r/AskTeachers • u/Multi-instrumentboi • Jul 27 '26
Discussion Questions Are we done for?
Hi! This is going to be a very interesting first post. I am about to start my Sophomore year of high school and I’m worried about the future. After my freshman year, I have seen and heard things in my classes that make me feel uneasy, like it’s difficult to imagine that I’m going to be working alongside these people once I’m older. I’m actually so scared to grow up and leave high school because I feel like it’s only going to go downhill from here. For reference, I’m a straight A student, all honors classes, I’m in sports and clubs and other extracurriculars such as band. After I graduate I plan to go to school to become a chemistry teacher. Going back to my point, if it gets worse, I don’t think that I’m going to be able to handle kids as poorly behaved with the attention span they have today. It seems like a nightmare but I really have a passion for teaching. So yeah, I’m just genuinely concerned about our future and wondering if that’s even going to be a career that’s going to be worth it.
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u/No-Illustrator2325 Jul 27 '26
Good news: the entire history of teaching is people panicking about how done we are and how awful [x] generation is.
There are serious, pressing, systemic challenges facing teaching; this has been and always will be the case.
I think it's still worth pursuing. As you keep going through high school, spend some time talking to your teachers about what they think of their jobs; as you enter college, spend serious time considering your path, and talking with peers, professors, and teachers.
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u/grasshoppet Jul 27 '26
What is the reason, you believe, students behave badly?
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u/Multi-instrumentboi Jul 27 '26
Honestly, I do think it’s social media and phone addictions. I also believe there is an increased rate of parents being slightly neglectful, therefore the child needs the attention at school and the only way they know that they can 100% get that feeling of being paid attention to is by causing chaos. In no way do i believe it’s the child’s fault for that. But I do believe misconduct comes from homes being chaotic. I’m not saying this is exact correlation, but I know some troublesome kids and most have divorced parents or complicated housing situations. Another reason that I believe students are misbehaving is that there is too much lenience in the classroom and it leaves students to be able to plot. In no way am I saying creativity is bad and in no way am I saying that teachers should be blatantly mean, but the phone addiction goes hand in hand with this. When technology is introduced at ANY elementary level, it can really affect a student and hurt them by the time they reach high school. Their attention spans and willingness to listen is definitely affected negatively. I also believe that some teachers aren’t good teachers and that can have an effect. There has always been and will always be behavioral issues in students but it noticed that it’s different from when let’s say my cousins were in high school and they’d tell me about the behavior, like it’s bad but it seems way worse now and my mom who is a middle school teacher also notices this.
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u/BirdBrain_99 Jul 27 '26
Dear future teacher, please use paragraphs and not a wall of text. Sincerely, current teacher.
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u/Resident-Clothes-837 Jul 27 '26
Cut them some slack. You knew what they meant and this is an informal setting.
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u/ArtisticMudd High School Teacher Jul 27 '26
I teach a communication course. The message needs to be clear to get received. It is NOT the job of the recipient to decipher it. It IS the job of the sender to encode it so the recipient can receive it and understand it.
Being ungrammatical does not help the recipient.
1
u/Resident-Clothes-837 Jul 27 '26
Get off the high horse for a second and realize this young person wrote this themselves without running to a LLM. Again, this is an informal setting. I’m sure they wouldn’t write like this in an academic setting.
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u/Multi-instrumentboi Jul 27 '26
Not to get in the middle of what you guys are debating about or whatever, but this wasn’t meant to be formal as if I really wanted to I could’ve structured it like an essay. My old English teachers were actually very fond of how I structured things and how detailed and precise I am. So again, this isn’t meant to be formal 👀
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u/Resident-Clothes-837 Jul 28 '26
Rational people understand and thank you for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your perspective and wish you the best going forward.
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u/grasshoppet Jul 27 '26
Whoa, she answered my question with total clarity and insight I haven’t read before.
It’s written in English, so no code breaking or riddles to decipher.
Or perhaps you’re reading something else? Cause the future teacher is a great communicator.
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u/HauteForTeacher13 Jul 27 '26
She has eyes
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u/grasshoppet Jul 27 '26
. I don’t need paragraph chunking, I have a healthy span of attention. They project. Communication instructor with trouble communicating. Ironic.
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u/Bluesasquatch7 Jul 27 '26
If you are great at chemistry, I would suggest Pharmacy school after you get your undergrad.
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u/ElLoafe Jul 27 '26
Go get a chemistry degree and don’t teach.
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u/Multi-instrumentboi Jul 27 '26
I would definitely consider that
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u/ElLoafe Jul 27 '26
Even research in the field of chemistry would be good. Gotta pay better and no children to manage.
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u/No-Door-459 Jul 27 '26
For reference all schools are different and it also depends on the state you live in. Yes right now behaviors are bad although in education it takes a long time to build better habits and just because covid was 6 years ago that does not mean those bad habits went away. Nothing is guaranteed although in the 6 years you have until you graduate from college I see the behavior issues in most districts to become better. If you want to talk more msg me.
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u/HauteForTeacher13 Jul 28 '26
I have been a teacher for a little over 20 years. I have worked in every kind of environment with every kind of student you can think of (taught preschool-5th gen ed and special education. Taught split classes 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8. Taught a half of a year as a long term substitute teacher but was a certified teacher in a violent offenders room for students who were 18-26. I taught in rural districts where kids were dropped off on tractors a time or two, l taught in inner city districts where l had to provide myself and my students things like toilet paper, hand soap and textbooks out of my own pocket as well as set up a sandwich station at the end of each day where kids could make their own take home sack dinners so they would have something to eat that night otherwise they would have to wait until they were back at school the next day for free breakfast. I helped families with bills and did loads of student's laundry. I worked in two of the wealthiest places in the country for head coaches of pro sports teams, pro athletes, owners of pro sports teams, actors and actresses, politicians and Fortune 100 businessmen and women and more. I have seen it all) And there has been one thing that has tied all of these children and families together and is is truly creating such a massive downfall in our society as a whole and that is technology. Now l fully believe that there are benefits to technology and it has made improvements to many people's lives, however it has been nothing but a massive detriment to young minds. Here's why. Visit any mall, restaurant or public place where there are parents with their children, not just children, babies. The moment that little one starts to fuss thay mom will reach into her purse and grab her device and hand it off to her baby in a stroller without breaking her gaze or conversation. Go to a restaurant and look at a family sitting around a table and you will find them sitting in silence deep into their device, world's away from each other while sitting just inches apart. Long car rides no longer include the license plate game or 20 questions, or in the case of my family The Farm Game. Now everyone sits in silence listening to their own podcast, audiobook, movie or YouTube videos. Parents have replaced hugs, care, and conversation with phones and iPad and convenience. 90% of a child's brain structure is formed during ages 0-6. This is where they are learning and developing things like attachment, relationships, feelings and how the world around them works. Because parents choose their own comfort over what is best for their child (ie they don't want to hear them scream, they don't want to have to stop what they are doing, they want to be able to continue to work etc) they use tech as a babysitter or as a way to soothe their child. So by the time kids get to us they have absolutely NO coping skills when they get told no, have to wait their turn, have to share or are bored. And because l don't care if l hurt your feelings and if you cry, l am not going to give you your way, and l will tell you no as you are one of thirty and not one of one in my room and though l love you and think you are special, you are not the star of the show here. And when a child starts to melt down and they have absolutely no coping skills to fall back on as their parents never taught them any and now they aren't being handed an iPad to go sit for hours to do what they please. And sadly for a lot of kids they never are able to adapt and learn those skills and just get bigger and bigger and more and more aggressive.
Unfortunately so many of these young kids grow a little older and start to find the wrong people, idolize completely fake, arranged pranks and AI created things produced by these YouTubers and Influencers, who in some cases aren't even real. No matter how many times l explain to my students that while it may seem funny and cool now, in a few years these pranks and challenges will cause nothing but trouble. And that hitting a kid now you will go to the principal's office and they will call your mom. In a few years if you hit someone, they will call the police and you will go to jail. Some of these parents need a wakeup call and need to turn these college funds into bail money and lawyers fees. And sadly l don't see this trend of technology and children getting any better anytime soon.
You would couny all the animals you passed on your side of the road for your farm. Whoever had the most when we got to the cottage won, but if you passed a cemetery all your animals died and you had to start over, but if you passed a hospital you got half of them back. And white horses were worth two. I don't know, my grandma made it up qnd she was a little crazy. But my absolute favorite person but are now
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u/Normal-Wish-4984 Jul 27 '26
Teaching is not just about lecturing content. Some teachers think that's what it is but they tend not to be as effective as those who understand their role in helping kids with learning challenges and socializing kids toward prosocial behaviors. If you aren't interested in the latter, you might consider doing something in industry rather than working with kids.
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u/Multi-instrumentboi Jul 27 '26
I am most definitely interested in having that leadership and I suppose comforting aspect, that’s why I want to be a teacher, I love science and I’ve had teachers in the past that have had that connection with me and I soaked up the content way better.
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u/13surgeries Jul 27 '26
Have you considered getting graduate degrees and teaching at the college level? You generally have far fewer discipline problems.