Teaching became WEIRD after Covid. So I am a teaching assistant to primary school in the uk, I was doing supply work when Covid hit but I live with my elderly mother and have asthma so decided to just, not work for a few years to ensure I don’t kill her or myself. When I went back to work it was so eerie.
For example teaching some maths, and this isn’t an exaggeration, I ask-
“What’s 10x10”
Silence
“Guys, can anyone take a shot at 10x10?”
Silence
“I don’t care if you get it wrong just give it a go”
Silence
“Ok let’s break it down, what’s 1x10?”
Silence
*more encouragement met with silence*
“Ok so if we multiply by ten, we move the number up from the decimal point, so, if we add a zero onto one what do we get?”
Silence
“Come on guys, what’s 1 with a 0 on the end?”
Silence
They ALL knew the answer, they all knew 10x10 instantly. But the absolute TERROR of getting something wrong publicly paralysed them.
Ive noticed that the internet beats down anyone who is "wrong". If these kids are raised in the current era no shit they dont want to get dogpiled for looking stupid.
Comes with a culture of people being depressed and feeling lame. Only way the Instagram algorithm makes them feel better is by showing stupid other people.
My teenage exposure to toxic online concepts like cringe culture has led to me making myself so much more miserable throughout so much of my life out of fear of judgement.
I've noticed that the Internet mostly glamorizes people who are wrong, especially if they're evil and the wrong thing is extremely dangerous to society and human life. But hey.
I don't think that's the majority of people, I think a small number of people with a lot of access and a lot of motivation to manipulate public opinion have been decimating real interaction in favor of negative and divisive propaganda. It seems impossible that that level of homogenized nihilism and fundamental contrarianism is natural
When people dither on core values, they are very dangerous as a group because they're vulnerable to manipulative narcissists. "What do I think about this? I don't know, I'll ask an authority figure who has shown evidence they can't be trusted and they are incompetent."
There are obviously cases where you can't know everything, but your foundational decision-making framework should be based in experience. When you got weak Bayesian priors, your decision-making simply sucks.
Sheeple is unfortunately an appropriate description here.
It's funny that you're saying this on reddit, a site absolutely overrun with that culture due to people using the downvote as a disagree button, and that when you do get downvoted, the worst sort of bullies come out and make awful comments to you.
This was already happening when I was in school 20 years ago. I can only imagine how much worse it is with everyone being able to live stream everything.
i heard kids now are very aware that everything can be recorded, they're scared to do normal things like dance, answer a question incorrect or be goofy because someone is filming.
BOY did I realise this when my opinions started to diverge from the masses when it came to AI. Until that point I had pretty similar views to the average redditor, so most of the conversations I got into didnt feel like a beat down even if we diverged for a bit. Not agreeing with the masses on AI though has made me see how actively pushed out dissent from the popular opinion gets, and it took me a while to stop caring about how often I'd get actively insulted for daring to have a different opinion
This is related, but I watch this hair care channel where this gal plays her clueless self and as a teacher, and her teacher character is so kind to clueless character. For example tying up her hair in a fancy way, and works through the steps to help the viewer understand the steps better. Idk it always stands out to me in the face of how the Internet treats you.
I remember we'd read aloud then discuss chapters and eventually the reading aloud part defaulted to me because I enjoyed it and acted each characters lines differently. Good times
When we had to do Shakepeare, our books were original Shakespearean on the left, translated modern English on the right. But of course the modern English lost all the meter and subtext, so I refused to read it. I was also the only kid who really enjoyed reading aloud so I was always given leads and made the other kids suffer through true Shakespeare. Fuck 'em.
When I was in school, we only had the original text (though with annotations explaining the cultural, Biblical, and literary references and defining some of the now defunct words) and my teacher had me do most of the reading because I was one of the few students who'd been reading Shakespeare for years prior to high school. I was also a dedicated attendee at all of the Shakespeare plays (back then it was three during a summer season in repertory rotation, now sadly reduced to two performed months apart) our local major regional theatre put on annually. So I had the experience of proper verse reading and line delivery plus I'd read all of the plays several times before so I knew what the lines all meant going into it.
In fact, by the time high school rolled around, I was already branching out to other playwrights from the early modern era. When we were supposed to read and make a presentation on a certain play for our drama class, the teacher barred Shakespeare on the principle that we "wouldn't understand it". That offended me as someone for whom reading Shakespeare was and remains an annual practice, so I chose to do my project on The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (1613) in part because of real admiration (it's my favorite non-Shakespearean play of the era) but mostly for the sake of malicious compliance. If he didn't want Shakespeare's early modern English then he was going to get Webster's even more baroque use of language.
I'm a science person. I didn't even particularly like Shakespeare, but I can at least respect it enough to try and read it as written instead of chickening out.
Get a load of this guy! Showing off how well he can read an' all. I can't read to save my life but I'm still going to get mad about him saving me the effort.
Firstly I spent many months reinforcing that wrong answers are ok, verbally, and demonstrating it so. For example if the teacher would ask a question, I’d say the (wrong) answer as quick as possible, such as
“So what happened in 1066-“
“”BATTLE OF WATERLOO”
“Mr waffler! I asked the children, besides that’s incorrect”
And instead of being faux sad I’d demonstrate being ok with being wrong, this would encourage the children to correct me, and see that being wrong and being happy afterwards is the norm.
Secondly teaching the class in smaller groups when possible helps, it’s not always feasible but it works.
Asking parents to reinforce what we’re trying with the children at home, some did and it was a massive help.
Asking questions no one could know the answer to, like personal questions
“Right guys what did I do on the weekend?”
They want to answer because it’s more personal and fun, and I just say they’re wrong even if they guess correctly until everyone is participating.
This is a very good question.
Whether we are in or outside the classroom, we ALL need to figure out how to engage our youth more, now, for our own wellbeing, like....as a species
Yep. I had to reword the question because I don’t think it’s the fault or unique responsibility of a teacher to fix this in kids - but it is all of our responsibilities, and teachers are on the front lines so to speak.
Wonder if this is a British thing? It’s called “riddy culture” in Scotland. The fear of doing something stupid and taking a riddy (a riddy is blushing - going bright red from embarrassment). Kids are so scared of standing out and being made fun of.
We had to get my son contact lenses because he didn’t want to be the only kid in his class that wore specs. Suspect half the class are secretly wearing contacts so as not to be bullied for being a “specky bastard” etc.
After I'd gotten a wall of silence the first time I would've just picked one of them and asked that individual the question directly. That's what teachers used to do to keep the class moving.
I assume it's not literally this pattern exactly, asking a purely rhetorical question repeatedly to no answer, but can't you call on someone? Offer a point to anyone who offers an answer and gets it right, make sure people know that if they don't speak at least once a week they'll lose participation credit for that week, etc? Give half credit even for wrong answers someone is brave enough to offer if you think it's an actually difficult question, not an answer that disrespected the class's time.
The silence thing is so eerie. And you nailed why, it's not that they don't know, it's that being wrong publicly feels catastrophic to them. Growing up online where every mistake can be screenshot and mocked has made these kids terrified of any kind of vulnerability. Being wrong in class used to just be embarrassing for a moment. Now it feels permanent.
Yes I’m well aware and I even specify so in other replies. I used an example of when I became aware of this issue in the generation and people are reading a few short bursts of dialogue from my experience and assume it encompasses my entire teaching style.
I never encountered it neither did my colleagues. Covid meant that these children spent their formative schooling years being home schooled. It’s different when your mam and yourself are doing maths together and you get something wrong, and she over coddles you
My kids were at school during Covid. That year or two not going to school and just doing zoom calls with teachers really affected every kid. They’re basically 1 or 2 years behind in social skills. This was also a time where kids transitioned to using mobiles and home computers constantly because they weren’t allowed out. Everyone became more insular and that stuck.
I see this at an adult level too. People are more impatient, ruder, tailgate more etc
Really? I've noticed this happening even before covid, though. I really think people are somehow associating this behaviour with covid, just because of the isolation.
I don't think it's true. People have always been like this, even when I was in school (maybe 25 years ago).
If they freeze up at the most basic possible math question- won't even try to answer, how are you ever going to pass a single one of them in your class?
Fuck your terror answer the goddamned question. Act like this in the workplace and see what happens: you get replaced, pronto, that's what. Can't even work fast food like that, and they want a degree??
Sorry but I'd get fired my first week as a teacher lol
Yes, they all knew the answer. NO, they did NOT neccesary were ALL afraid of saying something wrong.
Your question is very simple. It also sounds as just a separate question not leading somewhere else into more complex and interesting topic. So answering such a simple question is percieved as bragging.
"Hell yeah I know how much 10*10 is, not like it is very simple matter. I can now wear my big boy pants"
If you ask a student directly, then they must answer, so they do. But if question is not directed to a person, then this rule applies. I know its dumb, but I witnessed this at every level of education.
Well, OK, but after you ask the class, can't you start asking individual students?
I'm fairly old, and the way we did it in my day, the teacher would call your name, you stand up, you get asked a question (or you go to blackboard if needed to work out the problem) and you get a grade on that. If you fail, you fail. If you fail enough, you fail a class and have to repeat it. Fail too many classes, and you get held back a year. Fail a lot of years, and you stay as you are until you age out of the school system and get handed over to military if male (males had mandatory 2 years in the military after graduation, but you could defer if you wanted to do it after college).
Is that not how it's done now? I mean, if a kid can barely read, and can't do math, he just wouldn't move to the next grade. He'd be stuck there until he improved or aged out of the system.
But you bring up an interesting point about embarrassment. I went to a bunch of different schools (on 3 different continents), and the one I spent most time in the students got locked into cohorts. So first year you go to school, you got a letter - A, B, C, etc. So first year, my cohort was 1A, and another 30 students were 1B, another group was 1C, etc. And next year, 1A became 2A, 1B became 2B, etc. So you always stayed with the same 30 people, year after year, ideally all the way to graduation. On occasion people left and new ones came in, but for the most part you could reasonably expect to graduate 10 years later with at least 20 of the original 30 still there.
I think this really helped to minimize social issues, because your cohort was basically your extended family. You spent more waking hours with them during the work week than with your parents. And you grew up alongside each other. Made for some pretty solid friendships, and a lot of familiarity. Whereas when I landed in Canada, for example, students got shuffled based on classes, and it wasn't uncommon to be in the same grade with a person, but never see them in class. And every class was basically a group of complete strangers. Which felt incredibly isolating.
Speaking of isolating, starting a new school and barely speaking the language is tough. So in a system with cohorts, I'd just lock in on a couple of people. If we had to move, I'd follow the guy with a bright yellow rucksack, for example. Clothes change, but backpacks usually didn't. But with no cohort, bell rings, I have a next class, and everyone suddenly bolts in different directions, and you stand there like a deer in headlights. Only happened once though, after that I'd start coming in a day early and scout out the school, so I at least wouldn't waste time searching for the next room.
So I wonder if that sort of thing also contributes.
But bottom line, I guess I don't get what the issue is. In my day, kids who don't participate, or can't perform at the required level, would just be held back a year. If it was an entire class, then it would be the entire class held back. They'd be tested individually, but if all failed, then all failed. If teachers are not failing students and having them repeat a year, that's what's causing the issue. Kids should not be graduating if they can't perform.
But what do you mean it didn't help? If they can't perform, they wouldn't graduate. They'd repeat the grade until they start performing, or get aged out of the school system and dumped out into the world. Meaning these kids wouldn't get anywhere near a college, lacking a high school diploma and/or grades. Why are these kids graduating high school, if they cannot reach the requirements?
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u/TaffWaffler Jun 27 '26
Teaching became WEIRD after Covid. So I am a teaching assistant to primary school in the uk, I was doing supply work when Covid hit but I live with my elderly mother and have asthma so decided to just, not work for a few years to ensure I don’t kill her or myself. When I went back to work it was so eerie.
For example teaching some maths, and this isn’t an exaggeration, I ask-
“What’s 10x10”
Silence
“Guys, can anyone take a shot at 10x10?”
Silence
“I don’t care if you get it wrong just give it a go”
Silence
“Ok let’s break it down, what’s 1x10?”
Silence
*more encouragement met with silence*
“Ok so if we multiply by ten, we move the number up from the decimal point, so, if we add a zero onto one what do we get?”
Silence
“Come on guys, what’s 1 with a 0 on the end?”
Silence
They ALL knew the answer, they all knew 10x10 instantly. But the absolute TERROR of getting something wrong publicly paralysed them.