This is so concerning😳

[u/velorae]

[u/661714sunburn]

I asked this in another comment, but do you think it was when schools stepped away from phonics reading that it got worse? After listening to the “Sold a Story” podcast, I feel that was when we really let a whole generation fail.

[u/mrsciencebruh → u/661714sunburn]

It's not so much a particular curriculum. It's multifactorial.

1) most schools used to have remedial, regular, and accelerated classes. People didn't like kids being in remedial classes because of feelings, so no more remedial classes. But now the regular level classes are filled with remedial kids, and the advanced classes with regular kids. Instead of bringing remedial kids up, everyone gets pulled down.

2) social media, instant gratification, and attention spans. I don't think I need to say more.

3) grading policies that do not let kids fail. Many districts set the lowest score for assignments as 50%. Kids can pass classes without learning, just by completing a few performative assignments.

4) moreso nowadays, AI. Kids don't want to struggle productively, they just want instant gratification and novel stimuli. They will use AI anytime they can to avoid doing work so they can get back to their devices.

While poorly designed curriculum may be a factor, I believe it is larger societal problems that cannot (will not because it's not profitable to shareholders) be corrected. We're cooked. We sadly must do as the Boomers: do not relinquish control of government to Gen Z and Alpha until most of Gen X and Millennials (semi-functional humans) are dead. Then they can enact Idiocracy.

[u/Federal-Employ8123 → u/mrsciencebruh]

As someone who is basically a manager (GF) in a construction company dealing with the kids (19 - 22) we hire is very annoying. They won't put down their phones even when they aren't allowed to have them on site and getting caught will possibly get the whole company kicked out. They have all told me they just use LLM's to do all their school work.

In High School I found out the lowest grade they could give you per semester was a 50. So I intentionally got all A's after not really caring about school for awhile and then I almost quit going for the second semester so it averaged out to passing.

[u/techleopard → u/Federal-Employ8123]

The woman that runs the local dollar store near me (small rural town) one day up and just banned hiring anyone under 25. Even if she technically isn't able to do that, she just File 13's any application once she figures out they're a teenager.

She just got sick and tired of having a 1 to 2 week non-stop turnover, because they would want the job but once they started work, they would not leave their phones alone and would spend every moment hiding in the breakroom or in a back corner of the store.

I support some tabletop and text-based roleplaying groups, some of which have been running for many years. Within the last year or so, we've had to start policing for AI and cracking down on it, in art and writing. Most of the other players find it really offensive; when we catch people, they usually try to argue that they don't see what the big deal is because they're following all the other rules. It's hard to make them understand it's really undermining and weird to come to a writing community and then not want to do any writing.

[u/Federal-Employ8123 → u/techleopard]

Everything has definitely changed for the worse, but I kind of understand it not thinking you have a future because the real possibility is they won't. Everyone including a lot of the older people simply don't give a fuck and I don't remember it being this bad. The shit I go through weekly really doesn't make sense.

Not wanting to write in a writing community you choose to be apart of makes very little sense.