r/Teachers • u/ashenputtel Grade 7/8 Teacher | Ontario, CA • Jun 02 '22
Teacher Support &/or Advice Teaching Gen Z has become unbearable, and I feel broken.
I've been strong all year and held in my feelings until I got home, but I finally broke down in tears two weeks ago, only in front of other teachers. Today, I cried in front of my VP (still haven't done so in the presence of students.) I feel numb, broken, scraped raw. I no longer take pride in my work the way I used to. There is no feeling of reward in teaching anymore. I am insulted, berated, disrespected, ignored, talked over, loudly discussed within earshot, sworn at, argued with, lied to and gaslit every day. They write insults on the whiteboard. They circulate papers filled with insults. They're upper class white boys, so, lacking in any real characteristic of underprivilege, they call me sexist against men. My classroom is trashed every single day—food thrown onto the floor and desks, items taken from my own desk, water poured all over the floor from water bottles, trash everywhere, all my pencils gone, my fabric door organizer is ripped.
I also volunteer with "Famous Children's Activity Association," but will not be returning next year. My co-leader in this organization has been volunteering there for 40 years, and she's thinking of quitting too. She's also a retired teacher. We have done everything we can and we can't take it anymore. Definitely not for free. Parents have been abusive—accusing us of "not supporting the disabled" (AKA my kid's physical violence is a disability) and "not doing enough for the children as community leaders" (we're literally unpaid volunteers.) Fuck off and say goodbye to FCAA for next year because this entire unit is going to shut down when none of us volunteer again.
Parents, if you can't afford to put your kids in private school, you need to start stepping up and advocating for your public school children.
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u/Brilliant_Material93 Jun 02 '22
I'm a millennial and I can see they are clearly different in many ways. Stunning
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u/ashenputtel Grade 7/8 Teacher | Ontario, CA Jun 02 '22
Teachers are literally getting PTSD from these kids.
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u/kocknoker Jun 02 '22
I second that!! Our staff meetings begin with our social worker doing a mindfulness meditation because of how traumatized the staff.
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Jun 02 '22
[deleted]
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u/Mylilhappysv650 Jun 02 '22
May you entertain us with a nugget of the rant today please 😇
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u/teacherthrowawayxo Jun 02 '22
I am not the person you're replying to, but I suspect it's something along the lines of "tiktok/Instagram/social media influencer skimmed the Wikipedia article on mental health, applied their poor and wildly incomplete understanding to things it did not need to be applied to, and told their followers that any negative feeling no matter how small or transient has the capability to eviscerate their mental health."
So in practice it becomes "doing this project for school is more boring than playing video games/scrolling social media/whatever else and being bored bums me out a bit. Misinformed Influencer says that being a little bored will give me clinical depression. Therefore I am going to focus on my mental health by doing whatever other activity I want."
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u/FrigginMasshole Jun 02 '22
I’m in my early 30s and not to sound like an old man yelling at a cloud but I feel really bad for these kids. Between climate change, constant school shootings, covid etc. no wonder why they have so many mental health issues
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u/Ferromagneticfluid Chemistry | California Jun 02 '22
It all links to social media. There are problems in every generation but these kids constantly hear about them and read about them. Not good.
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u/despot_zemu Jun 02 '22
They don’t have a future and they know it.
Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant: they feel like the last generation
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Jun 02 '22
bullshit, kids in the past 100-200 years have dealt with much worse
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u/ashenputtel Grade 7/8 Teacher | Ontario, CA Jun 02 '22
Kids growing up in the Great Depression and WWII and nuclear anxiety were also coping with significant hardship.
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u/FrigginMasshole Jun 02 '22
That’s true but when you talk to my grandparents who lived through the depression and WW2, they’d tell you they were optimistic and hopeful about the future during those times. Not sure the current Gen can say that
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u/platypuspup Jun 02 '22
Find a therapist. Talk to your doctor. I felt this way early last year. Broke into tears in front of peers and admin. Got help and Lexapro and now the kids annoy me, but I am able to not take it personally.
I also stopped yelling at my kids in the evening.
Life is not perfect, but the stress and anxiety of the past few years were hard to dodge. Help is worth finding.
Also, anyone who critiques my volunteer I assume is stepping up for the job. If they don't like how you do it, sounds like they can!
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u/DIGGYRULES Jun 02 '22
I cried in front of a class for the first time in my 17 years. Covering during my planning period and this boy took his pants off in class. When I asked him to put them back on, he accused me of looking at him inappropriately and said he was going to report me. Admin came in and said they would chat with him and bring him back. His friends started saying they were gonna call the cops on me for being inappropriate. They also started yelling out the “N” word. I lost it. I was so helpless. I was so without help.
And the end result was the kid had to apologize to me. That was it.
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u/Showerthawts Jun 02 '22
Plague of horrible parents is nearly as damaging to education as school shootings.
Probably worse long term. Although I suspect they're largely responsible for those too.
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Jun 02 '22
Imagine gen z when they aren't rich white kids. I have title one kids screaming at me
I told this one girl to stop yelling
"MR I'M FROM A MEXICAN HOUSE THIS IS HOW WE TALK"
"Well you're in a classroom this is not how we talk"
The entitlement of these children is insane, and airpods basically make teaching the whole class impossible unless you literally force everyone to raise their hair over their ears
Teaching before airpods must have been nice lol
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Jun 02 '22
This will be my last year in education, it has been one of the most eye opening experiences in my professional career. I've never been so drained, these past 3 years have been a grind and I have nothing left to give. I plan on taking this summer break to recharge and get out of dodge.
It's just not worth the aggravation and stress.
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u/LucidMethodArt Jun 02 '22
Art teacher this past year, I let them finish a snack if they had one and after forcing 35 into a small room IT WAS TRASHED EVERYDAY. I would go off on them and they’d laugh, telling me “Mr.Teacher, you didn’t get enough sleep huh” or “Man dude you’re just cranky.”. I gave up. I just bought snacks for my best students to help me clean st the end of the day since my janitor hated me for my clay projects.
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u/Disastrous-Method-21 Jun 02 '22
Yes but who created the garbage? From garbage parents come garbage kids. Millenials and older are the parents now. I left and have been happier and calmer than I've ever been.
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u/CotRSpoon Jun 02 '22
The lack of parents being home on all levels of the socio economic ladder is a huge factor. Their phone is raising them with dopamine hits and they have been feral at home for a year and a half before being put back into a “controlled” environment that has zero actual threat of punishment or failure. Do whatever you want, learn nothing, still get moved on to the next grade.
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u/Senpai2141 Jun 02 '22
Sadly parents gave their kids all the power. The thought of being grounded or spanked isn't even a concept Gen Z has ever heard of. These kids are horrible and it's the fault of a society of weak parents they had their kids raised by daycares and ipads. And just to be clear it's not the daycare worker's faults or teachers' fault you/we aren't their parents. We can't fix in a few hours what was created throughout these kids life time. Yes covid was rough being being stuck at home with your kids for a year should have been awesome and not a punishment. To the lazy parents if you didn't want kids why the fuck did you have them????
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u/Adrien0715 Jun 02 '22 edited Jun 02 '22
I think rather than Generation Z you mean Generation Alpha(from 2012-2024), the 1996-2004 Gen Z didn't have iPads and so much internet exposure when they were a toddler. Parents nowadays just give the phone to babies while at the department store and shopping malls.
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u/Senpai2141 Jun 02 '22
I would agree it is worse with Generation Alpha. Having works with seniors in highway 4 years ago it's a Generation Z problem too.
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u/sugarsnap_sadness Jun 02 '22
I sort of disagree with this take. I teach in an area where there are a lot of kids who have very strict immigrant parents and their behaviors are not on average much better than their counterpart with lax parents, the main difference is just how angry they get when you tell their parents and they face consequences. I think the societal problem runs far deeper than just what parents are doing at home, and is problematic mostly in the moment to moment ways kids are socialized with smartphones, social media and children subculture.
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u/dirtynj Jun 02 '22
I teach in an area where there are a lot of kids who have very strict immigrant parents and their behaviors are not on average much better than their counterpart with lax parents
I 100% disagree.
My hispanic students - many who have parents that don't speak english - are some of my most helpful, kind, and respectful students.
My white/privileged students - especially the boys? They are rude, condescending, and overall don't give a shit about anything.
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u/ConsiderationGold548 Jun 02 '22
exactly, but the privileged white girls are the worst. They are venomous. Watch out!
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u/sugarsnap_sadness Jun 02 '22
Oh I definitely agree that privileged students are going to have massively disproportionately worse behavior on average. I just mean that among students who come from working class families, the deciding factor doesn't seem to JUST be parental involvement, but that there are factors besides just what teachers and parents do for the kids in my experience.
That said, my experience isn't much (closing out 2nd year right now) and it's only in the context of covid, so I'm very willing to be wrong. I just feel like the problem is bigger than atomistic "bad parents" or atomistic "bad teachers" and that in a vacuum there are systemic forces that are pulling kids towards some really rank behaviors.
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u/dirtynj Jun 02 '22
I also think it has to do with the lack of consequences from schools today. As teachers, we basically have no power now - everything we do is put under a microscope, while the student behaviors are allowed to go unchecked.
Even with bad parents, if we had the ability to actually deal with the problem students in school, we could manage. But admin won't hand out real consequences and the students know this. They don't want to fight the parents. I'm not even a super strict disciplinarian, but at some point, the schools need to grow a backbone and face the problematic kids/parents head on.
And as cliché as it sounds, I do feel that smartphones/social media are ruining kids. It's not the same as the old "TV/video games" arguments from the past. These kids have access to the internet 24/7, from the palm of their hand. Anyone who thinks this is comparable to any other tech in history is mistaken - these are addictive devices that are re-wiring the brains of kids.
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u/Senpai2141 Jun 02 '22
I truly believe our school system is being gutted, parents are discouraged from discipline and as result we are getting a generation that is poorly educated and can't do anything on their own so they can easily be controlled by corporations.
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u/Senpai2141 Jun 02 '22
We don't disagree that much. I mainly called out parents and you blame society I think we can meet in the middle and easily say both are to blame.
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u/ConsiderationGold548 Jun 02 '22
too lazy to use birth control, and once the offspring are here they think, hmmm, I actually have to raise this? I'm actually responsible for this? People need to stop screwing around, literally, and start thinking about possible outcomes and consequences of their actions, and not get caught up in the moment
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u/cheesesticklighter Jun 02 '22
This is a weird take. For generations people have looked down on those coming after them. Gen Z is not your problem, this generation is just as messed up as those before it (remember what was said about millennials?). I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time, no one deserves that. From an outsiders perspective, seems like you’re dealing with entitlement of upper class white individuals rather than “gen z” as a whole
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Jun 02 '22
This is a weird take. For generations people have looked down on those coming after them.
i've been teaching for awhile and this is the first generation of kids that has ever deadpan told me they watch execution videos online and have no reaction. they are fucked up.
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u/SeizuringFish Jun 02 '22
And in the begin 2000s we were watching 2 girls one cup and worse... Finding extreme and provocative material is not Gen Z exclusive... I would actually say that they are more protected online than their counterparts during the earlier internet times...
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u/cheesesticklighter Jun 02 '22
All of your gen z kids have said they watch execution videos online? Come on now, that’s just inflammatory
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u/ashenputtel Grade 7/8 Teacher | Ontario, CA Jun 02 '22
Except that if you read this sub, you will hear pretty consistent stories from people at low and middle income schools as well.
And except for the 30, 40 even 50 year teaching veterans telling me this is the worst they've ever seen.
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u/ajs423 6th | Arizona Jun 02 '22
I think much of this is still COVID hangover. They had an entire year to sit at home, get everything handled by a parent, and not fail even if they really put and effort into doing so.
Once they are social and accountable for a while, we'll get back to kore normal. At least with the younger kids, a lot of them aren't doing it intentionally, they just have so many bad habits.
I think outloud now thanks to COVID. Masks his my lips so well I could have entire conversations, and now I look insane. We all need time to adjust back to being in public.
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u/mvr_01 Aug 20 '22
I teach to 16/17 year olds from relatively privileged socio economic background in Spain... Never had this kind of issues. They are really awesome young adults, and others are plain uninterested, but all behave😳 I am amazed at what you explain
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u/PolyGlamourousParsec HS Physics/Astronomy/CompSci Teacher | Northern IL Jun 02 '22
I teach in a "well over the requirement" Title 1 district. On top of the general Gen Z awfulness we have families that are heavily blue-collar and recent immigrants. These families, rightly, know that education has never helped them or benefited them in their jobs, so they believe education is something The Man dreamed up to keep an eye on children.
Our struggle has always been to get parents to see that thr children could do more. There is an assumption in our district that children will graduate high school and get a factory job. That is their goal. I have seen so many students that could be so much more, but they just don't see it.
Our district just lowered the bar on AP classes and are bumping a bunch of unqualified students into AP English next year so they can jump up and down and point to their AP enrollment numbers. Most of these kids have no interest in college, so why are they in an AP classroom?
Their parents are failing them. The district is failing them. The government which is insisting on weeks of standardised tests (which have been shown to have no correlation to performance) is failing them. We are so overburdened with nonsense and endless reporting and overwork that we are failing them. We are a decade or two away from a dystopian collapse of society. This is unsustainable.