I know we’ve all tried to block it out of our heads, but uh…remember COVID? Well, it hit FIVE YEARS AGO. And of course we’ve all got our perspectives on how COVID changed the world, but you know who I’m most interested to hear from? TEACHERS.
Over the past couple years since the pandemic, teachers have discussed the stark changes they’ve seen in students’ behaviour— particularly for Gen Alpha. Today I’m gonna highlight some of those stories, coming to you from good ol’ Reddit.
1.
“The biggest change I have seen (high school) is that many students can only learn from one-on-one instruction. I explain what we are doing; I have instructions on my slides; I model it for them; I take questions; we do it together; and there are still at least a few kids in every class who call me over and whisper ‘What do I do?’ once they are supposed to be working independently.”
2.
“Work submission rates. Students got accustomed to being able to turn something in way down the line, if they even did it at all (there were some who never turned in anything) and still pass. They stayed in that mindset well after we returned to campus full-time.”
3.
“Attendance was also affected. We always had some kids with attendance and tardy issues but now the idea of a schedule seems to be mind-blowing.”
4.
“Honestly…I have far more students with mental health issues now than before the pandemic.”
5.
“Boomer opinion: technology is killing students’ ability to master content and critically think.”
6.
“I’m having to stop a lot and explain word meanings. Vocabulary and understanding of figurative language has declined steeply in a short amount of time.”
7.
“2020-2021 was my last year, and by that point the expectation that high schoolers have the ability to construct a basic 5-paragraph essay was already gone.”
8.
“I spoke to an associate professor in my local university’s biology department. She tells me the number of biology majors that don’t even come to class has tripled since the pandemic. Most of these are recent high school grads.”
9.
“I’ve always suspected it, but all the lockdowns made me sure that most parents just see us as a babysitting service. Kids’ learning is secondary.”
10.
“Many students assume they will be gifted a passing grade, as many did during lockdown. It was a really hard time and a good chunk of my high school kids…did nothing. Now many presume they can keep doing nothing and pass.”
11.
“At the high school level, students can’t dress themselves. Before the pandemic, homecoming theme weeks would be fun because the kids were creative. Now, they basically come to school in their pajamas every single day. It’s pathetic.”
12.
“Pre-COVID, I had a lot more kids with behavioral issues, but most kids did at least some of the work. This was at a Title I urban high school. At the same school post-COVID, I have a lot fewer kids with behavioral issues because kids are now phone zombies, but most kids just stopped doing work.”
13.
“The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that it just set the kids back years socially. Every one of them now has their little circle of two or three friends (if that — there are a lot of loners also), and they HATE everyone else. Like, won’t even sit near them or look at them. It didn’t used to be that way.”
14.
“Students who were home alone or told to go elsewhere while their families worked from home during COVID have essentially raised themselves with the help of TikTok and YouTube, and therefore do not see the value in listening to authority figures.”
15.
“Tech addiction has gone through the roof. We had students stealing phones to log into their social media because they couldn’t wait until the end of the day. They play games in class and are more willing to fight you than close the game.”
16.
“I have seen an increase in behavior problems and immaturity. Many are behind academically, but we’re starting to close those gaps in my district, at least in elementary school. Parents are the big issue for me. The lack of accountability is insane.”
17.
“My students are coming in lower academically than before. You use to have your ‘bottom’ 25%, but now it’s more like ‘bottom’ 50% or in some cases 75%. I have much more sixth graders reading at first-, second-, or third-grade levels than I ever have before.””
18.
“2022 was the first year I really noticed anything. I taught all ninth grade math — they came in extremely immature and didn’t really become ‘high schoolers’ until maybe February.”
19.
“I think the pandemic was less to blame than the advent of scrolling apps. They won’t even look up from their phones now. And why would they try to answer an in-depth question when Google or ChatGPT gives a better answer?”
20.
“I noticed a rise in egregious offenses — kids hitting staff and other kids, or basically telling you off. I also noticed a rise in angry parents. Not angry about anything specific — just angry at teachers for breathing, basically.”
21.
“In elementary school, COVID really stunted a lot of the kids’ social and emotional growth. I see a lot of immaturity.”
22.
“What it did to my students: ‘Wait, what?’ ‘Wait, what?’ ‘Wait, what?’ ‘Wait, what?’ every twenty seconds because everything everywhere is now somehow distracting for everyone.”
23.
“I don’t know if this is a result of COVID because I always worked with behavior students who had no impulse control anyway, and everything was a long, drawn-out process. But the students that I have now, who were in third grade when COVID hit, have absolutely, positively NO critical thinking skills or problem-solving skills. And no desire or ability to work things out.”
24.
“The main thing I’ve noticed is that more students have difficulty with social cues and norms. Like, a major issue is that they interrupt when I’m clearly talking to another student, but they really don’t notice that I am, and don’t realize until I ask them.”
25.
“I’ve taught fourth grade for 20 years. In my experience, kids are meaner now than they were before the pandemic, in little ways like excluding others or poking a classmate with a pencil. More shocking to me than that is the (very) inappropriate knowledge that some have acquired because they were given a device and left to their own devices.”
26.
“Elementary school kids don’t have social skills. Kids don’t know how to deal with each other — tattletales, crybabies, standing up for themselves, and so on.”
27.
“My students are more two-tiered than ever. The last couple of years, I had kids that obviously had support at home and tried to keep up with work during COVID — and kids that did nothing. Big gaps from the top group and the bottom group with little in-between.”
IDK about you, but I’m fascinated. So people who work with kids, tell us: what changes have YOU noticed in the five years since the pandemic? Write your response in the comments below!
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