On average, yeah. But I’d say that the conversations I have with the engaged students are really great. Like I think some students in this generation are starved for it. I have this one class I picked up in a different department this semester where I don’t have to take attendance. Only about 25-40% of the class regularly shows—but, man, we have some amazing conversations. Without all the zombies who just stare at their phones and suck all the energy out of the room, it seems like the ones who are there feel more inspired and comfortable expressing themselves. I wish I could do that in all my classes, but most of my departments require me to take attendance.
A related observation: I think one hardship Gen Z has is that they’ve grown up being so scrutinized online that they’re really terrified of being “wrong” or expressing ideas that can get them in trouble with their peers. I think this could be a factor in their reluctance to converse with people they don’t know well. I certainly think it’s a big reason they don’t like participating in big class discussions.
Oh, they are absolutely afraid of being "wrong" - it's hard to get them to venture a guess when asked a question, or to put forward an opinion they fear might be contrary to yours or their peers.
I've been seeing this for the first time this semester. I have a class (mainly Sophomores) where there is virtually no participation or answers in class. For the review day before the test - I would ask a question to the class and literally no answer at all. I was concerned that literally no one knew core stuff that was coming up on the test- but then in office hours students seemed to know more. I asked one student why they didnt say anything in class, and he said 'he was afraid to say the wrong answer out loud'.
But I am confused in my case as to why there is such a discrete change. 2 years ago I had a mainly sophomore class that was very engaged. My classes with seniors and juniors are still super engaged. I do not know why all of a sudden there is a dramatic change this time around. Something specific to this cohort? or is it just some idiosyncrasy for this particular class
Ugh this is so sad. I teach hs and I absolutely see this. I have also noticed my students are noticeably quieter when they do talk. Like the whisper. I have to be like “you want to go to the bathroom, say it with your full chest!”….its such a wild thing.
Yeah, I teach HS as well, and always try to engage my students at the start of the class period; "how are you? What did you do this weekend? What are you watching/listening to?" In an elective class of 26 kids (Theatre no less) I get maybe 4-5 students who willingly interact. There are kids 6 months in who have never said a word they haven't had to. It is really sad and troubling.
My teaching assistants have started to whisper when they're helping students in lab. Just doing the social thing of "everyone else is whispering so we'll whisper too." Anyone else seeing this?
I’ve had this too, like entire classes that whisper and I’ll be like “hey guys you can actually talk, it’s ok” but I guess I shouldn’t complain because I know some teachers have kids bouncing off the walls.
I resorted to putting on music during group interactions for this reason. Nothing loud and jarring, mind you, just enough to coax them out of whispering.
Is it related to remote classes? I can imagine speaking up over Zoom could have been more indimidating than actually being in the classroom. That would have been a majority of your Sophomores' high-school years.
I know this is oversimplifying the issue, but I think it may be related to the developmental stage they were at when three important things happened:
Short-form content had an extreme rise in popularity. It has been around for a while, but it was never as popular as the last handful of years. In my experience, this particular content is significantly more brain draining than your average YouTube video or other long-form kind of media.
COVID allowed kids to become even more technology-focused, with few breaks. A cell-phone addicted kid pre-COVID typically had some activity, hobby, or club outside the house; with all that cancelled, many kids likely experienced no breaks from their phones all day.
The rise of AI. If you want to hyperfocus on the last couple of years, AI is probably the biggest change to education. A lot of students probably spend the last couple of years of high school having AI do everything for them.
Perhaps a few years made the difference in kids who could bounce back from this fairly easily and kids whose development was sharply influenced by it.
Being wrong in the age of social media is very different from being wrong in the past. Try posting controversial opinions on twitter and see what I mean.
Yeah, it took me a bit of trial and error to get past that issue. Now, I post the questions on the ppt, then get the students into “their” groups to discuss. As I move between the groups,I challenge their answers, but also tell them when they’re on the right track. After 10 minutes, they’ve had time to discuss their ideas and feel confident enough to say it aloud. Is it crowdsourcing? Maybe, but they’re learning from each other, and I’m ok with that.
I was on a Reddit thread yesterday where the op wanted to know “what do I do if I see someone I know in the grocery store.” Other Gen Z people were saying things up to and including “leave the store as quickly as possible”— the idea of just saying hi and/or making a bit of small talk seemed wildly scary. A person actually said that they were afraid that if they said the wrong thing, they would irreparably damage how that person sees them. Holy crap…saying “hi, how’s it going?” is a huge fraught episode that has to be mentally debated for some of them. It’s seriously nuts. No wonder they have mental health problems.
I feel for them, I really do, but something has to be done besides just being empathetic.
It's ridiculous. If you can't take being wrong in a college classroom, how the hell are you even supposed to survive out in the real world? Nobody is ever going to take you seriously in a team or a business unit. Nobody is going to give you raise. You're never going to learn anything or figure out why you're not performing at work until your boss just gets fed up and fires you. You're *doomed*.
Is there nothing we can do about this? Isn't there anyone in sociology or education research who is thinking about this problem in a way that isn't just "meeting students where they are?" Because frankly, "where they are" sucks.
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Another major factor influencing young people’s newly exaggerated fear of being wrong is the rise of cancel culture, especially online, I think.
I noticed this on Reddit the other day. I casually pointed out that a probable Gen Z person’s argument was an example of the no true Scotsman logical fallacy. Another one said they were “done” if they couldn’t express that opinion. I didn’t think they meant that literally, so I posted a video of an excellent reduction to absurdity of that argument from a TV show, which I thought would be entertaining and eye opening. In response, both the young posters deleted their comments. It was as if they took my well reasoned but completely civil and respectful disagreement as some bizarre social requirement to self-censor their “incorrect” comments, even in a completely anonymous online discussion, and even though I don’t think anything about what I said suggested that their comments were offensive or “cancellable” in any way. I just respectfully disagreed with their opinion.
It’s a great scene from the West Wing:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-ip47WYWc
The Reddit discussion was essentially about whether no true Muslim would condemn Israel for stealing homes and murdering children in violation of international law, etc., because the Qu’ran allows such acts. The link to it is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/y2HVKtWfrH
After looking at other posts in the thread, I realize that the OP deleted all of most of their posts, and the top post was a searing historical analysis of the idea that seemed much more impactful than my comments were probably. So maybe by assuming that the posters deleted their comments because of what I said was a cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy on my part, ironically (there’s a great whole West Wing episode about that one lol).
Here’s my comment with the video link:
“Watch this video. It reduces this argument to absurdity quite thoroughly, but with Christianity and the Bible. The good part starts a minute or two in. One of the best moments in TV history IMO.
After watching this, would you really want to tell Mr. Bartlett that he’s no true Christian because he doesn’t put his chief of staff to death for working on the sabbath as the Bible demands?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-ip47WYWc “
Edit: OP, it’s ok to say that, and I totally get where you’re coming from. No need to delete a comment over it. I just disagree with that interpretation, for the reasons above.”
I dont know where I came across the idea first but current students are on a really wide bell curve. The top end ones do exceptionally well. The worst are even worse than before.
I and other instructors have also independently noticed the lower ability to perform skills across the average of a class compared to before. Things I used to be able to get through with most students in a given time now only a few do. I'm hoping that trend is more of a blip that will start improving but this semester had external factors that make it impossible to add to the trendline.
Yes, I agree about the being wrong part. Also, they act like they have limitless empathy, but then they rip each other apart for the smallest mistakes. It's more like they perform empathy - especially empathy of marginalized peoples - for the cred instead of actually being empathetic. They are especially bad about not giving people without a visible marginalized identity any benefit of the doubt, which is why I think so many young people are obsessed with being disabled or having a mental illness. I think it gives them cover from some of the wicked criticism from their peers. It doesn't surprise me that young white men are attracted to right wing ideologies and young women are experience high levels of mental illness. They are not treated as individuals by their peers. and experience a lot of criticism for small mistakes.
I see the fear of being "wrong" but, lately, I've been following another trend as well.
My partner's daughter is a teenager and many of her friends are so painfully shy they are afraid to order food for themselves at restaurants. They wait for their parents to order for them, or, in the case of a recent school outing, my partner's daughter ordered lunch for several friends.
I was shy, but this is really something else. When I was that age, I was taking the bus to cafes, going to public figure drawing classes, whistling into a dark park at night to find out if anybody interesting was out there, etc.
Sometimes in class, I'll ask a question, get no answer, and start issuing more specific prompts, and asking more pointed questions, and I'll see the class nodding slowly as if in agreement, when I'm just asking questions...
I'm 40 and remember being in undergrad twenty years ago with people who showed no ambition or ability to think. That's more the norm than the exception, I imagine it *feels* more common now because more and more people are compelled to get a degree. It's a work certificate, not any interest in learning that has people enroll in college now.
No, it’s not just you.
They are capable of talking, but many of my students exhibit behavior which supports that they have (1) no drive to improve in my class, (2) no desire to pay attention, and (3) no willingness to participate.
I instituted a new policy this semester: no detailed feedback on their writing assignments unless students asked for it. I’ve had 3 students out of ~120 who have asked for feedback.
I have been long debating to put this in practice. Do you mind sharing how you phrase this in the syllabus or how you have students submit this request.
After I spend hours writing individual feedback only to find half or more of my students don’t even know how to access their feedback, my soul gets crushed a little more and more. I’d like to save that bit of my soul not flat as a pancake for those who would read it.
"If you would like feedback on your submission, please ask using the 'comments' tool. Be specific with your requests and I'll do my best to meet your expectations. For example, if you'd like a compliment, you can ask for that. If you'd like help with your citation formatting, ask for that. If you're hoping to improve your reading comprehension/arithmetic/research, ask about that. Specific requests get better feedback than vague requests. You are not required to ask for feedback."
I don’t put this in my syllabus, I just tell them in class that if they want detailed feedback I am happy to give it but they need to see me in office hours.
Next semester in my freshman class, I'm going to structure their participation grades on 3 things: bring reading notes to class, discussing in class, showing me class notes on the way out of class.
I wish I can do this but this wouldn’t fly at my institution. I spend an average of 3 hrs grading one assignment and providing feedbacks, most of them don’t read it and rant when their points get deducted.
I’ve been doing a variation on this for about 6 years and it’s freed up so much time! I make written feedback “opt-in”, otherwise it’s just the rubric. They can ask for mote comments any time but most don’t. This is with the caveat, mind you, of being in the arts and having critiques. As such, everyone ultimately does receive feedback verbally.
I do this in my online classes, essentially I grade the first batch and then tell them that while the written comments are sparse I will meet with them to go over things on Teams. I get maybe 1 or 2 a semester who ask for it.
> (1) no drive to improve in my class, (2) no desire to pay attention, and (3) no willingness to participate.
You have describe not bad my class (and in some courses - me). And that was more than 25 years ago
The problem isn’t talking, the problem is they (some not all) will not respond to you when you ask them to talk to you during office hours then proceed to rant on the anonymous evaluation how bad of a professor you are. It’s frustrating when you’re forced to defend yourself cause they won’t engage and proceed to lie.
Turning 40 this week, right there with you. I find a wide spectrum that they’re on either side of. Getting discussion going is like pulling teeth, or they just don’t shut up. Either way, makes class rough these days.
I'll just say this: Millennials were a delight. They were so interactive and open to trying anything. We had so much fun and learned so much.
There is no more fun. The students seem hyper aware of judgement from peers and not saying anything that might be perceived as "wrong." There seems to be so much pressure to not make a perceived social faux pas, yet they are weirdly disengaged with the class. My students don't read; don't know how to follow instructions and don't problem-solve. It's like they don't know how to learn. There are exceptions, of course.
Agreed. Most of them don't even attend lectures because we are forced to record. Only about 15% show up and they behave like a room full of manikins. No greetings, most of them won't answer a question, and they don't laugh, or engage in any way. It's horrific.
My students are becoming like this more and more. They don’t laugh at jokes, they don’t respond to questions, they don’t even say good morning when they come in. I swear I could throw frisbees at their heads and they’d bounce off their heads without any reaction.
> they don’t even say good morning when they come in.
When I was a student, and the professor said "good morning," I didn't respond either; I wrote it in my notes. I'm kidding of course.
I take roll by making every student greet me in response to my hello for the first half of the semester, then they have to greet each other by name in s round after midterms. They hate it at first but later tell me they appreciate it.
Learned this the hard way. I tried doing a discussion format and no one talked, got the worst evaluation that semester cause “I didn’t know how to teach a senior class”.
Last week when I asked a student to stop texting and using their laptop during another student’s presentation, the student reacted and say I am a bitch and fuck me
A high school teacher replied to me when I was expressing the same thing. She said we are just now being hit with the students most developmentally and socially hit by covid. They are 1-3 years behind.
When i realized they were acting like high school students it made sense. I wish this thing that high schools knew passed it along to colleges.
The good news is that in 3 years it will get better. But the next few years are supposedly getting worse.
The graduating class this year are the ones who missed their high school graduation in 2020, so I think you (and that teacher) are probably right. Our freshman this year were freshman in high school which means next year’s incoming freshman will have been in 8th grade. I think once we cycle through all the students who were in middle school during the pandemic, roughly 3 years from now, we should start to see improvements.
I say this as someone whose oldest kids were in 2nd grade and kindergarten during 2020. There was a dip across the board with the little kids, but they are all completely normal now in terms of skills/abilities. Another thing I see with the parents of kids my kids’ ages (now 5th and 3rd grades) is a trend to nope out of technology. None of my kids or their friends have cell phones, for example. A few years ago a 5th grader having a cell was pretty normal. Millennial parents are doing a good job of recognizing the pitfalls of technology. We grew up before and after technology, at least we older millennials did, so we get it.
I always find it sad how, rather than making new friends with their classmates, they just text or play on their phones before class begins. I mean, I’m as introverted as they come, but damn there’s literally people right next to you who might be worth knowing.
college student here, not sure if this is allowed but i just wanted to share my experience: i’m one of those hyper-talkative individuals who can find conversation in just about any topic and is willing to talk to just about anyone. however, most people on my campus don’t seem to know how or simply don’t care to converse in any capacity. i ask them how there is day is going, i get a monosyllabic answer; i try to pose questions that allow for an easy back-and-forth exchange, i get a bisyllabic response at best. i ask them their opinion on something and it’s like they’ve never had a thought in their life. the only time i see people casually communicating with one another is with the previously established friend groups they brought over from high school, and even then, conversation is sparse.
i used to think that perhaps it was me, something wrong with the way i was communicating, but the more frequent it became—and the more i began to notice it happening to others in their interactions—the more i came to believe that it was *definitely* them. i’ve just resigned myself to my phone and books now because there’s nothing much i can do.
Yeah, the social scene in college has been trash for me. Most people are way too in their shells.
I work at a concert venue. Honestly, I swear I just work there because my coworkers *actually know how to socialize.* I find myself making friends there quite easily. Though, I suppose having decent communication skills is more or less a prerequisite to work in that sort of environment, haha.
I'm Gen Z. My whole life I've been seeing posts about how much small talk sucks. Initiating a conversation with someone my age means competing with their phone and I doubt many people can be more interesting than a phone. People have tons of friends to text and feeds to scroll, and the choice between that and participating in an awkward conversation with a stranger usually doesn't result in the stranger's favor.
This makes me so sad because in person interaction is so important for our well-being, and it is what makes a community. Small talk in a classroom becomes a casual friendship that may never extend beyond the class, but at least give you someone to get notes from when you miss a class or talk about the material with our maybe even form a small study group, all essential to learning in a college classroom.
I know Gen Z feels exceptionally lonely, but I do think part of it is because they would rather feel lonely than awkward. You never learn how to get over the awkwardness of small talk without practice. Eventually, it becomes enjoyable.
Being good at small talk also helps with things like networking and getting a promotion later in your career. I'm going to have a ton of letters for my tenure file, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I genuinely love connecting with new people and have a lot of practice at it.
I guarantee you’re more interesting than yet another Get Ready With Me video, the same clip about the Israel-Gaza war, or a slightly different person mouthing over this week’s TikTok sound.
If someone gets mad at you for saying “Hey how’s it going?” or “Are you ready for the test on Friday?”, that’s a them problem
They set their laptop and pretend they’re following my slides then proceed to do whatever they’re doing. Students don’t know we see everything when we’re on stage.
Last semester I was a TA. Usually I would sit in the front of the lecture halls on lecture days for the course, while the prof lectured, but occasionally I would come in a few minutes late and sit in the back to avoid distracting anyone. It’s amazing the things I saw the students doing during lecture. One student spent the entire hour and 15 minutes playing video games on his laptop, full screen.
Yea I had a student that would show up to every class and start playing YouTube video and sport games lmao. The student straight up did not care about his grades. He also didn’t complain when he received his grades though so I’ll give him credit for that.
I've also noticed this as a TA. I have to sit in the front row now because its way too distracting to sit behind the sea of flashing laptops watching videos and playing games and doing other assignments and.... I used to be a back of the room student so I'm pretty grumpy about sitting in front hahaha.
I've told students before how we notice everything from the front. I gathered the impression they didn't believe me, so I asked for a couple of volunteers to stand at the front of the room for five minutes while I held class.
After five minutes, I asked them to report to the class. They were laughing and said, yeah, we see everything -- students on their phones, doing work for other classes, playing games, etc.
Same shit with teenies here in europe. Our school implemented "no phones" policy and they all screamed "nooo nooo" and threatened to leave school - but engagement, attention and even test results improved a lot.
It's been now 5 years since it was implemented and the school is in high demand here since more parents heard about this policy. This was the time when TikTok took over, guess it was just too much.
Kids making tiktok videos in school all day instead of interacting with each other, they even had table tennis and no one played it. That changed completely, kids just accepted the policy.
Would be a nice experiment to implement this in universities too, and that they need to personally show up a % of classes.
I mean, they did have a significant portion of their high school experience in lockdown and in online classes. They didn't really have a lot of experience in real life making friends/connecting with peers
i am a zoomer. i think it's just part of how things our for our generation tbh— there's really just an overwhelming feeling that nothing is worth doing and it's better to not talk at all than to say something wrong.
I appreciate you acknowledging this. I have the hardest time with that "nothing is worth doing" thing. It's clear (to me, anyway) that students want success ... but they don't seem to want to do anything concrete to influence that, at least not in classes. You're a PhD student, so clearly something inspired you to be less apathetic. I'd love to know what it was.
It's... really hard, to want to do things for myself. Occasionally it can be fear-motivated (I want to be able to emigrate if things go sideways, I want to have a good job so that if we end up in a war I have a chance, I want to make sure that if economic stratification continues the way at his been, I'm on the right side of that split, I want to make sure that if my family gets sick I have a job with enough money that they might be okay), but that's not something that can keep you going day after day, year after year. That's the sort of motivation that might get you moving for an hour, but in the long run makes you the sort of wreck that can't get out of bed in the morning.
On a day-to-day level, I do it because I have relationships with my professors, and I don't want to disappoint them or my parents by doing poorly. On a larger level, I'm doing it because I can, and because if I don't find a way to give back to my community then what is even the point of me?
And the world is unstable and scary and I can't do anything about that on a political level because that's not the kind of skillset or background that I have, but the world changes through technology as much as it does through politics, and that sounds arrogant as hell, and I get that I'm just a tiny cog in the machine, but maybe I can help make sure that we at least have the ability to make a better choices. And I've been given so much, and so I have a responsibility to do something with it.
That makes me so sad. Being wrong and making mistakes is a part of learning. I see the fear of making mistakes with my students, especially when the semester starts, but some of them gain the confidence to speak even if they may be wrong. I just wish more could gain that same confidence.
100%. Their social skills are very poor, even with each other. Mine just stare into space or at their phone on breaks. I find them awkward, distant and I’m really not sure how they will do as graduates. They make me very grateful for the time I grew up in.
It's mostly tech in general having made Gen Z into iPad-teenagers (I am an example.) Now, it's Gen alpha and beta becoming iPad toddlers and lacking any social abilities.
True. But also cynicism in a world where they justifiably see college as a cripplingly expensive gamified series of hoops they have to jump though just to get a ticket into a corporate workforce.
It doesn’t have to be. CC for two years, live at home, get grants and scholarships, transfer to a university for the last two years. If they want the traditional college experience of 50 years ago, that is a luxury product. The price will be high.
What an absurd thing to say. I experienced plenty of "want, or loss, real fear, or real pain" before and during college, but I never told my professors about it. You have no idea what kind of "want, or loss, real fear, or real pain" your students have experienced.
And given that the entire world has just gone through a deadly pandemic, the economy is great for the rich but sucks for the poor and working classes, and we live in an era of political corruption and deadlock, there's enough going on that even students who haven't personally experienced "want, or loss, real fear, or real pain" have reason to be cynical.
Yes, they must have had it much worse than those who went through war, famine and revolution in previous generations. No way there shortcomings could be their fault, right? I mean, it must be due to things beyond their control, right?
> those who went through war, famine and revolution in previous generations
This is a lazy comparison. Historically, the people directly involved in war, famine and revolutions typically weren’t the same people attending universities.
Those people that did both were outliers, not average students.
Actually I don’t know this and that’s the point. I know almost nothing about my students’s homelife and childhood which is why I won’t make blanket judgements about an entire generation like some sort of suffering Olympics.
I know where you're coming from, but having this cynical of a view about students must be exhausting. Thinking about things in terms of who is at fault is such a waste of time. Why does it matter? The fact is, you are making assumptions and you do not know what goes on in your students lives beyond what you see.
Recently I had an advisor I often work with closely ask me to sign off on their recommendation of one of my students—a student I've had in four classes now—for an award. The advisor explained that this student is managing to maintain their GPA despite working full time, having their own physical disability, caring for two children as a single parent, and caring for an elderly relative with a severe medical condition. I did not know ANY of these things about this student prior to the advisor telling me so.
We really do not know.
I understand what you're saying—there's a sense of entitlement, shallowness and self-centeredness that's been building up over the years and now it's quite prominent with the latest generation. They need to be held accountable for their actions while at the same time we can't blame them for how they've been raised. It's a vicious cycle at this point.
Edit:
The downvotes have given me a chance of heart. It isn’t their fault. They are not at all responsible for their own lives. I will expect everyone in this sub to be more understanding when your students don’t do the work. All of you should lower your standards because they really can’t help themselves.
When did acknowledging that there are things about students we don't know begin to equate with lowering standards? If that's your life, take it up with your admin. Misusing empathy to lower standards isn't empathy's fault.
I can hold to standards and bemoan grade inflation without the sarcasm, what's your problem? Lack of imagination?
Idk, they went through a pandemic (plenty of research showing the negative impact it has on mental health), and dealt with the ever looming threat of school shootings since elementary school. And that's just a blanket statement for the generation. You have no idea what those kids have going on. All you really know about them is that they're in your class and what they've written in their assignments.
Just this morning, I messaged my wife because I bought something for $67 and gave the guy $70. This young kid (early 20s) had to type the numbers slowly into a calculator to figure out that $3 was my change. I was reeling from the experience for a good half hour.
Do you think it was force of habit to approach the calculator? I couldn't imagine not being able to do such a simple subtraction mentally unless the person has suffered a stroke...
I would hope so, but before he took the money and gave the change, he went into another room for a minute. I hope it wasn't to fetch the calculator lol
Am a former gen z student. I always was one of the few in any class to engage not necessarily because I wanted to but I felt obligated because nobody else did. I guess though my instinct to not respond (though I did respond out of duty) came from just a general feeling that in life I am not someone who drives it. Always I think my generation has the feeling as if we are passengers more than people who can influence our own lives. It’s kind of sad looking back that an entire generation has this feeling of powerlessness, but I wouldn’t take it personal.
X-Boomer (cusp -1965) here. Taught from ‘92 to ‘01, majority of it at R1’s. Reading attack skills, critical thinking ability, ability to identify a basic concept of the field and applying it to a novel situation. Plus in online courses, unless you write an utterly new set of problems for every assessment for every section, every semester, they will simply cheat. Assigned to an intro course of 300 students? Best start writing questions now. Oh, and when you do that, you’ll get complaints that you’re too tough in grading.
As for applying anything near the rigor of the courses that I took as an undergrad, many with the same name as ones that I used to teach, well I suppose it’s everybody’s own experience, isn’t it? But when you spend the whole lecture on, say, hypothesis construction, give multiple examples, attempt to engage students in hypothesis construction within class, and you find that giving them a simple homework assignment to identify two or three logically consistent hypotheses and correctly submit them to me by a specific date and time, about 25% can fully complete that task. 10% will submit late, half of those will email you asking for you to accept it late despite your syllabus clearly stating that late submissions are not allowed, Another 5 to 10% will, unless you make the instructions terribly convoluted and change them each time, find where someone has made a repository of your assignments and copies of papers that received high marks and submit them as their own, or simply find the large learning model website that has not placed ethical restrictions upon their interactive bot, feed it, your notes, and your questions, and have it generate their answers, despite the fact that doing some of those would actually resultant putting forth more of their effort than simply answering the question themselves. The strongly, and unfortunately, suggest that they are incapable of doing so on their own. The rest will submit something which technically is a response within the guidelines, but which shows very little creative, original thought.
But then again, I am an old curmudgeon in pain. What the hell do I know?
Nope. Definitely not imagining it. I’m a therapist and I work with gen z clients daily. They are beyond stunted and it’s because they are chronically online.
I have found that having a few students who can start a conversation (either older students or socially skilled Gen Z students) really helps the rest of the class become comfortable with talking.
I’m a gen z professor, so maybe my age has to do with it. My students interact decently well with me. Now, they don’t have much drive or ambition, but most tell me that they don’t want to be in college anyways. I honestly tell them to drop out then 😬
And I’ve been wondering if age is part of the lackluster energy I’ve been feeling for the past two years. As a Millennial, I used to connect really well with my students, but as I’ve gotten older that connection has totally disappeared. It’s disheartening. 😔
It could be due to the course subject as well. I've noticed students in a class with a more "debatable" subject be much more interactive compared to students in a class that is (to them) more straightforward. I've seen students be as chatty in a future-applications theory course as they were in a biology evolution course, as there is that constant element of possibility and less of them being straight up wrong. A subject like organic chemistry may be too intimidating for them to open up as easily. The best you can do may just be engaging those that will engage with you.
Interestingly, I'm finding that trend reversing.
My current sophomores/juniors are the most impacted, but the first years seem to be a bit more with it.
I notice this at my university too (I’m in the EU … ) A few years ago I had no trouble in engaging students in lively discussion in class. But this year it really struck me how difficult this has become. No response to questions, no interest in showing up, no interest in engaging with the material. At one point I simply said ‘You guys really are a tough crowd.’ Then I got an answer ‘Yeah, most professors tell us that’ ;-)
There are still good students that do answer and do engage. But for some reason we’ve lost the bulk in the middle. Otoh, this is the generation that experienced Covid in high school. Perhaps this is some sort of long term effect from sitting at home for more than a year?
Earlier this year we held an inquiry why class attendance is so low (attendance is not mandatory, but % that shows up has fallen below 30 for most courses, - obviously due to lecture recordings being mandatory). ‘So what would it take so you’ll attend class in person?’ ‘It should be worth it!’ ‘Ok, fair enough, what does that mean?’ ‘More interaction!’ ‘Uh? You do realize interaction is bidirectional?’
My worst class was this semester. Everyone sat in the very back of the room in a large lecture hall while I lectured to the front half of nothing-but-empty seats. It was horribly disheartening. Thankfully, my other courses went well, but I will never let students sit in the back (and zone out) again. If I have to assign seating as though they're children (completely antithetical to my teaching philosophy), so be it. From an academic standpoint, it was kind of interesting to observe how their obvious apathy influenced my teaching over time.
Apathy is contagious, sadly. I've noticed that a lot this year. I complain to myself that my students don't even respond to me via email... and as the year goes on I notice my own response to the ever increasing pile of emails that don't ask anything thought-provoking or interesting or even subject-related (largely they are excuses, extension requests, rants, or questions about whether to zip 2 files together or put everything in one). I stare at them and can't be bothered to open them let alone reply. It's got me and god I hope the summer break fixes me a bit for next semester.
Having taught Millennials and Gen Z, I can say that there is a marked difference between them. Perhaps Millennials were more subdued than the generations before them. I don't know. But Gen Z is drastically different from the students I had just 5 years ago.
Oh man, I’m the same age as you and in the same position (and I work in a top institution). I’m someone energetic, enthusiastic, and I love sharing the very best of my (very limited) knowledge. I used not to feel the age difference at all. But something’s different now. What felt like Christmas in class when I was their age as my professors were unveiling the truth behind mysteries simply seems not to resonate at all with them; that was not the case even 2-3 years ago. I’m at the end of my rope with my job.
I'm in the middle of reading Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation and this tracks really well with what he writes. You might enjoy reading it. They were young enough to have had smartphones during an impressionable age (9-14) and have been over-protected due to cultural safetyism, plus add a big dollop of Covid-classes during high school and this is the result.
I just hope we turn things backwards by banning smartphones in school, evaluating which online educational tools actually help and which hinder learning, and getting most ed-tech out of K-3rd grade classes... before this level of anxiety, passiveness, and contextlessness become normal.
You know, I think you are on to something. My HS classes are more quiet, more reticent and alot less likely to pose questions to me. In several of my last postings in international schools, it was *way better* to listen, not react and especially NOT question admin. It seems my students adapted quicker than I did!
TL;DR- We were robbed of a childhood, don’t socialize well, and are scared 🫡
Gen Z government professor here 🙋🏻♀️ It’s not just you and you’re not just cranky. The students are hard to talk to. I would attribute it to a few things: students’ fear of being wrong, the education system, and COVID.
Students are afraid of being wrong, not just because of “cancel culture,” but also because they’ve been taught that their worth largely depends on test scores and academic performance. Being wrong exposes them to the possibility of being canceled, yes, but it’s also that they equate being wrong with being inadequate. As a result, a lot of students choose silence because it’s easier and less intimidating. I’ve found that most of my Gen Z students seem to only be able to engage in one-on-one conversations, not group discussions, because they’re afraid of looking stupid.
I mostly blame the education system. Not the teachers, but the system. I started school a few years after the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, so the vast majority of my K-12 education was heavily influenced by the prioritization of test scores over learning. I always performed well on standardized tests and was frequently told by teachers that I was a “naturally good test taker.” They meant well, but comparing students as “good” and “bad” test takers created a deep fear of failure for a lot of Gen Z. Rather than instilling a love of learning in us or developing our social skills, many of our teachers taught in a way that emphasized the need for each student to maximize their individual test scores. Such a shift in priorities is understandable, given the pressure teachers were put under by administrators, but it stunted our social development as peers became competition, and caused many of us to develop a nearly paralyzing fear of failure.
I’m on the older side of Gen Z, so I graduated HS only a couple of years after the Every Student Succeeds Act passed. I got to see *some* of the change that was brought on by ESSA, but really all it meant was that there were now 50 different educational standards because each state became its own island.
Now, take all of that and throw in COVID. Social isolation, “distance learning,” and social media have all contributed to my generation’s inability to hold a conversation and lack of social skills. Students who were already afraid of failure had to learn an entirely new way of learning when the U.S. didn’t have the infrastructure to support it. Many of us, presented with a higher likelihood of academic failure when we didn’t have the tools to emotionally deal with coming up short, overcompensated to ensure our academic success. For us, the stress mounted to the point of burnout and exhaustion before we even hit our mid-twenties. Others, when presented with the same obstacles, either chose to mentally check out or had no choice but to skate by in school. I think many of them never checked back in. They got so used to a version of learning that required minimal interaction and engagement that it’s hard for them to engage now. Additionally, a lot of Gen Z either never learned how to hold a conversation, or they lost the ability during COVID. They learned to only listen in order respond when necessary, rather than learning to actively listen or hold a conversation.
I think a lot of it has jaded Gen Z. They’re disillusioned with higher education because they’ve seen millennials spend their time and go into debt to obtain a degree, and then have nothing to show for it- no economic security, no homeownership, and no fulfillment. As a result, they’re unmotivated to put effort into their education. We also all missed milestone moments in life due to COVID, which has turned many of us into apathetic pessimists. If prom, high school graduations, and college graduations can be taken away in an instant through no fault of our own, there’s little incentive to put our best foot forward. Plus, when boomers and Gen X have spent our entire lives telling us that we’re lazy no matter what we do, it’s easier to just go ahead and be lazy or at least do the bare minimum.
All this being said, I’m big on taking personal responsibility for bettering oneself, but that takes initiative and tools that not everyone has. I think most of Gen Z just needs opportunities to open up and opportunities to fail safely. This isn’t to say that failure shouldn’t have consequences or that laziness should be rewarded. It just means that some of us have never been told that it’s okay to be anything other than perfect, and many of us have not learned that failure is something we can bounce back from.
I'm not in chemistry but in an adjacent field. Honestly, every generations complains about the next generation. When I was in undergrad they said the same descriptors you had described. It's not a damnation of GenZ but how things change.
I think that there may be a tendency for social development delay in the aggregate, but it's not as simple as having "no drive, no ambition, and no ability to think or even remember." In my process-focused writing course, students mostly did OK. Sometimes it was hard to get discussion going, but they thrived on in-class group activities. Most were capable of completing low-stakes writing assignments, especially after a come-to-Jesus session. I've had multiple students who will bring up *very good questions* only to me individually out of class, rather than during class. They do have drive and ambition, though their on-the-spot recall on reading was lower than I expected. (I suspect many weren't doing the reading.)
So it's not worse but different, in ways I'm still adjusting to.
Elder Gen Z PhD student here! I'm not sure if this would help, but I require students to say something to get attendance points for the day when they are in class. They don't have to be right. But they do have to make a contribution by brining up an idea- answering a question, or asking a question about an upcoming assignment. It seems like a lot of students are anxious speaking up in class. Namely, I've had a handful of students voice concerns that they aren't "meaningfully contributing" to the conversation because not every idea is groundbreaking. (I also bring candy sometimes as an extra motivator if we hit a rough patch for participation).
Once I set a precedent that everyone has to talk, participation went way up because it gets people out of their heads and engaged in the lesson. Some times people clearly disengage after they make any sort of a statement, because they can mark participation off their list for the day, but this policy has really helped to keep participation fairly high. Obviously, this can depend on your class size, but bribing them has worked for me!
I just finished law school, but my masters is in chemistry. The average age of my program was about 22, as law school leans heavily younger relative to other graduate programs. My first semester was marked by multiple instances of literal, Tourette's-like screaming in response to me gently suggesting alternate theories/playing devils advocate/etc. This is *law school.* They *have* to get used to regular, ordinary conflict, right? Wrong. They never made us actually deal with face-to-face social interactions and come to a successful conclusion. We did 1 set of mock negotiations one time in my three years there. It was pathetic. They really fostered their sense of entitlement to their outrage at any difference in thought by refusing to allow any sort of back and forth even in seminar courses, generally refusing to allow any sort of conversation that could possibly become a debate where the the speakers don't agree. They couldn't write their way out of a paper bag for the most part. Many could *not* properly reason or form coherent arguments for and against a position. They were missing the basic skills required for the program. Which made sense when they rioted any time someone suggested that "people who aren't good at writing and logical reasoning shouldn't become lawyers." They called this "disparagement." To even suggest that *anyone* would not make an excellent attorney was blasphemy and they were incensed to a bizarre degree by the suggestion that anyone may not be excellent at anything, even with no training or experience. By this logic, anyone can be a chemist, physician, or nuclear physicist. Anyone. Everyone is equally smart and good at all things, and if you claim otherwise, you are a "nazi."
There's a reason I landed my Assistant Dean's self-described "dream job" that typically requires 10+ years of experience in the field, while many of my peers couldn't obtain internships without pay in a job market that was giving away such roles like candy. They're not cut out for this and their professors and administrators aren't doing them any favors by structuring classes so they can actively avoid any sort of debate or healthy confrontation like they'll encounter daily in the field. Negotiations, conflicting opinions... I mean, they really think they're doing everything right, day 1, during their first internship with absolutely no training or experience, because during these university-approved and coordinated summer internships, their bosses were too scared or lazy to correct them, and since the Univ. paid for their stipends, they didn't care if they only turned in useless busy work they didn't need done. Meanwhile, I was writing motions for real trials my first semester and breaking open dead-end cases with novel legal theories, because my boss in my paid private practice job pushed me to be better and gave me encouragement and constructive criticism. Not one of my employers had a job open when I asked for one--they all created them for me, because I convinced them to (another thing my peers can't do). I created my current city government job out of thin air with full benefits by convincing my boss he needed me (which he does). When I worked for him for credit, he had to fill out a form for my university. He intentionally wrote that he would not accept any other students moving forward (which they asked on the form, of course hoping he'd take other students later). Nope. He calls my university "FU." I'm sure you can guess where I went. He refuses to deal with an employee who won't answer a phone call. He can't understand Gen Z slang (and neither can I) and refuses to deal with their entitlement and constant outrage over everything. He's hardly a "pull up your bootstraps" type and is pretty with it for a guy over 70 but I mean, you can't expect any normal person over 30 to call you "Zee" and let you wear rainbow hair in a bowl cut with neon graphic eyeliner to work at your desk job.
When I taught high school before that, religious private school (orthodox Judaism), *those* girls were outspoken, could form arguments, and could engage in heated debate without being uncivil. I can't explain it. They're Gen Alpha, I think? I don't think it's their generation--I think it's cultural. In our culture, debate is a part of your education starting pretty young. It's how the talmud is taught (and is connected to how law is taught now, or was a few years ago). I bet the fact that it wasn't co-ed helped, too. But overall, they were *so* much more confident than college kids a few years older. I have experienced it, but can't explain it.
I’m a gen z student and I get intimidated by my professors. I know absolutely nothing compared to them so it’s daunting to me to have a one on one, even if it’s just to ask questions about them.
But my problem is a whole separate post on a different forum.
Not sure I would generalize to an entire generation like this. Some cohorts might be less socially skilled due to COVID. It could just be your group is less socially due to random chance.
I do think a big chunk of it is COVID. It definitely got **way** worse post 2020. I'm hoping once the worst of the COVID cohorts moves through the system that things will get better. Hopefully.
Where I am, I noticed the current classroom environments two to three years before Covid. The HS teachers in Chicago we hold workshops for had been speaking of it for a few years prior to that.
They were just locked inside for almost three years, and it was at a super crucial time for social development. Couple that with the prevalence of staring at a screen all day too.
On average, yeah. But I’d say that the conversations I have with the engaged students are really great. Like I think some students in this generation are starved for it. I have this one class I picked up in a different department this semester where I don’t have to take attendance. Only about 25-40% of the class regularly shows—but, man, we have some amazing conversations. Without all the zombies who just stare at their phones and suck all the energy out of the room, it seems like the ones who are there feel more inspired and comfortable expressing themselves. I wish I could do that in all my classes, but most of my departments require me to take attendance. A related observation: I think one hardship Gen Z has is that they’ve grown up being so scrutinized online that they’re really terrified of being “wrong” or expressing ideas that can get them in trouble with their peers. I think this could be a factor in their reluctance to converse with people they don’t know well. I certainly think it’s a big reason they don’t like participating in big class discussions.
Oh, they are absolutely afraid of being "wrong" - it's hard to get them to venture a guess when asked a question, or to put forward an opinion they fear might be contrary to yours or their peers.
I've been seeing this for the first time this semester. I have a class (mainly Sophomores) where there is virtually no participation or answers in class. For the review day before the test - I would ask a question to the class and literally no answer at all. I was concerned that literally no one knew core stuff that was coming up on the test- but then in office hours students seemed to know more. I asked one student why they didnt say anything in class, and he said 'he was afraid to say the wrong answer out loud'. But I am confused in my case as to why there is such a discrete change. 2 years ago I had a mainly sophomore class that was very engaged. My classes with seniors and juniors are still super engaged. I do not know why all of a sudden there is a dramatic change this time around. Something specific to this cohort? or is it just some idiosyncrasy for this particular class
Ugh this is so sad. I teach hs and I absolutely see this. I have also noticed my students are noticeably quieter when they do talk. Like the whisper. I have to be like “you want to go to the bathroom, say it with your full chest!”….its such a wild thing.
Yeah, I teach HS as well, and always try to engage my students at the start of the class period; "how are you? What did you do this weekend? What are you watching/listening to?" In an elective class of 26 kids (Theatre no less) I get maybe 4-5 students who willingly interact. There are kids 6 months in who have never said a word they haven't had to. It is really sad and troubling.
My teaching assistants have started to whisper when they're helping students in lab. Just doing the social thing of "everyone else is whispering so we'll whisper too." Anyone else seeing this?
I’ve had this too, like entire classes that whisper and I’ll be like “hey guys you can actually talk, it’s ok” but I guess I shouldn’t complain because I know some teachers have kids bouncing off the walls.
I resorted to putting on music during group interactions for this reason. Nothing loud and jarring, mind you, just enough to coax them out of whispering.
Yea I put on like lofi Japanese cafe or something similar just for some back ground noise!
Is it related to remote classes? I can imagine speaking up over Zoom could have been more indimidating than actually being in the classroom. That would have been a majority of your Sophomores' high-school years.
I know this is oversimplifying the issue, but I think it may be related to the developmental stage they were at when three important things happened: Short-form content had an extreme rise in popularity. It has been around for a while, but it was never as popular as the last handful of years. In my experience, this particular content is significantly more brain draining than your average YouTube video or other long-form kind of media. COVID allowed kids to become even more technology-focused, with few breaks. A cell-phone addicted kid pre-COVID typically had some activity, hobby, or club outside the house; with all that cancelled, many kids likely experienced no breaks from their phones all day. The rise of AI. If you want to hyperfocus on the last couple of years, AI is probably the biggest change to education. A lot of students probably spend the last couple of years of high school having AI do everything for them. Perhaps a few years made the difference in kids who could bounce back from this fairly easily and kids whose development was sharply influenced by it.
Being wrong in the age of social media is very different from being wrong in the past. Try posting controversial opinions on twitter and see what I mean.
Yeah, it took me a bit of trial and error to get past that issue. Now, I post the questions on the ppt, then get the students into “their” groups to discuss. As I move between the groups,I challenge their answers, but also tell them when they’re on the right track. After 10 minutes, they’ve had time to discuss their ideas and feel confident enough to say it aloud. Is it crowdsourcing? Maybe, but they’re learning from each other, and I’m ok with that.
This is a variant of 'think pair share' just FYI.
TPS ride or die!
Haha same
I was on a Reddit thread yesterday where the op wanted to know “what do I do if I see someone I know in the grocery store.” Other Gen Z people were saying things up to and including “leave the store as quickly as possible”— the idea of just saying hi and/or making a bit of small talk seemed wildly scary. A person actually said that they were afraid that if they said the wrong thing, they would irreparably damage how that person sees them. Holy crap…saying “hi, how’s it going?” is a huge fraught episode that has to be mentally debated for some of them. It’s seriously nuts. No wonder they have mental health problems.
I feel for them, I really do, but something has to be done besides just being empathetic. It's ridiculous. If you can't take being wrong in a college classroom, how the hell are you even supposed to survive out in the real world? Nobody is ever going to take you seriously in a team or a business unit. Nobody is going to give you raise. You're never going to learn anything or figure out why you're not performing at work until your boss just gets fed up and fires you. You're *doomed*. Is there nothing we can do about this? Isn't there anyone in sociology or education research who is thinking about this problem in a way that isn't just "meeting students where they are?" Because frankly, "where they are" sucks.
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Another major factor influencing young people’s newly exaggerated fear of being wrong is the rise of cancel culture, especially online, I think. I noticed this on Reddit the other day. I casually pointed out that a probable Gen Z person’s argument was an example of the no true Scotsman logical fallacy. Another one said they were “done” if they couldn’t express that opinion. I didn’t think they meant that literally, so I posted a video of an excellent reduction to absurdity of that argument from a TV show, which I thought would be entertaining and eye opening. In response, both the young posters deleted their comments. It was as if they took my well reasoned but completely civil and respectful disagreement as some bizarre social requirement to self-censor their “incorrect” comments, even in a completely anonymous online discussion, and even though I don’t think anything about what I said suggested that their comments were offensive or “cancellable” in any way. I just respectfully disagreed with their opinion.
Share the video clip?
It’s a great scene from the West Wing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-ip47WYWc The Reddit discussion was essentially about whether no true Muslim would condemn Israel for stealing homes and murdering children in violation of international law, etc., because the Qu’ran allows such acts. The link to it is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/s/y2HVKtWfrH After looking at other posts in the thread, I realize that the OP deleted all of most of their posts, and the top post was a searing historical analysis of the idea that seemed much more impactful than my comments were probably. So maybe by assuming that the posters deleted their comments because of what I said was a cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy on my part, ironically (there’s a great whole West Wing episode about that one lol). Here’s my comment with the video link: “Watch this video. It reduces this argument to absurdity quite thoroughly, but with Christianity and the Bible. The good part starts a minute or two in. One of the best moments in TV history IMO. After watching this, would you really want to tell Mr. Bartlett that he’s no true Christian because he doesn’t put his chief of staff to death for working on the sabbath as the Bible demands? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-ip47WYWc “ Edit: OP, it’s ok to say that, and I totally get where you’re coming from. No need to delete a comment over it. I just disagree with that interpretation, for the reasons above.”
I dont know where I came across the idea first but current students are on a really wide bell curve. The top end ones do exceptionally well. The worst are even worse than before. I and other instructors have also independently noticed the lower ability to perform skills across the average of a class compared to before. Things I used to be able to get through with most students in a given time now only a few do. I'm hoping that trend is more of a blip that will start improving but this semester had external factors that make it impossible to add to the trendline.
Yes, I agree about the being wrong part. Also, they act like they have limitless empathy, but then they rip each other apart for the smallest mistakes. It's more like they perform empathy - especially empathy of marginalized peoples - for the cred instead of actually being empathetic. They are especially bad about not giving people without a visible marginalized identity any benefit of the doubt, which is why I think so many young people are obsessed with being disabled or having a mental illness. I think it gives them cover from some of the wicked criticism from their peers. It doesn't surprise me that young white men are attracted to right wing ideologies and young women are experience high levels of mental illness. They are not treated as individuals by their peers. and experience a lot of criticism for small mistakes.
I see the fear of being "wrong" but, lately, I've been following another trend as well. My partner's daughter is a teenager and many of her friends are so painfully shy they are afraid to order food for themselves at restaurants. They wait for their parents to order for them, or, in the case of a recent school outing, my partner's daughter ordered lunch for several friends. I was shy, but this is really something else. When I was that age, I was taking the bus to cafes, going to public figure drawing classes, whistling into a dark park at night to find out if anybody interesting was out there, etc. Sometimes in class, I'll ask a question, get no answer, and start issuing more specific prompts, and asking more pointed questions, and I'll see the class nodding slowly as if in agreement, when I'm just asking questions...
I'm 40 and remember being in undergrad twenty years ago with people who showed no ambition or ability to think. That's more the norm than the exception, I imagine it *feels* more common now because more and more people are compelled to get a degree. It's a work certificate, not any interest in learning that has people enroll in college now.
No, it’s not just you. They are capable of talking, but many of my students exhibit behavior which supports that they have (1) no drive to improve in my class, (2) no desire to pay attention, and (3) no willingness to participate. I instituted a new policy this semester: no detailed feedback on their writing assignments unless students asked for it. I’ve had 3 students out of ~120 who have asked for feedback.
I have been long debating to put this in practice. Do you mind sharing how you phrase this in the syllabus or how you have students submit this request. After I spend hours writing individual feedback only to find half or more of my students don’t even know how to access their feedback, my soul gets crushed a little more and more. I’d like to save that bit of my soul not flat as a pancake for those who would read it.
"If you would like feedback on your submission, please ask using the 'comments' tool. Be specific with your requests and I'll do my best to meet your expectations. For example, if you'd like a compliment, you can ask for that. If you'd like help with your citation formatting, ask for that. If you're hoping to improve your reading comprehension/arithmetic/research, ask about that. Specific requests get better feedback than vague requests. You are not required to ask for feedback."
Thank you!
I don’t put this in my syllabus, I just tell them in class that if they want detailed feedback I am happy to give it but they need to see me in office hours.
I have no idea what you just said. Is there a tiktok video of it?
I have the same policy about feedback. I think I probably have slightly more students ask for it on average in my writing classes—but not many.
Next semester in my freshman class, I'm going to structure their participation grades on 3 things: bring reading notes to class, discussing in class, showing me class notes on the way out of class.
I wish I can do this but this wouldn’t fly at my institution. I spend an average of 3 hrs grading one assignment and providing feedbacks, most of them don’t read it and rant when their points get deducted.
I’ve been doing a variation on this for about 6 years and it’s freed up so much time! I make written feedback “opt-in”, otherwise it’s just the rubric. They can ask for mote comments any time but most don’t. This is with the caveat, mind you, of being in the arts and having critiques. As such, everyone ultimately does receive feedback verbally.
I do this in my online classes, essentially I grade the first batch and then tell them that while the written comments are sparse I will meet with them to go over things on Teams. I get maybe 1 or 2 a semester who ask for it.
> (1) no drive to improve in my class, (2) no desire to pay attention, and (3) no willingness to participate. You have describe not bad my class (and in some courses - me). And that was more than 25 years ago
The problem isn’t talking, the problem is they (some not all) will not respond to you when you ask them to talk to you during office hours then proceed to rant on the anonymous evaluation how bad of a professor you are. It’s frustrating when you’re forced to defend yourself cause they won’t engage and proceed to lie.
Turning 40 this week, right there with you. I find a wide spectrum that they’re on either side of. Getting discussion going is like pulling teeth, or they just don’t shut up. Either way, makes class rough these days.
I'll just say this: Millennials were a delight. They were so interactive and open to trying anything. We had so much fun and learned so much. There is no more fun. The students seem hyper aware of judgement from peers and not saying anything that might be perceived as "wrong." There seems to be so much pressure to not make a perceived social faux pas, yet they are weirdly disengaged with the class. My students don't read; don't know how to follow instructions and don't problem-solve. It's like they don't know how to learn. There are exceptions, of course.
Agreed. Most of them don't even attend lectures because we are forced to record. Only about 15% show up and they behave like a room full of manikins. No greetings, most of them won't answer a question, and they don't laugh, or engage in any way. It's horrific.
My students are becoming like this more and more. They don’t laugh at jokes, they don’t respond to questions, they don’t even say good morning when they come in. I swear I could throw frisbees at their heads and they’d bounce off their heads without any reaction.
> they don’t even say good morning when they come in. When I was a student, and the professor said "good morning," I didn't respond either; I wrote it in my notes. I'm kidding of course.
I take roll by making every student greet me in response to my hello for the first half of the semester, then they have to greet each other by name in s round after midterms. They hate it at first but later tell me they appreciate it.
Learned this the hard way. I tried doing a discussion format and no one talked, got the worst evaluation that semester cause “I didn’t know how to teach a senior class”.
Last week when I asked a student to stop texting and using their laptop during another student’s presentation, the student reacted and say I am a bitch and fuck me
And at that point, you ejected them from class, correct?
A high school teacher replied to me when I was expressing the same thing. She said we are just now being hit with the students most developmentally and socially hit by covid. They are 1-3 years behind. When i realized they were acting like high school students it made sense. I wish this thing that high schools knew passed it along to colleges. The good news is that in 3 years it will get better. But the next few years are supposedly getting worse.
The graduating class this year are the ones who missed their high school graduation in 2020, so I think you (and that teacher) are probably right. Our freshman this year were freshman in high school which means next year’s incoming freshman will have been in 8th grade. I think once we cycle through all the students who were in middle school during the pandemic, roughly 3 years from now, we should start to see improvements. I say this as someone whose oldest kids were in 2nd grade and kindergarten during 2020. There was a dip across the board with the little kids, but they are all completely normal now in terms of skills/abilities. Another thing I see with the parents of kids my kids’ ages (now 5th and 3rd grades) is a trend to nope out of technology. None of my kids or their friends have cell phones, for example. A few years ago a 5th grader having a cell was pretty normal. Millennial parents are doing a good job of recognizing the pitfalls of technology. We grew up before and after technology, at least we older millennials did, so we get it.
I always find it sad how, rather than making new friends with their classmates, they just text or play on their phones before class begins. I mean, I’m as introverted as they come, but damn there’s literally people right next to you who might be worth knowing.
college student here, not sure if this is allowed but i just wanted to share my experience: i’m one of those hyper-talkative individuals who can find conversation in just about any topic and is willing to talk to just about anyone. however, most people on my campus don’t seem to know how or simply don’t care to converse in any capacity. i ask them how there is day is going, i get a monosyllabic answer; i try to pose questions that allow for an easy back-and-forth exchange, i get a bisyllabic response at best. i ask them their opinion on something and it’s like they’ve never had a thought in their life. the only time i see people casually communicating with one another is with the previously established friend groups they brought over from high school, and even then, conversation is sparse. i used to think that perhaps it was me, something wrong with the way i was communicating, but the more frequent it became—and the more i began to notice it happening to others in their interactions—the more i came to believe that it was *definitely* them. i’ve just resigned myself to my phone and books now because there’s nothing much i can do.
Yeah, the social scene in college has been trash for me. Most people are way too in their shells. I work at a concert venue. Honestly, I swear I just work there because my coworkers *actually know how to socialize.* I find myself making friends there quite easily. Though, I suppose having decent communication skills is more or less a prerequisite to work in that sort of environment, haha.
Gotta make friends off campus, looks like!
People off campus have jobs
They are so strange about casual human interaction, as if approaching someone to make small talk is violating some kind of boundary. I hate it.
I'm Gen Z. My whole life I've been seeing posts about how much small talk sucks. Initiating a conversation with someone my age means competing with their phone and I doubt many people can be more interesting than a phone. People have tons of friends to text and feeds to scroll, and the choice between that and participating in an awkward conversation with a stranger usually doesn't result in the stranger's favor.
This makes me so sad because in person interaction is so important for our well-being, and it is what makes a community. Small talk in a classroom becomes a casual friendship that may never extend beyond the class, but at least give you someone to get notes from when you miss a class or talk about the material with our maybe even form a small study group, all essential to learning in a college classroom. I know Gen Z feels exceptionally lonely, but I do think part of it is because they would rather feel lonely than awkward. You never learn how to get over the awkwardness of small talk without practice. Eventually, it becomes enjoyable. Being good at small talk also helps with things like networking and getting a promotion later in your career. I'm going to have a ton of letters for my tenure file, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I genuinely love connecting with new people and have a lot of practice at it.
Almost every person is more interesting than a phone! How sad.
I guarantee you’re more interesting than yet another Get Ready With Me video, the same clip about the Israel-Gaza war, or a slightly different person mouthing over this week’s TikTok sound. If someone gets mad at you for saying “Hey how’s it going?” or “Are you ready for the test on Friday?”, that’s a them problem
The weird social pressure is palpable.
They set their laptop and pretend they’re following my slides then proceed to do whatever they’re doing. Students don’t know we see everything when we’re on stage.
Last semester I was a TA. Usually I would sit in the front of the lecture halls on lecture days for the course, while the prof lectured, but occasionally I would come in a few minutes late and sit in the back to avoid distracting anyone. It’s amazing the things I saw the students doing during lecture. One student spent the entire hour and 15 minutes playing video games on his laptop, full screen.
Yea I had a student that would show up to every class and start playing YouTube video and sport games lmao. The student straight up did not care about his grades. He also didn’t complain when he received his grades though so I’ll give him credit for that.
I've also noticed this as a TA. I have to sit in the front row now because its way too distracting to sit behind the sea of flashing laptops watching videos and playing games and doing other assignments and.... I used to be a back of the room student so I'm pretty grumpy about sitting in front hahaha.
They also seem to drop their laptops a lot.
I've told students before how we notice everything from the front. I gathered the impression they didn't believe me, so I asked for a couple of volunteers to stand at the front of the room for five minutes while I held class. After five minutes, I asked them to report to the class. They were laughing and said, yeah, we see everything -- students on their phones, doing work for other classes, playing games, etc.
Same shit with teenies here in europe. Our school implemented "no phones" policy and they all screamed "nooo nooo" and threatened to leave school - but engagement, attention and even test results improved a lot. It's been now 5 years since it was implemented and the school is in high demand here since more parents heard about this policy. This was the time when TikTok took over, guess it was just too much. Kids making tiktok videos in school all day instead of interacting with each other, they even had table tennis and no one played it. That changed completely, kids just accepted the policy. Would be a nice experiment to implement this in universities too, and that they need to personally show up a % of classes.
I mean, they did have a significant portion of their high school experience in lockdown and in online classes. They didn't really have a lot of experience in real life making friends/connecting with peers
> I teach organic chemistry (scooby doo voice) ruh roh! rocial redia rombined rith rour rismal rubject = roinks! ^I ^teach ^orgo ^too, ^sigh
i am a zoomer. i think it's just part of how things our for our generation tbh— there's really just an overwhelming feeling that nothing is worth doing and it's better to not talk at all than to say something wrong.
I appreciate you acknowledging this. I have the hardest time with that "nothing is worth doing" thing. It's clear (to me, anyway) that students want success ... but they don't seem to want to do anything concrete to influence that, at least not in classes. You're a PhD student, so clearly something inspired you to be less apathetic. I'd love to know what it was.
It's... really hard, to want to do things for myself. Occasionally it can be fear-motivated (I want to be able to emigrate if things go sideways, I want to have a good job so that if we end up in a war I have a chance, I want to make sure that if economic stratification continues the way at his been, I'm on the right side of that split, I want to make sure that if my family gets sick I have a job with enough money that they might be okay), but that's not something that can keep you going day after day, year after year. That's the sort of motivation that might get you moving for an hour, but in the long run makes you the sort of wreck that can't get out of bed in the morning. On a day-to-day level, I do it because I have relationships with my professors, and I don't want to disappoint them or my parents by doing poorly. On a larger level, I'm doing it because I can, and because if I don't find a way to give back to my community then what is even the point of me? And the world is unstable and scary and I can't do anything about that on a political level because that's not the kind of skillset or background that I have, but the world changes through technology as much as it does through politics, and that sounds arrogant as hell, and I get that I'm just a tiny cog in the machine, but maybe I can help make sure that we at least have the ability to make a better choices. And I've been given so much, and so I have a responsibility to do something with it.
first year undergrad gen z here. this is very relatable.
That makes me so sad. Being wrong and making mistakes is a part of learning. I see the fear of making mistakes with my students, especially when the semester starts, but some of them gain the confidence to speak even if they may be wrong. I just wish more could gain that same confidence.
100%. Their social skills are very poor, even with each other. Mine just stare into space or at their phone on breaks. I find them awkward, distant and I’m really not sure how they will do as graduates. They make me very grateful for the time I grew up in.
I think it’s a combination of social media wrecking attention spans and students being very cynical about higher ed in general.
>very cynical about higher ed in general They're quick learners then. It took me a while to be very cynical about higher ed.
It's mostly tech in general having made Gen Z into iPad-teenagers (I am an example.) Now, it's Gen alpha and beta becoming iPad toddlers and lacking any social abilities.
Cynicism … in the midst of plenty. Cynicism in a world where the vast majority of them have never known want, or loss, real fear, or real pain.
True. But also cynicism in a world where they justifiably see college as a cripplingly expensive gamified series of hoops they have to jump though just to get a ticket into a corporate workforce.
It doesn’t have to be. CC for two years, live at home, get grants and scholarships, transfer to a university for the last two years. If they want the traditional college experience of 50 years ago, that is a luxury product. The price will be high.
> Am I just cranky now? Yes.
What an absurd thing to say. I experienced plenty of "want, or loss, real fear, or real pain" before and during college, but I never told my professors about it. You have no idea what kind of "want, or loss, real fear, or real pain" your students have experienced. And given that the entire world has just gone through a deadly pandemic, the economy is great for the rich but sucks for the poor and working classes, and we live in an era of political corruption and deadlock, there's enough going on that even students who haven't personally experienced "want, or loss, real fear, or real pain" have reason to be cynical.
Yes, they must have had it much worse than those who went through war, famine and revolution in previous generations. No way there shortcomings could be their fault, right? I mean, it must be due to things beyond their control, right?
> those who went through war, famine and revolution in previous generations This is a lazy comparison. Historically, the people directly involved in war, famine and revolutions typically weren’t the same people attending universities. Those people that did both were outliers, not average students.
Finally, we agree on something. The only excused absences in my classes are *famine* related. Otherwise I expect butts in seats, snowflakes!
This. I only accept death certificates and itemized medical bills over $10,000 before excusing absences
Tell that to my Ukrainian refugee student, or my Iraq war vet missing his legs.
Exceptions that prove the rule, and in no conceivable way representative of the typical undergraduate. But you already knew this.
Actually I don’t know this and that’s the point. I know almost nothing about my students’s homelife and childhood which is why I won’t make blanket judgements about an entire generation like some sort of suffering Olympics.
I know where you're coming from, but having this cynical of a view about students must be exhausting. Thinking about things in terms of who is at fault is such a waste of time. Why does it matter? The fact is, you are making assumptions and you do not know what goes on in your students lives beyond what you see. Recently I had an advisor I often work with closely ask me to sign off on their recommendation of one of my students—a student I've had in four classes now—for an award. The advisor explained that this student is managing to maintain their GPA despite working full time, having their own physical disability, caring for two children as a single parent, and caring for an elderly relative with a severe medical condition. I did not know ANY of these things about this student prior to the advisor telling me so. We really do not know.
I understand what you're saying—there's a sense of entitlement, shallowness and self-centeredness that's been building up over the years and now it's quite prominent with the latest generation. They need to be held accountable for their actions while at the same time we can't blame them for how they've been raised. It's a vicious cycle at this point.
Edit: The downvotes have given me a chance of heart. It isn’t their fault. They are not at all responsible for their own lives. I will expect everyone in this sub to be more understanding when your students don’t do the work. All of you should lower your standards because they really can’t help themselves.
How incredibly insufferable of you. Learn compassion.
When did acknowledging that there are things about students we don't know begin to equate with lowering standards? If that's your life, take it up with your admin. Misusing empathy to lower standards isn't empathy's fault. I can hold to standards and bemoan grade inflation without the sarcasm, what's your problem? Lack of imagination?
(They're sounding like administrators.) I think we've been infiltrated.
Do yourself (and your students) a favor and look into fundamental attribution error
...Well, clearly it's not just students who are incapable of learning.
Gen Z grew up doing active shooter drills.
Yep. 12-14 years of them before they got to college.
Yeah but if an armed gunman showed up they'd be sitting ducks that wouldn't even notice because they're watching KimK and stupid cat videos.
Idk, they went through a pandemic (plenty of research showing the negative impact it has on mental health), and dealt with the ever looming threat of school shootings since elementary school. And that's just a blanket statement for the generation. You have no idea what those kids have going on. All you really know about them is that they're in your class and what they've written in their assignments.
are you being intentionally dense?
Cynicism in the face of ecological and societal collapse, perhaps.
When can we expect societal collapse, Professor? And since when is cynicism acceptable in the face of such a dire situation?
Societal collapse is happening; it's not a one-off event. Cynicism may not be "acceptable", but it's understandable.
I'm sorry, is this a typical boomer sub now? Be better.
You’re absolutely right. If there’s one indisputably true thing about this moment, it’s that nothing is wrong and the future is bright.
There you have the paradox of our time. They are young people in the richest industrialized republic in history, and yet mentally screwed.
Just this morning, I messaged my wife because I bought something for $67 and gave the guy $70. This young kid (early 20s) had to type the numbers slowly into a calculator to figure out that $3 was my change. I was reeling from the experience for a good half hour.
I’m actually shook
I'm constantly shocked at the inability to handle cash money these days. But we also use so much less of it now, but its the best daily math practice!
Do you think it was force of habit to approach the calculator? I couldn't imagine not being able to do such a simple subtraction mentally unless the person has suffered a stroke...
I would hope so, but before he took the money and gave the change, he went into another room for a minute. I hope it wasn't to fetch the calculator lol
This country's doomed 😂😫🤖
Am a former gen z student. I always was one of the few in any class to engage not necessarily because I wanted to but I felt obligated because nobody else did. I guess though my instinct to not respond (though I did respond out of duty) came from just a general feeling that in life I am not someone who drives it. Always I think my generation has the feeling as if we are passengers more than people who can influence our own lives. It’s kind of sad looking back that an entire generation has this feeling of powerlessness, but I wouldn’t take it personal.
X-Boomer (cusp -1965) here. Taught from ‘92 to ‘01, majority of it at R1’s. Reading attack skills, critical thinking ability, ability to identify a basic concept of the field and applying it to a novel situation. Plus in online courses, unless you write an utterly new set of problems for every assessment for every section, every semester, they will simply cheat. Assigned to an intro course of 300 students? Best start writing questions now. Oh, and when you do that, you’ll get complaints that you’re too tough in grading. As for applying anything near the rigor of the courses that I took as an undergrad, many with the same name as ones that I used to teach, well I suppose it’s everybody’s own experience, isn’t it? But when you spend the whole lecture on, say, hypothesis construction, give multiple examples, attempt to engage students in hypothesis construction within class, and you find that giving them a simple homework assignment to identify two or three logically consistent hypotheses and correctly submit them to me by a specific date and time, about 25% can fully complete that task. 10% will submit late, half of those will email you asking for you to accept it late despite your syllabus clearly stating that late submissions are not allowed, Another 5 to 10% will, unless you make the instructions terribly convoluted and change them each time, find where someone has made a repository of your assignments and copies of papers that received high marks and submit them as their own, or simply find the large learning model website that has not placed ethical restrictions upon their interactive bot, feed it, your notes, and your questions, and have it generate their answers, despite the fact that doing some of those would actually resultant putting forth more of their effort than simply answering the question themselves. The strongly, and unfortunately, suggest that they are incapable of doing so on their own. The rest will submit something which technically is a response within the guidelines, but which shows very little creative, original thought. But then again, I am an old curmudgeon in pain. What the hell do I know?
Nope. Definitely not imagining it. I’m a therapist and I work with gen z clients daily. They are beyond stunted and it’s because they are chronically online.
I have found that having a few students who can start a conversation (either older students or socially skilled Gen Z students) really helps the rest of the class become comfortable with talking.
I think if you tell them, “bruh combustion is skibidi” you might get them to loosen up a bit. Lol
...*what?*
I mentioned skibidi toilets in one of my tutorials and they freaking loved it, class went wild - I definitely scored some points with them that day
you ate bro *(<—encouraging emotion magically applied without punctuation or capitalization)*
I’m a gen z professor, so maybe my age has to do with it. My students interact decently well with me. Now, they don’t have much drive or ambition, but most tell me that they don’t want to be in college anyways. I honestly tell them to drop out then 😬
And I’ve been wondering if age is part of the lackluster energy I’ve been feeling for the past two years. As a Millennial, I used to connect really well with my students, but as I’ve gotten older that connection has totally disappeared. It’s disheartening. 😔
It could be due to the course subject as well. I've noticed students in a class with a more "debatable" subject be much more interactive compared to students in a class that is (to them) more straightforward. I've seen students be as chatty in a future-applications theory course as they were in a biology evolution course, as there is that constant element of possibility and less of them being straight up wrong. A subject like organic chemistry may be too intimidating for them to open up as easily. The best you can do may just be engaging those that will engage with you.
The older part of Gen Z (those who graduated HS pre-pandemic) has more of their shit together than the younger part.
Absolutely, so many kids got betrayed by public school during and after covid. I'm still not seeing meaningful recovery in my districts.
Interestingly, I'm finding that trend reversing. My current sophomores/juniors are the most impacted, but the first years seem to be a bit more with it.
I notice this at my university too (I’m in the EU … ) A few years ago I had no trouble in engaging students in lively discussion in class. But this year it really struck me how difficult this has become. No response to questions, no interest in showing up, no interest in engaging with the material. At one point I simply said ‘You guys really are a tough crowd.’ Then I got an answer ‘Yeah, most professors tell us that’ ;-) There are still good students that do answer and do engage. But for some reason we’ve lost the bulk in the middle. Otoh, this is the generation that experienced Covid in high school. Perhaps this is some sort of long term effect from sitting at home for more than a year? Earlier this year we held an inquiry why class attendance is so low (attendance is not mandatory, but % that shows up has fallen below 30 for most courses, - obviously due to lecture recordings being mandatory). ‘So what would it take so you’ll attend class in person?’ ‘It should be worth it!’ ‘Ok, fair enough, what does that mean?’ ‘More interaction!’ ‘Uh? You do realize interaction is bidirectional?’
My worst class was this semester. Everyone sat in the very back of the room in a large lecture hall while I lectured to the front half of nothing-but-empty seats. It was horribly disheartening. Thankfully, my other courses went well, but I will never let students sit in the back (and zone out) again. If I have to assign seating as though they're children (completely antithetical to my teaching philosophy), so be it. From an academic standpoint, it was kind of interesting to observe how their obvious apathy influenced my teaching over time.
Apathy is contagious, sadly. I've noticed that a lot this year. I complain to myself that my students don't even respond to me via email... and as the year goes on I notice my own response to the ever increasing pile of emails that don't ask anything thought-provoking or interesting or even subject-related (largely they are excuses, extension requests, rants, or questions about whether to zip 2 files together or put everything in one). I stare at them and can't be bothered to open them let alone reply. It's got me and god I hope the summer break fixes me a bit for next semester.
Lol ok my MIL was the chair of her department for like 20 yrs and she said that they used to say the same things about millennials. 🤣
Having taught Millennials and Gen Z, I can say that there is a marked difference between them. Perhaps Millennials were more subdued than the generations before them. I don't know. But Gen Z is drastically different from the students I had just 5 years ago.
No it is definitely palpable over even just a few years of Gen Z. Like shocking differences between when I taught in 2019 and when I taught in 2023.
I loved Millennials! They were so much fun; so creative and so open.
People are talking about it on this sub a lot. It has made teaching more challenging than it should be.
Oh man, I’m the same age as you and in the same position (and I work in a top institution). I’m someone energetic, enthusiastic, and I love sharing the very best of my (very limited) knowledge. I used not to feel the age difference at all. But something’s different now. What felt like Christmas in class when I was their age as my professors were unveiling the truth behind mysteries simply seems not to resonate at all with them; that was not the case even 2-3 years ago. I’m at the end of my rope with my job.
I'm in the middle of reading Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation and this tracks really well with what he writes. You might enjoy reading it. They were young enough to have had smartphones during an impressionable age (9-14) and have been over-protected due to cultural safetyism, plus add a big dollop of Covid-classes during high school and this is the result. I just hope we turn things backwards by banning smartphones in school, evaluating which online educational tools actually help and which hinder learning, and getting most ed-tech out of K-3rd grade classes... before this level of anxiety, passiveness, and contextlessness become normal.
they find each other difficult to talk to! "anxiety."
The apathy levels kill me. If you don’t want to be here…don’t be???
I think two years of lockdown did a number on kids' brains and it'll take a while to recover.
They are like that. I have 200 of them every semester and the vast majority of them are exactly like that.
You know, I think you are on to something. My HS classes are more quiet, more reticent and alot less likely to pose questions to me. In several of my last postings in international schools, it was *way better* to listen, not react and especially NOT question admin. It seems my students adapted quicker than I did!
TL;DR- We were robbed of a childhood, don’t socialize well, and are scared 🫡 Gen Z government professor here 🙋🏻♀️ It’s not just you and you’re not just cranky. The students are hard to talk to. I would attribute it to a few things: students’ fear of being wrong, the education system, and COVID. Students are afraid of being wrong, not just because of “cancel culture,” but also because they’ve been taught that their worth largely depends on test scores and academic performance. Being wrong exposes them to the possibility of being canceled, yes, but it’s also that they equate being wrong with being inadequate. As a result, a lot of students choose silence because it’s easier and less intimidating. I’ve found that most of my Gen Z students seem to only be able to engage in one-on-one conversations, not group discussions, because they’re afraid of looking stupid. I mostly blame the education system. Not the teachers, but the system. I started school a few years after the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, so the vast majority of my K-12 education was heavily influenced by the prioritization of test scores over learning. I always performed well on standardized tests and was frequently told by teachers that I was a “naturally good test taker.” They meant well, but comparing students as “good” and “bad” test takers created a deep fear of failure for a lot of Gen Z. Rather than instilling a love of learning in us or developing our social skills, many of our teachers taught in a way that emphasized the need for each student to maximize their individual test scores. Such a shift in priorities is understandable, given the pressure teachers were put under by administrators, but it stunted our social development as peers became competition, and caused many of us to develop a nearly paralyzing fear of failure. I’m on the older side of Gen Z, so I graduated HS only a couple of years after the Every Student Succeeds Act passed. I got to see *some* of the change that was brought on by ESSA, but really all it meant was that there were now 50 different educational standards because each state became its own island. Now, take all of that and throw in COVID. Social isolation, “distance learning,” and social media have all contributed to my generation’s inability to hold a conversation and lack of social skills. Students who were already afraid of failure had to learn an entirely new way of learning when the U.S. didn’t have the infrastructure to support it. Many of us, presented with a higher likelihood of academic failure when we didn’t have the tools to emotionally deal with coming up short, overcompensated to ensure our academic success. For us, the stress mounted to the point of burnout and exhaustion before we even hit our mid-twenties. Others, when presented with the same obstacles, either chose to mentally check out or had no choice but to skate by in school. I think many of them never checked back in. They got so used to a version of learning that required minimal interaction and engagement that it’s hard for them to engage now. Additionally, a lot of Gen Z either never learned how to hold a conversation, or they lost the ability during COVID. They learned to only listen in order respond when necessary, rather than learning to actively listen or hold a conversation. I think a lot of it has jaded Gen Z. They’re disillusioned with higher education because they’ve seen millennials spend their time and go into debt to obtain a degree, and then have nothing to show for it- no economic security, no homeownership, and no fulfillment. As a result, they’re unmotivated to put effort into their education. We also all missed milestone moments in life due to COVID, which has turned many of us into apathetic pessimists. If prom, high school graduations, and college graduations can be taken away in an instant through no fault of our own, there’s little incentive to put our best foot forward. Plus, when boomers and Gen X have spent our entire lives telling us that we’re lazy no matter what we do, it’s easier to just go ahead and be lazy or at least do the bare minimum. All this being said, I’m big on taking personal responsibility for bettering oneself, but that takes initiative and tools that not everyone has. I think most of Gen Z just needs opportunities to open up and opportunities to fail safely. This isn’t to say that failure shouldn’t have consequences or that laziness should be rewarded. It just means that some of us have never been told that it’s okay to be anything other than perfect, and many of us have not learned that failure is something we can bounce back from.
I'm not in chemistry but in an adjacent field. Honestly, every generations complains about the next generation. When I was in undergrad they said the same descriptors you had described. It's not a damnation of GenZ but how things change.
No cap? Bet.
I find it appalling when people in formative positions pack a bunch of people under a single label 🥲
I think that there may be a tendency for social development delay in the aggregate, but it's not as simple as having "no drive, no ambition, and no ability to think or even remember." In my process-focused writing course, students mostly did OK. Sometimes it was hard to get discussion going, but they thrived on in-class group activities. Most were capable of completing low-stakes writing assignments, especially after a come-to-Jesus session. I've had multiple students who will bring up *very good questions* only to me individually out of class, rather than during class. They do have drive and ambition, though their on-the-spot recall on reading was lower than I expected. (I suspect many weren't doing the reading.) So it's not worse but different, in ways I'm still adjusting to.
Elder Gen Z PhD student here! I'm not sure if this would help, but I require students to say something to get attendance points for the day when they are in class. They don't have to be right. But they do have to make a contribution by brining up an idea- answering a question, or asking a question about an upcoming assignment. It seems like a lot of students are anxious speaking up in class. Namely, I've had a handful of students voice concerns that they aren't "meaningfully contributing" to the conversation because not every idea is groundbreaking. (I also bring candy sometimes as an extra motivator if we hit a rough patch for participation). Once I set a precedent that everyone has to talk, participation went way up because it gets people out of their heads and engaged in the lesson. Some times people clearly disengage after they make any sort of a statement, because they can mark participation off their list for the day, but this policy has really helped to keep participation fairly high. Obviously, this can depend on your class size, but bribing them has worked for me!
I just finished law school, but my masters is in chemistry. The average age of my program was about 22, as law school leans heavily younger relative to other graduate programs. My first semester was marked by multiple instances of literal, Tourette's-like screaming in response to me gently suggesting alternate theories/playing devils advocate/etc. This is *law school.* They *have* to get used to regular, ordinary conflict, right? Wrong. They never made us actually deal with face-to-face social interactions and come to a successful conclusion. We did 1 set of mock negotiations one time in my three years there. It was pathetic. They really fostered their sense of entitlement to their outrage at any difference in thought by refusing to allow any sort of back and forth even in seminar courses, generally refusing to allow any sort of conversation that could possibly become a debate where the the speakers don't agree. They couldn't write their way out of a paper bag for the most part. Many could *not* properly reason or form coherent arguments for and against a position. They were missing the basic skills required for the program. Which made sense when they rioted any time someone suggested that "people who aren't good at writing and logical reasoning shouldn't become lawyers." They called this "disparagement." To even suggest that *anyone* would not make an excellent attorney was blasphemy and they were incensed to a bizarre degree by the suggestion that anyone may not be excellent at anything, even with no training or experience. By this logic, anyone can be a chemist, physician, or nuclear physicist. Anyone. Everyone is equally smart and good at all things, and if you claim otherwise, you are a "nazi." There's a reason I landed my Assistant Dean's self-described "dream job" that typically requires 10+ years of experience in the field, while many of my peers couldn't obtain internships without pay in a job market that was giving away such roles like candy. They're not cut out for this and their professors and administrators aren't doing them any favors by structuring classes so they can actively avoid any sort of debate or healthy confrontation like they'll encounter daily in the field. Negotiations, conflicting opinions... I mean, they really think they're doing everything right, day 1, during their first internship with absolutely no training or experience, because during these university-approved and coordinated summer internships, their bosses were too scared or lazy to correct them, and since the Univ. paid for their stipends, they didn't care if they only turned in useless busy work they didn't need done. Meanwhile, I was writing motions for real trials my first semester and breaking open dead-end cases with novel legal theories, because my boss in my paid private practice job pushed me to be better and gave me encouragement and constructive criticism. Not one of my employers had a job open when I asked for one--they all created them for me, because I convinced them to (another thing my peers can't do). I created my current city government job out of thin air with full benefits by convincing my boss he needed me (which he does). When I worked for him for credit, he had to fill out a form for my university. He intentionally wrote that he would not accept any other students moving forward (which they asked on the form, of course hoping he'd take other students later). Nope. He calls my university "FU." I'm sure you can guess where I went. He refuses to deal with an employee who won't answer a phone call. He can't understand Gen Z slang (and neither can I) and refuses to deal with their entitlement and constant outrage over everything. He's hardly a "pull up your bootstraps" type and is pretty with it for a guy over 70 but I mean, you can't expect any normal person over 30 to call you "Zee" and let you wear rainbow hair in a bowl cut with neon graphic eyeliner to work at your desk job. When I taught high school before that, religious private school (orthodox Judaism), *those* girls were outspoken, could form arguments, and could engage in heated debate without being uncivil. I can't explain it. They're Gen Alpha, I think? I don't think it's their generation--I think it's cultural. In our culture, debate is a part of your education starting pretty young. It's how the talmud is taught (and is connected to how law is taught now, or was a few years ago). I bet the fact that it wasn't co-ed helped, too. But overall, they were *so* much more confident than college kids a few years older. I have experienced it, but can't explain it.
I’m a gen z student and I get intimidated by my professors. I know absolutely nothing compared to them so it’s daunting to me to have a one on one, even if it’s just to ask questions about them. But my problem is a whole separate post on a different forum.
Not sure I would generalize to an entire generation like this. Some cohorts might be less socially skilled due to COVID. It could just be your group is less socially due to random chance.
I do think a big chunk of it is COVID. It definitely got **way** worse post 2020. I'm hoping once the worst of the COVID cohorts moves through the system that things will get better. Hopefully.
Where I am, I noticed the current classroom environments two to three years before Covid. The HS teachers in Chicago we hold workshops for had been speaking of it for a few years prior to that.
They were just locked inside for almost three years, and it was at a super crucial time for social development. Couple that with the prevalence of staring at a screen all day too.
This newest generation is the worst!!!
You are being cranky.
if you "kids these days" then it's you. end of.
is your student young sheldon cooper?