to educate a terribly uninformed group of kids. One teacher took to Reddit to share all of the basic skills her students don't have, inviting other teachers to share their all too similar stories. 

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  • 01
    r/Teachers u/DragonfruitBright810 18h The public needs to know the ugly truth. Students are SIGNIFICANTLY behind. Just Smile and Nod y'all. There was a teacher who went viral on TikTok when he stated that his 12-13 year old students do not know their shapes. It's horrifying but it does not surprise me.
    via u/DragonfruitBright810
  • 02
    I teach high school. Age range 15-18 years old. I have seen students who can't do the following: ● ● ● Read at grade level. Some come into my classroom at a 3rd/4th grade reading level. There are some students who cannot sound out words. Write a complete sentence. They don't capitalize the first letter of the sentence or the I's. They also don't add punctuation. I have seen a student write one whole page essay without a period. Spell simple words.
    via u/DragonfruitBright810
  • 03
    • Add or subtract double-digits. For example, they can't solve 27-13 in their head. They also cannot do it on paper. They need a calculator. Know their multiplication tables. Round Graph ● . Understand the concept of negative. • Understand percentages.
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  • 04
    ● Solve one-step variable equations. For example, if I tell them "2x = 8. Solve for x," they can't solve it. They would subtract by 2 on both sides instead of dividing by 2. Take notes. Follow an example. They have a hard time transferring the patterns that they see in an example to a new problem.
    via u/DragonfruitBright810
  • 05
    ● No research skills. The phrases they use to google are too vague when they search for information. For example, if I ask them to research the 5 types of chemical reactions, they only type in "reactions" in Google. When I explain that Google cannot read minds and they have to be very specific with their wording, they just stare at me confused. But even if their search phrases are good, they do not click on the links. They just read the excerpt Google provided them. If the answer is not in the e
    via u/DragonfruitBright810
  • 06
    ● Just because they know how to use their phones does not mean they know how to use a computer. They are not familiar with common keyboard shortcuts. They also cannot type properly. Some students type using their index fingers. These are just some things I can name at the top of my head. I'm sure there are a few that I missed here.
    via u/DragonfruitBright810
  • 07
    Now, as a teacher, I try my best to fill in the gaps. But I want the general public to understand that when the gap list is this big, it is nearly impossible to teach my curriculum efficiently. This is part of the reason why teachers are quitting in droves. You ask teachers to do the impossible and then vilify them for not achieving it. You cannot expect us to teach our curriculum efficiently when students are grade levels behind. Without a good foundation, students cannot learn more complex con
    via u/DragonfruitBright810
  • 08
    I want to add that there are high-performing students out there. However, from my experience, the gap between the "gifted/honors" population and the "general" population has widened significantly. Either you have students that perform exceptionally well or you have students coming into class grade levels behind. There are rarely students who are in between. Are other teachers in the same boat?
    via u/DragonfruitBright810
  • 09
    5Nadine2 17h ● My first year teaching the science teacher was also a first year. We were both 8th grade. She said the kids did not know the months or seasons. This was Gen Z, not Alpha that everyone keeps talking about, it's been a problem. Teaching 6th grade the kids didn't know their address, parents' phone numbers or what really bothered me, their parents' names. One boy said "we call them mom and dad." Great, if you were to go missing what are you going to say? I live in the red brick house
    via u/5Nadine2
  • 10
    Critical-Musician630 - 17h We used to have an entire unit on family names, full names, addresses, phone numbers, emergency numbers, and emergency plans. I remember we had to draw our house and talk about escape points. We were encouraged to practice the escape routes at home (I had a blast crawling out my window). We had to identify a meet up point nearby. Whose house we could go to to access a phone. All sorts of stuff.
    via u/Critical-Musician630
  • 11
    Many students already knew all this information, but it was great for those that didn't. I doubt I could teach that now, I'd get accused of prying or something. I've had families complain about reading for 20 minutes with their kid because it's too much to ask of a kindergartener. You can bet your that my kid knows all of this information though. Every kid should know it without it being taught at school. I think too many families just don't even consider it. Or they think that their 6 year old
    via u/Critical-Musician630
  • 12
    Cookie_Brookie. 16h I'm an early childhood teacher (pre-k, year before kindergarten). I've been told it is no longer developmentally appropriate to teach days of the week and months of the year.... but I have a daily phonics curriculum I'm supposed to follow where they segment words, blend syllables, and identify start/ending sounds of words. The going thing seems to be start complex material younger and younger without first laying the life skills base. It's crazy, especially considering those
    via u/Cookie_Brookie
  • 13
    csb114 • 17h Yesterday, I realized I accidentally only printed the odd numbered pages of a 5 page assignment. I told the kids they won't be penalized for not having the questions on the even pages completed since it was my error (the page numbers were on the papers, that's how I discovered this), and I just got blank stares. One kid said they don't know what an even number is. I TEACH 9TH GRADE AP HUMAN GEOGRAPHY. ... Reply 4 1.2k ↓
    via u/csb114
  • 14
    lisey_lou. 17h The most upsetting aspect to me is how the students will feel when they are adults. Of course they don't (or refuse) to see it now. Their brains are incapable of seeing the "big picture" consequences of not having these basic skills. It's once they are older and it REALLY affects them that they'll respond. But it will go one of two ways: . "The school/society/my parents failed me", and they'll get angry at others. "I'm stupid for not knowing these things", and they'll get angry at
    via u/lisey_lou
  • 15
    justjune01 17h As an HS librarian I will add that they do not know how to copy & paste, print or attach documents. They try to print things from their Google search. Some don't know how to open the browser. And of course they don't know how to organize or find things that are organized by alpha, numbers, or even categories/genres. It's so scary. Reply 4 582
    via u/justjune01
  • 16
    celestiallion12 . 17h Im a first year teacher teaching 8th grade here is a non-exhaustive list of things I've had to teach that I feel like the kids should already know when they're in 8th grade. 1. How to round 2. Number places (ones, tenths etc...) 3. The industrial revolution 4. How to spell Telescope 5. How Time zones work 6. "Google" is not an acceptable citation. 7. How to find the volume of a cube 8. That pollution didn't start 10 years ago 9. The prefix oct- means 8 10. That there is no
    via u/celestiallion12
  • 17
    busybodykay • 17h The workforce part of this all scares me the most - I'm a retail store manager (lurker here!) and when I employed 16 year olds 2020-22 they couldn't follow verbal instructions, were not competitive with each other in even a friendly way, and had to use calculators for things like 50% off discounts. I now work in luxury furniture and my youngest employee is 21, and I still see the same issues with my team and applicants coming in. How are industries going to function when no one
    via u/busybodykay
  • 18
    OkMirror 2691. 17h I can respond on the tech side of thing at least. I work in IT I'm a 95 baby and grew up with a gateway computer. I learned how to use a computer because I wanted to play a game so I learned about zip files, downloading, file structure, and how to google things. It used to take effort to do things on a computer so you HAD to learn. Now phones are so easy that literal 4 y/o can pick one up and navigate to what they want. Home computers are becoming less common and even schools
    via u/OkMirror2691
  • 19
    Plodnalong62. 16h I once said to a bunch of 17 year olds in my Physics class, after they struggled with a task using Excel, that i thought their generation was meant to be tech savvy. One lad enlightened me. He said they were not tech savvy, they were social media savvy! 213
    via u/Plodnalong62
  • 20
    ferriswheeljunkies11 • 18h I call it the Great Separation. I had students not understand the word "produce" as a noun. Tenth grade. They could not work out the context clues. Here is the sentence "Industrial factories turned out tools that made agricultural work faster and more efficient, while steam-powered locomotives delivered produce quickly and cheaply to distant markets, so industrialization contributed as well to a decline in the price of food." Reply 4 522 ...
    via u/ferriswheeljunkies11
  • 21
    Pizo240 17h ● It's going to all come to a head soon.... You should go over to r/ professors......they're getting all of the high school kids that got passed on, despite being behind, and they're struggling to just get basic research papers/ essays done. They don't know how to do MLA, or APA and then they go on "Rate My Professor" and give the professor terrible ranking because they didn't pass the course. Reply 4512 ...
    via u/Pizo240

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