The State of Our Youth in 2024 

I was a teacher in a Title 1 school for 3 years AMA. I have tons of stories and points I didn’t bring up in this video so feel free to ask away if you want a clearer picture of things.

Fully agree with everything you said, consequences don't exist for these kids and they're raised with no discipline whatsoever. The teachers get no support from the school and the kids know that, like you mentioned a teacher getting fired for grabbing a kid by the arm. So messed up.

And finally, the truth is that many kids should not be in regular school. They should be apprenticed to a trade or put in military school.

Teachers are alarmed that kids can't even read or write at their grade level anymore. Our coddled, zero repercussion, cellphone/streaming, pity gen has turned them into monsters. We are going to have a bunch of adult child narcissists that can't hold any kind of accountability or respect in life. The next gens will get worse until society collapses if nothing changes. I'd teach a private/adult course if you can or a new profession all together, don't waste your time being a babysitter sacrificing your well being. Your talents and integrity are worth more than that. Very sorry you have to deal with this toxicity. Good parenting is definitely a mix of tough love and compassion, things go wrong when they're too extreme or lacking. Our country is in for some hard times.

As a substitute, I feel like I can get away with being "the cool teacher" more than regular teachers, because I'm only there for a day at a time (usually), and sometimes the kids need a little reprieve from their actual teacher before they come back and can then focus in better for said actual teacher. I think the issues we face with schooling today sprout from two sources--1. Our age, and 2. Their parents. You can 10000% tell when a kid has zero discipline at home. Even as a one day sub. I think parents would be shamed into better disciplining their kids if they knew how easy it is to spot the kids whose parents aren't doing their jobs, but handing them a tablet or phone and calling that parenting. At the same time, we live in an absolutely garbage time period to be a kid (compounded a billion times by having parents that aren't on your side defensively). Technology has destroyed kids' ability to focus and sit still. They need constant stimulation like cocaine, and if they aren't getting barraged by music and animations, they try to fill the void by constantly making noise themselves. I'm glad my Dad spanked my shiz when I was acting up, because I was a good student. If you love your kids, *parent* them. Teachers are teachers, not parents.

This is what happens when you teach kids that greed is good.

Eye opening stuff man, hopefully in two years time, I'll be teaching in a school for special needs students.

Man that's aweful!! Im so glad I was born in 1990 and had a normal experience. It's not just the schools that are like this, its society as a whole. Honestly, as someone who is learning how to compose and write music from Scratch, I'd pull my own teeth to have someone teach me music like these kids do. Pray for Humanity.

I'm a student teacher and I believe you are right about rules and regulations being effective; kids need discipline, structure, and routine. Does that mean all teachers should behave like tyrants? No of course not, it's about balance. Strict but fair. There are some teachers who can pull off the cool teacher role, but it seems to be extremely rare since more often than not the students will merely take advantage of you without compunction. The teacher is the knowledge expert and is there to transfer knowledge and teach you to apply it. Take a moment to consider what a school classroom would've looked like a hundred years ago: teacher at the front, students facing the front whilst listening carefully, taking notes, and answering questions. And then look at the cultural capital that people of the past could draw upon (history, poetry, other literature) in their day-to-day life and compare it to your average member of society today. They were products of stable family units, sure, but they were also products of a straightforward schooling system where the teacher was an authoritative and respected figure. Instead, teachers are now expected to be entertainers and social care workers to make up for abysmal parenting and broader social decay. Society doesn't want to produce accountable individuals who acknowledge their inherent flaws. When we see a student behaving like an asshole, teachers (and the student) are not meaningfully taught that they are just being an evil little shit, but rather we are taught to make excuses for it more often than not. Also, screw those kids who are constantly disrespectful and don't want to listen: they go straight onto my ignore list; no, I'm not going to waste my time differentiating or playing the part as circus clown to keep you 'engaged' on the task that- owing to your own lack of internal drive- you couldn't care less about. Geez, I'm rambling heavily perhaps, but I feel you!

This is precisely why I never graduated with my teaching license. My experience in student teaching was terrible, we were taught to have that negligent attitude but also were expected to keep everyone's attention at the same time. It was impossible to keep the attention of everyone in the class, and respect was basically non-existent with most of the kids in my classes. When I first started I thought the same as you, I wanted to be the "best teacher" by being relaxed and not too concerned with the rules as long as everything was within reason. As I grow older and gain more experience, I feel differently. Again, like you said, not every kid is terrible, but some of these kids are truly monstrous and I hope they can get help and change. This doesn't just apply to younger kids though, as I even experienced this teaching at the university level. From around late 2020 and beyond, many of the university freshmen (who were fresh out of highschool mind you, the older freshmen were generally lovely) could barely pay attention to me and couldn't even be bothered to take out their headphones for class. I cannot tell you how many times I got dinged during observations because of that. The attitude of the students became so poor towards education that our university recently had to close a wonderful program that helped students who were less fortunate take a handful of courses for free and even get a small scholarship for completing the program. The kids just didn't care anymore and either stopped showing up or dropped out not even half way through the program. We tried really hard to make that program great too. I am still dumbfounded at how young people act at the university level, as you'd think they'd care a bit more about their education considering how much money they are spending. It is so frustrating to be in education lately, and I am concerned for the future of many of these kids and young adults. For perspective, I myself am young (24), and I still have a lot to learn in life.

My sister has been a teacher in Kansas since 2010 and has noticed many of the changes you describe. It's tough and since teachers are so necessary it's truly heartbreaking.

Toxic positivity is such a thing now.. especially in the weak-willed school systems.. no strong fathers or father-figures both in the class and in the home, all jumbled up incompatible types of people in the same classroom often doing not much more than busy-work. Having kids sit for 8 hours a day was never a good idea but top-to-bottom from the foundation the entire school system is rotten

As Ben says, I weep for the future

Yeah a lot of kids are little demons, it was bad for me growing up but I can imagine how much worse it has gotten recently especially with what I see online. There were always kids talking over teachers or being little shitheads for no other reason than to be a menace. A few times my teachers have just completely given up teaching for the class period and I always felt so bad. I was the shy quiet kid at school so the least I could do was be quiet and try to pay attention, I did sleep now and then in High School but at least I wasn't disturbing anyone. Most of this just comes down to the parents not actually being parents, some twisted ideology of letting their kids have free roam and not teaching them responsibility and how to act in society. Plus a lot of kids kinda repeat what they see, so if there's a few bad apples in the class it can get hectic fast. Kids just wanna fit in and being the quiet respectful student has never exactly been the cool thing to do lol.

I also think music just doesn’t work in a classroom setting compared to one on one with a student actually there to learn. I remember everyone taking music at my school as a pisstake subject and not because they wanted to learn an instrument. However the stem subjects like chemistry and physics my class was always quiet because if you didn’t listen you were going to fail.

Wanna be the cool teacher? Do the voice and ask them “Have you heard of the High Elves..?” then proceed to show them highlights of the Oblivion Let’s Play. In all seriousness sorry you’re going through that and I hope you find a better place of employment, you and your brother brought a lot of joy to myself and others with your RU-vid comedy.

I'm real sorry man. That's stupid rough. In 9-12th band practice & class, most of the room would do their best to disrupt the flow because they knew they could get a rise out of our then band director, who at the time tried to be the best advocate for us as possible to the detriment of our curriculum progress. By the time he was done with it totally after I'd graduated he'd lost his hair to stress (and genes of course, probably). I hope your current avenue gets better and if you end up down the road planning to teach music in high school/college that it is more composed (sorry, couldn't help myself) than what you experience on a day-to-day with these younger generations

Authority and leadership are hard subjects but they can be learned and lot of the key elements of them are universal. I have seen it myself that same things that work in the army work in the school and even in the workplace and family environment. Stephen Covey wrote a book called "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" And i think it really helped me to be a better leader in my own personal life. I recommend for you to read it

I used to get hit with a belt on the backside when I misbehaved badly as a kid. Not very hard, but hard enough to hurt and deter me from doing that bad thing again in the future. As an adult, I've never thought back once upon those incidents as abusive- on the contrary, I understand why my parents did it and how it has value. Naturally, you don't wanna do that all the time, but kids NEED deterrents, and part of that involves making them feel ashamed of their behaviour, including; singling them out in front of the other kids, telling them that their behavior sucks and that they are stupid, and yes, as a last resort, giving them a smack on the bottom (for parents anyway).

I hate to say it, but I don't think schools are a good place for learning. It's really just glorified daycare. Classroom learning is realistically solo learning and only a few personality types and people with strict/attentive parents are capable of excelling. The teachers that care aren't given enough time to help and the power to discipline the kids that really need the help and/or behavior correction. It is my opinion that anything bigger than like a 10 person class is too much for one teacher to give any strugging student the attention they need. On the bright side, the fix is just to hire 2-3x more teachers, on the down side teachers already aren't paid enough for the job they do, so we all know that simple fix will never happen outside of very affluent small school districts.

This is so sad and so touching. You should write a book.

In your final weeks at the school, please stop caring. It's hurting you and not helping them.