I'm about to enter my 28th year as a Middle School teacher. The kids haven't changed as much as the parents have. The correlation between disruptive or disengaged students and bad parenting is pretty high.

I read the entire thread and was surprised to see what I see as the critical point not really mentioned.

Computers as a primary teaching tool have impacted the development of human reasoning.

I'm in my 50s. I made it through K-12, undergrad and grad school without using a computer...once. Microfiche was as fancy as it got and I effectively lived at the campus library when I wasn't in class or working. The point is, I was taught to tackle any problem using simultaneous critical and abstract thought. There was simply no other way to gain and retain knowlegde.

Today, thanks to the Internet on every device, the need to develop advanced traits of reasoning are diminished. We all learn concrete thinking instinctively during the stages of childhood. However, abstract thinking must be taught...and the Age of Internet does not promote the gaining and retaining of knowledge but its actual suppression.

Type a question into Google and the answer that comes back is, for the majority, accepted as fact without deduction. That is not gaining knowledge but rather simply being exposed to an opinion that is masquerading as a fact...in other words, propaganda. Even if the answer is factually accurate, with everything instantaneously available at the touch of a button, there is no need for retention.

IMHO, this is why today's younger adults think and behave in the ways that many of you have described in prior posts. (sigh) OK, that's enough.for letting me rant.

We may agree based on how to interpret your comment.

Computers have moved the progress needle perhaps more than any other human invention in the modern era (language and writing would have been more profound in its day.)

Progress is not necessarily a positive in regards to reasoning. (imho) It is a clear negative that is already bearing fruit in the first two generations that were raised on computer dependency.

Your bias is showing. TX has a much better public school system than CA, by almost any metric, and has consistently for years. Your nieces have not weathered tough times relative to past generations, as is the topic, or even relative to present non-US populations. They haven't walked for miles with the day's supply of water balanced on their head like parts of the world still do, or had a limb amputated or even a tooth pulled without anesthesia. They haven't dodged napalm in the jungles of SEA or crawled over the rotting bodies of their friends in the trenches of the western front. They likely haven't even gone hungry a single day in their life. This is the problem. Everyone wants to think they've struggled, because they had something happen to them that happens to literally everyone, then they melt down over the smallest things because they lack the perspective to take anything in stride, like having to pay interest on their college loans, or getting your party shut down early after being warned 20 times not to let your 17yo friends chug vodka in the bathrooms of your $10k event mommy paid for (recent true story).

On the whole, it does get worse every year, in lockstep as all our lives get easier every year and the population is increasingly urbanized. Cat litter got you down? Don't sweat it, here's a motorized hunk of plastic made by sweatshop labor across the world so that you never have to scoop again! DoorDash will be here any moment with your food, just sit right there in that air-conditioned easy chair. American Boomers weren't exactly hardcore either on average but does anyone think that a single one of the millions of them ever sought counseling because they saw a mouse?

Were they OK with toxic femininity? Just kidding! We learn in gender studies that that doesn't exist.

Sort of like...when the people who are "educated" and well-travelled pick on those who aren't?

A humanities degree doesn't make anyone more educated than someone who can build a house or rebuild an engine, if the humanities degree holder can't even change a tire or set a mousetrap. You're confusing "degree-holder" with "educated". If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone with "toxic masculinity" in their lexicon make this mistake I'd be able to afford AAA and never have to change a tire again!

Can't say that's all too shocking, unfortunately. We live in a pretty coddled society in a lot of ways and calling the cops for a mouse should get you a ticket IMO

That sucks that you can't afford AAA. It's only $65/year.

That was a joke/dig at the soft-palmed gender studies majors who can't change a tire (or mousetrap, apparently) but were previously knighted as "educated and traveled". I do have AAA. Such a baller that it's the 200 mile premier package even 🤟🤟. Part of living on the road half the year. Still change my own tires, rebuild my own engines, and repair my own house.

I am a successful, self-educated, well-traveled person. None of this has stopped me or any other educated friends and acquaintances in project management, IT, finance, engineering - you name it, from noticing and discussing the declining resilience and increasing histrionics - on average - from the younger generations.

In NYU students recently fired yet another obscenely decorated Professor of organic chemistry, because his class was difficult and he didn't suffiecently coddle them. What effect will this have on his peers when it comes to lesson planning and grading?

Did you know the new college ranking just came out a few weeks ago and China now outranks the US for top universities for the first time - and it wasn't even close? Do they fire their best teachers? Or do they slap the first student to complain with a lower social credit score and tell him to work harder or he won't be able to leave the city by bus until his grades improve? They already have much lower internal friction due to narrative control. Surpluses due to currency manipulation and Xinjiang /DPRK slave labor. Bleeding edge tech thanks to billions donated to American universities and collabs like the MIT /Iflytek debacle. If US resilience, productivity and education continues to decline as it has been, and internal friction continues to build, we will cede global dominance to totalitarian states, and if we're no longer first in line for resources when a real energy crunch leads to a real food crunch, life for our children might be nasty, brutish, and short. Resiliency - the ability to power through when the going gets tough, for both personal and societal gain, is a cornerstone to education, innovation, productivity - overall general success in this cutthroat world. US foreign policy is far from perfect, but if we're relegated to paper tiger status, the brutality we see now in Ukraine will be nothing compared to what will come.

Ha, I know exactly who that professor is. He was just a miserable prick. NYU got rid of him because he was failing too many students and making their numbers look bad, besides his shit manners(never had him, but I know plenty who did). Also, you will find a great deal of NYU students to be from China. Possibly because that system sucks and no one has the time to be retaking the same course 5 times because of one miserable old dude. School is just a business, plus I bet that the tenured didn't like that the adjunct professor was a bigger hardass than them.

Slightly related ... I just listened to this limited episode podcast that came out a few months ago called "Sold A Story" and it was all about how millions of kids in America are failing to learn how to read because schools are not actually teaching them to read at all. It was very fascinating. Only 6 episodes.

Kids are being taught to just guess the words instead of sounding them out, which leads to all kinds of problems, especially for kids whose parents don't catch what is happening. This is apparently still happening in schools all across the country, even in the most affluent liberal school districts but far more than just that.

Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong | Podcast

Sold a Story on Apple Podcasts

What Is the Science of Reading? | Really Great Reading

This is not a political story - there is no left / right here just WTF is going on and wow pretty surprising it is still happening today.

I mean dude I presume you know that those lists are total B$LLSH*T right and also rigged / corrupt. China is a concern yes but they are neutering themselves. China does not have freedom. They will never overtake the US+EU unless the communist dictatorship falls. China's ability to steal US technology is/was amazing but America is waking up to that now and the realignment + blacklists against them are going to work. Personally I think Trump should have had America quit the WTO flat out (ironically progressives hated the WTO when it passed) because WTO provides a shield for China to be a part of a system where they can cheat and steal American technology and all complaints are supposed to be handled in the weak WTO - it is a scam. They never should have been admitted in the first place.

I think this declining student resilience thing is mostly sensationalism from boomers who just want to whine about millennials and Gen Zs. There's bums of every generation, but the joke of millennials and Gen Zs as lazy and entitled softies who can't figure out their own gender got old a while ago.

Realistically this is a generation born into less than stellar economic times. The college dream is pitched to them when they are 18 with no clue of how a loan works, they end up taking out 50k+ on a stem bachelors where you're lucky to get 50k a year starting, not factoring getting screwed by tax. Add another 50k loan for a masters and hopefully you can break 100k a year. And by that point you factor in living costs, utilities, loan payments, etc and you realize that 100k isn't what you think it is. And now they're thinking about loaning out 100k+ on a professional degree (MBA, MIS, JD) only to find the market still sucks once they graduate. And now schools are concerned because everyone is using ChatGPT to do their homework because they are working 40 hours a week at an Amazon warehouse to avoid taking out ridiculous loans for a degree that doesn't provide much security in today's economy.

I would say I faired quite well compared to a majority in my generation, but I would hardly call anything I just said to be an exaggeration. I know many people in these situations.

In what way do you see lack of freedom as a bad thing for global domination? The CCP doesn't have to worry about opinion polls or negative press coverage. If they have an eccentric billionaire who goes against the narrative he doesn't get to buy Twitter, his IPO vanishes and so does he (Jack Ma). If they want to dominate the semiconductor supply that all our lives revolve around they just unilaterally decide to invade Taiwan, if we want to prevent this we have to convince a population that's increasingly against interventionist foreign policy and unite politicians whose power and fortunes are built on sowing division.

I'm a millennial making 6 figures with no college but I'm on the roof whether it's 20 degrees with 40mph winds or 120 degrees with no wind. Younger generations choose degrees and office jobs in part because they don't have the tolerance for physical discomfort, because they're outside less and staring at screens more every year. Both by choice and because parents are keeping them inside out of safety concerns. Many friends with children won't even let them out in the yard on a dead-end street alone, it's not the child's fault that they'll carry this mindset with them into adulthood, just the way I carry mine with me, which involved running around town miles from home for the entire day before I was 10 years old.

It's not just college though, I see it on jobsites too. When I first started I was doing commercial construction for a couple years before I even knew the harness I was wearing had to be attached to a rope to be legal, now you can't get on some jobsites without 40 hours of safety training, a ream of paperwork, and a safety meeting every morning. Are people safer because of it? Of course. As a society we prioritize safety more every year, and we get fewer injuries of some types because of it. Of course, we also have record fentanyl deaths every year now too, so there's a case to be made that wrapping people in bubble wrap is simply trading one type of injury for another.

It's funny, I was lifting and listening to this podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB4lGwxysEk when I read this email between sets, and it wasn't minutes later when Nate Hagens, who's a left-leaning environmental activist was telling his own stories reinforcing the theme of this thread, then Haidt pulled out his NYU ID. I swear I don't have an ax to grind with them but apparently they're on the cutting edge of all this stuff. There is now a "Bias Response Hotline on the back of every NYU student ID apparently. Did they have this when you went there? And of course, that entire office doesn't work for free and is just one of many reasons why the number of college admin employees has roughly tripled in size relative to student population, and this in turn is why many are now spending $100k for that degree which ended up not reflecting its actual value. All this stuff is connected.

Look, China is a serious threat and needs to be dealt with. And they will be. I'm just saying that the more they crack down on personal freedoms, is the more they score goals on themselves. Basically Xi is ratf#cking them because his authoritarian policies lead to reduced GDP and far far less innovation. They are able to steal and are a global power but Chinese leadership is only making the West stronger with their recent actions.

A shorter explanation would be you can't invent the next worlds great invention while trying to run a business in a communist authoritarian state.

Well the thing is a degree by default won't make you rich, in fact an advanced degree may make you poorer by locking you into a field. A STEM degree might cost $50K but possibly much less.
And that's only with a bachelor's degree. Folks with bachelor's stem degree can make hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the job type.

I don't know if you followed Mike Rowe but he has talked a lot and I believe it that we should never be telling kids to get a degree just to get a degree. There are a lot of jobs that do not require degree at all and pay well into the six figures. Also, there are so many people getting masters degrees who can't even pay rent because they chose a field without jobs/pay.

Anyone who tells their kid to just major in whatever you want is really doing them a disservice. Follow your dream at any cost is something only for the privileges and rich, like those with an inheritance.

And with SCOTUS about to rightly strike down the student loan forgiveness program it is more important than ever to pick the right degree and field. We have that freedom, more folks should use it wisely.

Do jobs even make people rich? Usually people end up branching into their own business through professional connections or start some side gig like flipping houses. I only say 50k+ because most kids also want to go away for school. Once you factor in housing costs, mandatory student meal package, fee xyz, you can easily put in 50k in those 4 years even at a public university. Where are you seeing these jobs for hundreds of thousands with just a bachelors degree? Best I can think of is software engineer at a big company like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Palantir. I would still only call those jobs a minority of the market. Most EE or ME majors I know start out around 50k and if you play your cards right and jump around you will make it to a senior role at 120-150k in 5 years or so, often with a masters. Sometimes these 80k jobs at hourly end up being a better deal than the 100k salary by the time you consider the hours they will expect from you in a week. Again this is just within my circle in the NYC metro area, so consider it anecdotal.

Definitely heard from Mike Rowe quite often in these past few years and I think he has made some influence. I actually manage an apprenticeship program for mechatronics and robotics. It is usually aimed at people who got degrees in non-tech fields to become technicians in the warehouses of that e-commerce giant we all buy from. The problem with Mike Rowe is that now he made all these young people with stem degrees realize how much earning potential, arguably better work/life balance, etc, that there is in the trades, and now the secret is out. So now it's turning certain trade fields (NOT ALL!) into a degree game slowly. On the other hand, I think it has created a bridge for people working in trades to jump into those higher up Engineering positions if they already have the degrees.

Totally agree that you cannot tell kids to major in whatever they want. It's insane at current tuition prices. I wouldn't turn down a free 10k but realistically there are long term consequences and I don't expect the incoming class of BA in LGBTQ studies to learn from the financial mistakes of the prior. Sounds mean but I think forgiveness should only apply to certain majors if they actually want to go through with it.

I would say part of the problem is in public schools. They really go above and beyond to make every kid attend some form of college. Nowadays they schedule SATs within regular school hours that way everyone has a score down. Not sure how it works but I assume there is some sort of federal and/or state funding incentive when they churn out higher numbers of college attendees. They will put in all that work but act like deer in headlights when they have to explain how loans work to kids.