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Schools

A dad's hilarious letter to school asks them to explain why they're living in 1968

"I look forward to this being rectified and my daughter and other girls at the school being returned to this millennium."

A dad's hilarious letter to school asks them to explain why they're living in 1968

Earlier in the week, Stephen Callaghan's daughter Ruby came home from school. When he asked her how her day was, her answer made him raise an eyebrow. Ruby, who's in the sixth grade at her school in Australia, told her dad that the boys would soon be taken on a field trip to Bunnings (a hardware chain in the area) to learn about construction.

The girls, on the other hand? While the boys were out learning, they would be sent to the library to have their hair and makeup done. Ruby's reply made Callaghan do a double take. What year was it, again? Callaghan decided to write a letter to the school sharing his disappointment — but his wasn't your typical "outraged parent" letter.


"Dear Principal," he began. "I must draw your attention to a serious incident which occurred yesterday at your school where my daughter is a Year 6 student."

"When Ruby left for school yesterday it was 2017," Callaghan continued. "But when she returned home in the afternoon she was from 1968."

The letter goes on to suggest that perhaps the school is harboring secret time-travel technology or perhaps has fallen victim to a rift in the "space-time continuum," keeping his daughter in an era where women were relegated to domestic life by default.

"I look forward to this being rectified and my daughter and other girls at the school being returned to this millennium where school activities are not sharply divided along gender lines," he concluded.



Dear Principal
I must draw your attention to a serious incident which occurred yesterday at your school where my daughter Ruby is a Year 6 student.
When Ruby left for school yesterday it was 2017 but when she returned home in the afternoon she was from 1968.
I know this to be the case as Ruby informed me that the "girls" in Year 6 would be attending the school library to get their hair and make-up done on Monday afternoon while the "boys" are going to Bunnings.
Are you able to search the school buildings for a rip in the space-time continuum? Perhaps there is a faulty Flux Capacitor hidden away in the girls toilet block.
I look forward to this being rectified and my daughter and other girls at the school being returned to this millennium where school activities are not sharply divided along gender lines.
Yours respectfully
Stephen Callaghan

When Callaghan posted the letter to Twitter, it quickly went viral and inspired hundreds of supportive responses.

Though most people who saw his response to the school's egregiously outdated activities applauded him, not everyone was on board.

One commenter wrote, "Sometimes it is just ok for girls to do girl things."

But Callaghan was ready for that. "Never said it wasn't," he replied. "But you've missed the point. Why 'girl things' or 'boy things'... Why not just 'things anyone can do?'"

He later commented that he didn't think the school's plan was malicious, but noted the incident was a powerful example of "everyday sexism" at work.

Callaghan says the school hasn't responded to his letter. (Yes, he really sent it.) At least, not directly to him.

Some media outlets have reported that the school claims students are free to opt in and out of the different activities. But, as Callaghan says, gendering activities like this in the first place sends the completely wrong message.

In response to the outpouring of support, Callaghan again took to Twitter.

"At 12 years of age my daughter is starting to notice there are plenty of people prepared to tell her what she can and can't do based solely on the fact she is female," he wrote.

"She would like this to change. So would I."


This article originally appeared eight years ago.

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Dad's heartfelt lunch message shows how simple, everyday acts can change lives

You can make a huge difference by using O Organics.

via Meg Sullivan (used with permission) and Canva/Photos

A volunteer hands out food in a food bank and Meg Sullivan shares her dad's kind gesture.

When we consider people who have had a positive impact on the world, we often think of those who have made grand gestures to improve the lives of others, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Greta Thunberg, or Mahatma Gandhi. Unfortunately, that type of effort is out of reach for the average person.

However, O Organics would like to remind everyone that they can positively impact the world through small, consistent acts of kindness that add up over time. Much like how a small creek can create a valley over the years, we can change lives through small, consistent acts of kindness.

O Organics is dedicated to the well-being of all by nourishing people everywhere with delicious organic foods grown by producers who meet USDA-certified organic farming standards.

Upworthy's Instagram page recently posted a touching example of everyday kindness. Meg Sullivan shared how her father, Tom, peeled oranges for her lunch just about every day from kindergarten through high school. But on the final day of her senior year of high school, he sent his 17-year-old daughter unpeeled oranges with a touching note about how she’d have to start peeling them for herself.



“It’s Time Baby Girl,” he wrote on a wikiHow printout on how to peel an orange with a drawing of himself crying. For the father, this daily ritual was about more than just making lunch; it was about showing that he cared by going the extra mile. “I could have put money on her lunch account,” Tom told Today.com. “But it’s one of those little things I thought was important, that she knows somebody’s taking the time to take care of her.”

The small, daily gesture taught Megan an essential lesson in kindness.

The post reminded people how their fathers’ small acts of kindness meant so much to them. “My dad peeled my oranges until I graduated high school, too. Now, I peel my daughter’s oranges and will for the next 7 plus years,” Katie wrote in the comments. “Love this. My dad peeled mine, too. When I moved out, he gave me an orange peeler gadget,” Mary added.

o organics, albertson's giving backO Organics has a wide array of foods and flavors covering almost everything on your shopping list.via Albertson's

Did you know that every time you go to the supermarket, you can also change the world through small gestures? O Organics not only allows you to feed your family delicious and nutritious organic food, but each purchase also gives back to help people and communities facing food insecurity.

Through contributions from customers like you, O Organics donates up to 28 million meals annually. The company’s contribution is essential when, according to the USDA, 47.4 million Americans live in food-insecure households.

O Organics has a wide array of foods and flavors covering almost everything on your shopping list. “Over the years, we have made organic foods more accessible by expanding O Organics to every aisle across our stores, making it possible for health and budget-conscious families to incorporate organic food into every meal,” Jennifer Saenz, EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer at Albertsons, one of many stores where you can find O Organics products, said in a statement.

O Organics now offers over 1500 items, from dairy products such as eggs and milk to packaged meats and breakfast staples such as cereal bars, granola and oatmeal. You can also enjoy affordable organic produce with O Organics’ fresh salads and fruit.

Everybody wants to make the world a better place. With O Organics, you can feed your family healthy, organic food every time you go to the market while paying it forward by contributing to the company’s efforts to end food insecurity nationwide. That’s a small, daily gesture that can amount to incredible change.

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Parenting

Yet another school district shifts to 4-day week and parents are sounding off

So... when are we getting the matching 4-day work week?

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When talking with other parents I know, it's hard not to sound like a grumpy old man when we get around to discussing school schedules. "Am I the only one who feels like kids have so many days off? I never got that many days off when I was a kid! And I had to go work in the coal mine after, too!" I know what I sound like, but I just can't help it.

In Georgia, where I live, we have a shorter summer break than some other parts of the country. But my kids have the entire week of Thanksgiving off, a week in September, two whole weeks at Christmas, a whole week off in February, and a weeklong spring break. They have asynchronous days (during which they complete assignments at home, which usually takes about 30 minutes) about once a month, and they have two or three half-day weeks throughout the year. Quite honestly, it feels like they're never in school for very long before they get another break, which makes it tough to get in a rhythm with work and career goals. Plus, we're constantly arranging day camps and other childcare options for all the time off. Actually, I just looked it up and I'm not losing my mind: American kids have fewer school days than most other major countries.

So it caught my attention in a major way when I read that Whitney Independent School District in Texas recently decided to enact a 4-day week heading into the 2025 school year. That makes it one of dozens of school districts in Texas to make the change and over 900 nationally.


Giphy

The thought of having the kids home from school EVERY Friday or Monday makes me want to break out in stress hives. But this 4-day school week movement isn't designed to give parents a headache. It's meant to lure teachers back to work.

Yes, teachers are leaving the profession in droves and young graduates don't seem eager to replace them. Why? The pay is bad, for starters, but that's just the beginning. Teachers are burnt out, undermined and criticized relentlessly, held hostage by standardized testing, and more. It can be a grueling, demoralizing, and thankless job. The love and passion they have for shaping the youth of tomorrow can only take you so far when you feel like you're constantly getting the short end of the stick.

School districts want to pay their teachers more, in theory, but their hands are often tied. So they're getting creative to recruit the next generation of teachers into their schools — starting with an extra day off for planning, catch-up, or family time every week.

Teachers in 4-day districts often love the new schedule. Kids love it (obviously). It's the parents who, as a whole, aren't super thrilled.

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

So far, the data shows that the truncated schedule perk is working. In these districts, job applications for teachers are up, retirements are down, and teachers are reporting better mental well-being. That's great news!

But these positive developments may be coming at the price of the working parents in the communities. Most early adopters of the 4-day week have been rural communities with a high prevalence of stay-at-home parents. As the idea starts to take hold in other parts of the country, it's getting more pushback. Discussions on Reddit, Facebook, and other social media are overrun with debate on how this is all going to shake up. Some parents, to be fair, like the idea! If they stay-at-home or have a lot of flexibility, they see it as an opportunity for more family time. But many are feeling anxious. Here's what's got those parents worried:

The effect on students' achievement is still unclear.

The execution of the 4-day week varies from district to district. Some schools extend the length of each of the four days, making the total instructional time the same. That makes for a really long day, and some teachers say the students are tired and more unruly by the late afternoon. Some districts are just going with less instruction time overall, which has parents concerned that their kids might fall behind.

4-day school weeks put parents in a childcare bind.

Having two working parents is becoming more common and necessary with the high cost of living. I know, I know — "school isn't daycare!" But it is the safe, reliable, and educational place we send our kids while we need to work.

Families with money and resources may be able to enroll their kids in more academics, extracurriculars, sports, or childcare, but a lot of normal families won't be able to afford that cost. Some schools running a 4-day week offer a paid childcare option for the day off, but that's an added expense and for families with multiple kids in the school system, it's just not possible.

This will inevitably end with some kids getting way more screentime.

With most parents still working 5-day weeks, and the cost of extra activities or childcare too high, a lot of kids are going to end up sitting around on the couch with their iPad on those days off. I'm no expert, and I'm certainly not against screentime, but adding another several hours of it to a child's week seems less than ideal.

Of course there are other options other than paid childcare and iPads. There are play dates, there's getting help from family and friends. All of these options are an enormous amount of work to arrange for parents who are already at capacity.

Working 4 days is definitely a win for teachers that makes the job more appealing. But it doesn't address the systemic issues that are driving them to quit, retire early, or give up their dreams of teaching all together.

Giphy

A Commissioner of Education from Missouri calls truncated schedules a "band-aid solution with diminishing returns." Having an extra planning day won't stop teachers from getting scapegoated by politicians or held to impossible curriculum standards, it won't keep them from having to buy their own supplies or deal with ever-worsening student behavior.

Some teachers and other experts have suggested having a modified 5-day school week, where one of the days gets set aside as a teacher planning day while students are still on-site participating in clubs, music, art — you know, all the stuff that's been getting cut in recent years. Something like that could work in some places.

As a dad, I don't mind the idea of my busy kids having an extra day off to unwind, pursue hobbies, see friends, catch up on projects, or spend time as a family. And I'm also very much in favor of anything that takes pressure off of overworked teachers. But until we adopt a 4-day work week as the standard, the 4-day school week is always going to feel a little out of place.


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The Bee Gees 1973 'unplugged' medley of Beatles songs is blissful harmony

The '70s legends were inspired by the greatest band of the '60s.

via Midnight Special/YouTube

The Bee gees playing a medley of Beatles hits in 1973.

By 1973, the Bee Gees’ career had hit a low. After a series of hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including "To Love Somebody," "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," and "I Started a Joke," the band was in a rut. Their latest album, Life in a Tin Can, and single “Saw a New Morning" sold poorly, and the band’s popularity declined.

On April 6, 1973, the Gibb brothers (Barry, Robin, and Maurice) appeared on The Midnight Special, a late-night TV show that aired on Saturday mornings at 1 a.m. after The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Given the lukewarm reception to their recent releases, the Bee Gees decided to change things up and play a medley of hits from their idols, The Beatles, who had broken up three years before.

The performance, which featured five of the Fab Four’s early hits, including “If I Fell,” “I Need You,” “I'll Be Back,” “This Boy,” and “She Loves You,” was a stripped-down, acoustic performance that highlighted the Bee Gees' trademark harmonies.

“When you got brothers singing, it’s like an instrument that no one else can buy. You can’t go buy that sound in a shop. You can’t sing like The Bee Gees because when you got family members singing together, it’s unique,” Noel Galagher, who sang with his brother Liam in Oasis, said according to Far Out.

Beatles Medley - Bee Gees | The Midnight Special

A year later, the Bee Gees performed in small clubs, and it looked like their career had hit a dead end. Then, at the urging of their management, the band began to move in a new direction, incorporating soul, rhythm and blues, and a new, underground musical style called disco into their repertoire. Barry also adopted a falsetto singing style popularized by Black singers such as Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye.

This unlikely change for the folksy vocal group catapulted them into the stratosphere and they became the white-satin-clad kings of disco.

In the late ‘70s, the band had massive hits, including songs featured on the 40-million-selling Saturday Night Fever soundtrack: “Stayin’ Alive,” How Deep is Your Love,” More Than a Woman,” Jive Talkin’,” and “Night Fever.”

In 1978, the band made a significant misstep, starring in a musical based on The Beatles' music called Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, produced by Robert Stigwood, the man behind Saturday Night Fever and Grease. The film was a colossal bomb, although the soundtrack sold well.

Beatle George Harrison thought the Bee Gees film was about what happens when you become successful and greedy.

"I just feel sorry for Robert Stigwood, the Bee Gees, and Pete Frampton for doing it because they had established themselves in their own right as decent artists,” Harrison said. "And suddenly… it's like the classic thing of greed. The more you make the more you want to make, until you become so greedy that ultimately you put a foot wrong."

Even though the Bee Gees’ Beatle-themed musical was a flop, former Beatle John Lennon remained a fan of the group. He sang their praises after the public’s growing distaste of disco resulted in a significant backlash.

"Try to tell the kids in the seventies who were screaming to the Bee Gees that their music was just the Beatles redone,” he told Playboy magazine in 1980. “There is nothing wrong with the Bee Gees. They do a damn good job. There was nothing else going on then."

The Bee Gees historic career ended when Maurice passed away in 2003 at 53. Robin would follow in 2009 at 62. Barry is the final surviving member of the band.


This article originally appeared last year.

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Health

Man unexpectedly dies during brain scan. What scientists saw should give everyone comfort.

They may have uncovered the secrets of our final moments.

via Canva

A doctor is analyzing brain scans.

Death remains one of the greatest mysteries of life. It’s impossible to know what happens as a person passes and whether there’s anything afterward because no one has ever been able to report what happens from beyond the grave. Of course, if you ask those with a keen interest in the supernatural, they may say otherwise.

However, in 2021, researcher Dr. Raul Vicente and his colleagues at the University of Tartu, Estonia, became the first people ever to record the brainwaves of someone in the process of dying, and what they’ve come to realize should be very comforting to everyone. “We measured 900 seconds of brain activity around the time of death and set a specific focus to investigate what happened in the 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating,” Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville, US, who organized the study, told Frontiers.


The patient who died while having his brain waves measured was 87 years old and had epilepsy. While researchers were studying his brain to learn more about the condition, they had a heart attack and passed away. “Just before and after the heart stopped working, we saw changes in a specific band of neural oscillations, so-called gamma oscillations, but also in others such as delta, theta, alpha, and beta oscillations,” Zemmar said.

The different types of brain oscillations that occurred in the patient before and after the heart attack were associated with high cognitive functions, including dreaming, concentrating, memory retrieval, and memory flashbacks. Therefore, it’s possible that as the patient was dying, they had their life flash before their eyes. What an amazing and comforting experience right before leaving this mortal coil.

“Through generating oscillations involved in memory retrieval, the brain may be playing a last recall of important life events just before we die, similar to the ones reported in near-death experiences,” Zemmar speculated. “These findings challenge our understanding of when exactly life ends and generate important subsequent questions, such as those related to the timing of organ donation.”


How long are people conscious after they are technically dead?

Science has found that people can remain conscious up to 20 seconds after they are declared dead. Even after the heart and breathing have stopped, the cerebral cortex can hang on for a while without oxygen. So, some people may experience the moment when they hear themselves declared dead, but they aren’t able to move or react to the news. In cases where someone performs CPR on the deceased person, the blood pumped by the compressions can temporarily keep the brain alive as well.

Although the experience of death will probably always remain a mystery, we should take solace in the idea that, in many cases, it may not necessarily be a miserable experience but an ecstatic final burst of consciousness that welcomes us into the great beyond. “Something we may learn from this research is: although our loved ones have their eyes closed and are ready to leave us to rest, their brains may be replaying some of the nicest moments they experienced in their lives,” Zemmar concludes.

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Pop Culture

Optical illusion that looks like a person with two dogs has people totally tripping

It takes a while to see it, but there are not two dogs in the photo.

@Rainmaker1973/X, @farhadge/X

Where is the third dog in this photo?

Optical illusions are wild. The way our brains perceive what our eyes see can be way off base, even when we're sure about what we're seeing. Plenty of famous optical illusions have been created purposefully, from the Ames window that appears to be moving back and forth when it's actually rotating 360 degrees, to the spiral image that makes Van Gogh's "Starry Night" look like it's moving.

But sometimes optical illusions happen by accident. Those ones are even more fun because we know they aren't a result of someone trying to trick our brains. Our brains do the tricking all by themselves.

The popular Massimo account on X shared a photo that appears to be a person and two dogs in the snow. The more you look at it, the more you see just that—two dogs and someone who is presumably their owner.

But there are not two dogs in this picture:

There are three dogs in this picture. Can you see the third?

Full confession time: I didn't see it at first. Not even when someone explained that the "human" is actually a dog. My brain couldn't see anything but a person with two legs, dressed all in black, with a furry hat and some kind of furry stole or jacket. My brain definitely did not see a black poodle, which is what the person actually is.

Are you looking at the photo and trying to see it, totally frustrated?

The big hint is that the poodle is looking toward the camera. The "hat" on the "person" is the poodle's poofy tail, and the "scarf/stole" is the poodle's head.

Once you see it, it fairly clear, but for many of us, our brains did not process it until it was explicitly drawn out.

As one person explained, the black fur hides the contours and shadows, so all our brains take in is the outline, which looks very much like a person facing away from us.

People's reactions to the optical illusion were hilarious.

One person wrote, "10 years later: I still see two dogs and a man."

Another person wrote, "I agree with ChatGPT :)" and shared a screenshot of the infamous AI chatbot describing the photo as having a person in the foreground. Even when asked, "Could the 'person' be another dog?" ChatGPT said it's possible, but not likely. Ha.

One reason we love optical illusions is that they remind us just how very human we are. Unlike a machine that takes in and spits out data, our brains perceive and interpret what our senses bring in—a quality that has helped us through our evolution. But the way our brains piece things together isn't perfect. Even ChatGPT's response is merely a reflection of our human imperfections at perception being mirrored back at us.

Sure is fun to play with how our brains work, though.


This article originally appeared last year.

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Kids

Teachers share how different students are in 2024 than when they first started teaching

So many teachers got brutally honest about the struggles they've been facing in the classroom.

Photo credit: Canva

Things have changed. And not necessarily for the better.

The country is experiencing a major teacher burnout right now, and has been for quite a while. Obviously, COVID-19 only exacerbated issues that were already present. But beyond dealing with grossly low wages, a never-ending list of extra responsibilities, and battling against phones for attention, there’s a more existential shift in students that’s making teachers become both disillusioned with their vocation and concerned about this younger generation.

Recently, someone considering becoming a teacher asked other more experienced educators on Reddit to share the "biggest difference you see in kids from the time you started teaching to right now in 2024?" The responses offer a bluntly candid glimpse of some of the challenges faced in schools today—but there are also some positive nuggets thrown in.

Here are some of the top answers.

1. "Level of curiosity... [it's] almost non-existent today. When I started in the '90s, there were always a handful of students in every class that wanted to know 'Why?' but in recent years, it's either 'Just tell me the answer' or 'Who cares? Just mark it wrong.'"—u/Pretend_Screen_5207

2. "I can't show movies or videos anymore because it is all boring to them. It is boring because they have Netflix on their phone and they can watch whatever they want at any time. It isn't special to watch a movie. "—u/Ferromagneticfluid

3. "Fine motor skills seems to be way down. I teach instrumental music, and kids [being able to figure] out where to put their fingers and how to maneuver them has gone way down since COVID." —u/eagledog

a young boy holding a guitar " Kids [being able to figure] out where to put their fingers and how to maneuver them has gone way down since COVID."Photo credit: Canva

4. "A huge difference I’ve noticed is it is becoming disturbingly common for parents to explicitly tell their kids that they don’t have to follow school rules. Students are always so smug about it when they say that their mom gave them permission, and then equally enraged when they still receive the related consequence because mom doesn’t make the rules at school…Absolutely could never have been me when I was a student, and this was not a thing when I first started teaching. But this kind of attitude has grown increasingly more common every year." —u/kaelhawh

5. "Kids just seem dumber overall. Could be the area I teach in, but basic math and literacy skills have constantly trended downward here. We keep lowering the bar for interventions because we don't have enough spots if half the school needs math and reading support.” —u/Baidar85

6. "Year 22 starts in July. I don't know if I can put it in words, but there's an air that little children have: it's a combination of silliness, joy, fearlessness, creativity, curiosity, imagination, and sweetness. Occasionally some naughtiness creeps in but it's all very innocent...I've taught K-1 most of my career and while many little kids still have all of these qualities, it's astonishing how many kids don't. You hand them a piece of paper and they say, 'I don't know what to draw,' or 'I don't like to color. You put on a silly dancing song and they not only refuse to stand up, they sit there whining 'This is BORING.' The water during science turns blue and they say 'Whatever.'


a little girl leans on her arms on her desk "They've just... lost a huge developmentally appropriate part of their childhoods. It's going to have long-lasting societal repercussions."Photo credit: Canva

I think they're growing up too fast... They're afraid of looking silly or getting dirty or drawing attention to themselves by asking a question. They'd rather be on their phones more than anything in the whole wide world, but since they're at school, a Chromebook will do. If they're asked to do something challenging or ‘boring' they'll run to the counselor to complain about their big feelings so they can get access to a screen to 'calm down.' My kids are 5 to 8, generally, and they've just... lost a huge developmentally appropriate part of their childhoods. It's going to have long-lasting societal repercussions." —u/azemilyann26

7. "I’ve moved schools so I’m gonna have a rare opinion; they got much better in every area possible. Smarter, kinder, more respectful, self-aware, less entitled."—u/swift-tom-hanks

8. "I just finished year 34, all in upper elementary and middle school. Back in the day, I'd have one or two kids in a class who didn't give a flying f**k and who did literally nothing. Now it can be a third of the class. It's mind-blowing. I will have several assignments over the course of a trimester where less than half of the class will get the thing done and turned in. Nearly every assignment will have a couple of kids who write their names on it and then turn in blank pieces of paper." —u/DerbyWearingDude

9. "I've been in early childhood [education] for 10 years now, [and] was a sub for about five years before that. What I've noticed since COVID is a profound lack of social skills. Not just a lack of curiosity or emotional dysregulation, which I've seen in spades, but an inability to play or talk or cooperate with other kids. Each kid is their own little island and they have zero interest in visiting other islands. "I've literally had to teach 5-year-olds how to play basic 'toss the ball' games or work together to build a wall of blocks' whereas before, they would be coming up with wacky 'Calvinball' type games on their own and pulling everyone under four feet tall into the game with barely any effort. Now, I might as well be trying to teach them physics in Klingon." —u/the_owl_syndicate

10. "Their handwriting is…comically big, completely illegible, letters not formed correctly, not within lines/margins if it's on loose leaf paper - straight up looks like a 1st grader wrote it. And this [is] junior high...Sometimes I feel so frustrated at them not getting incredibly basic art concepts and techniques, such as copying a similar value/line/angle or whatever, then realize they can't even write a letter 'g 'correctly, and it makes sense." —u/_crassula_

two young students practicing their letters at a desk"Their handwriting is…straight up looks like a 1st grader wrote it. And this [is] junior high."Photo credit: Canva


11. "The maturity level has been reduced about three or four years since I started in 1990."—u/Felixsum

12. "As an English as a foreign language teacher, here's a positive one: the internet/phones/tablets have made English accessible for EVERYONE. "Even in countries like Egypt where the parents speak no English at all, I'm noticing their kids have a great base level just from playing on their phones. It's pretty cool! Even young kids know quite a bit now." —u/Accomplished-War1971

13. "When I sub, I rarely see students reading books or drawing for fun (even in art class); they mostly use their laptops/phones to listen to videos or play games…But even more baffling are the ones who are told to put devices away [and] just sit in complete and total silence and do nothing but stare at the desk the entire class. They don't do worksheets, they don't do homework, they don't draw; nothing."—u/Seamilk90210

14. "Been teaching middle school for 12 years. Kids are now testing lower than ever. I’d say I have around 10-15 middle schoolers that are testing at a 1st-3rd grade level. Students also lack the ability to be resourceful and persevere. They give up the moment something gets too difficult." —u/TraditionalSteak687

child with their head in their hand crumpling a paper in frustration "They give up the moment something gets too difficult."Photo credit: Canva


15. "At the start of my career, on days leading up to and day of an assessment, my mornings would be absolutely devoured by students seeking extra help. Like, a full hour before the first bell I'd be circulating around answering questions and I would have to make a turn order and consolidate kids who had the same questions. Last three or so years? Absolutely silent. One kid might come in and ask me one question they didn't really need to ask and just want some reassurance."—u/enigma7x

And let's end with a sweet one to remember it's not all terrible...

16. "28 years of experience... It's genuine kindness. Kids are so much more kind now than they were when I started in the '90s. They are so accepting of kids of different races, gender identities, [and] intellectual differences like autism. 'Accepting' isn't even a strong enough word. Kids [who] would be in such different social circles due to peer pressure in the '90s are friends now. I'm a straight white guy [who] was in high school in the '80s. I wish I was brave enough then to be as kind as kids are now. I have plenty of complaints about phone addiction or the inability to multiply 5x4 without a calculator, but this is the most kind generation of students I've ever taught." —u/scfoothills


This article originally appeared last year.

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