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Teachers are quitting their jobs in droves - as new generation of delinquent students push their patience to the limit
Teachers are quitting in droves as a new generation of appallingly behaved students push their patience to the limit.
Born between roughly 2010 and the end of 2024, Generation Alpha will make up the largest cohort of children ever to live on planet earth.
However, the two billion-plus toddlers and pre-teens are already being cited for their illiteracy, unruly behavior and an uncontrollable addiction to screens.
Many blame lockdowns and school closures during the pandemic for the rise in bad behavior, while some are pointing the finger at Millennial parents who are opting to distract children with technology rather than properly discipline them.
Now a new bombshell study has revealed the devastating impact this has had on school life, with 26 percent of public schools reporting that a lack of focus among 'iPad' students has had a 'severe negative impact' on teacher morale.
On top of low morale, a separate April study revealed that 92 percent of leadership at public schools were concerned that students were not meeting academic standards, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
Teachers are quitting in droves as ' iPad ' students push educators to their limits - with a bombshell study revealing 26 percent of public schools reported that lack of focus among pupils was having a 'severe negative impact' on teacher morale
Born between roughly 2010 and the end of 2024, Generation Alpha will make up the larges cohort of children ever to live on planet earth
Two years earlier, NCES reported that 44 percent of all public schools were operating without a full teaching staff.
That year also featured the lowest job satisfaction levels among teachers of all time - only 12 percent - according to 2022 research published by Brown University.
In May of this year alone, 59,000 teachers and other educational staff quit their jobs in the United States according to a poll by Statista, leaving their thankless job in favor of a more 'fulfilling' career.
'It's chaos right now,' a special education teacher who works in San Diego County told DailyMail.com, adding that she teaches 'kids with severe ADHD who are also iPad babies and [their course load] is so difficult for their attention span.'
Meanwhile, Mitchell Rutherford, a 35-year-old teacher who has taught for more than a decade, was one of those educators pushed to leave.
He quit his job as a biology teacher at Sahuaro High School in Tuscon, Arizona, in May after becoming frustrated by his student's cell phone addiction - even after he went to great lengths to encourage less screen time.
Mitchell Rutherford, a biology teacher at Sahuaro High School in Tucson, said the cellphone problem in classrooms got worse as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic
'Part of me feels like I'm abandoning these kids,' Rutherford said. 'I tell kids to do hard things all the time and now I'm leaving? But I decided I'm going to try something else that doesn't completely consume me and drain me.'
He tried setting up a 'phone jail' in the classroom and even offered extra credit for those who limited screen time, but was met with apathy.
'I was beginning to think I was the problem,' Rutherford told the Wall Street Journal.
Rutherford said that before the pandemic, students were more willing to listen to authority, have since told him they do not care about their grades.
'Part of me feels like I'm abandoning these kids,' he said. 'I tell kids to do hard things all the time and now I'm leaving? But I decided I'm going to try something else that doesn't completely consume me and drain me.'
Many educators are flocking to TikTok to complain about the unchecked behavior of Generation Alpha kids in the classroom.
'I need to ask Millennials, why are your kids so awful? And more importantly, why do you think it's so funny. Your kids cannot read, they cannot write, they're ill mannered,' said one woman Alanna Dinh.
Meanwhile, teacher Teresa Newman, who boasts 117,000 followers on the social media app, said students these days are 'missing the mark' on education standards, literacy and socialization.
Teacher Teresa Newman, who boasts 117,000 followers on the app, agreed saying students these days are 'missing the mark' on education standards, literacy and socialization
'I need to ask Millennials, why are your kids so awful? And more importantly, why do you think it's so funny. Your kids cannot read, they cannot write, they're ill mannered,' user Alanna Dinh said
Gina Brillon, 44, a stand up comedian from the South Bronx, is seriously considering homeschooling her four-year-old son to circumvent the broken American school system.
'He could’ve been put in preschool, but he was doing such a great job of having a thirst for knowledge on his own, and we have been taking it into our own hands to teach him things like music and math,' she told DailyMail.com.
Brillon's conviction to homeschool grew even stronger after talking to a former New York Board of Education teacher who had chosen to homeschool her own children.
'She told me her homeschooled kids were further ahead than any of her students,' Brillon said.
'With homeschooling, you have the opportunity to choose courses and help your children and I just feel like it’s a better system because not all children learn at the same level and standardized testing is unfair for children who are not neurotypical.'
Teachers are also noting the differences in learning styles, and some feel that it can be attributed to the pandemic.
Gina Brillon, 44, a stand up comedian from the South Bronx, is seriously considering homeschooling her four-year-old son to circumvent the broken American school system
'He could’ve been put in preschool, but he was doing such a great job of having a thirst for knowledge on his own, and we have been taking it into our own hands to teach him things like music and math,' Brillon told DailyMail.com
Angelique Schoorens, a special education teacher who goes by the name Finally an EdED on TikTok, has taught for 14 years and studied teacher attrition, or turnover before educators reach the age of retirement, as part of her doctoral research at the University of New England.
The Connecticut-based teacher said that throughout her research she has found the increase in negative student behavior directly correlated with the 'huge' student learning gaps caused by Covid lockdowns.
'You can't separate behavior from the academic when you're talking about middle schoolers, especially,' she said. 'A kid in a classroom who doesn't know what's going on, 10 out of 10 times they'd rather look bad than dumb.'
'Kids are acting out because they don't know what's going on in the classroom, and it's harder for them to be in the classroom than it is to be kicked out.
Schoorens said the skills gaps between Gen Alpha and Gen Z 'are worse than I've ever seen before.'
'We have seventh-graders who don't know what town they live in and they've lived in the town their entire life. They don't know they live in the state of Connecticut.
She continued: 'We have several students who couldn't identify incomplete versus complete sentences, and they weren't special ed students, they were regular students, ages 12 and 13.'
She said the biggest difference between Gen Z and Gen Alpha, besides reliance on screens, is their inability to use technology for research.
Angelique Schoorens (pictured), a special education teacher who goes by the name Finally an EdED on TikTok, has taught for 14 years. She said the skills gap between Gen Alpha and Gen Z is the worst she's ever seen
Schoorens (pictured) said the biggest difference between Gen Z and Gen Alpha, besides reliance on screens, is their inability to use technology to research
'[Gen Alpha] will just ask somebody, a lot of kids don't know how to find information even on their phones, which is very different from Gen Z,' she said.
'We had a really long stretch of around 12 years where you had students who were really proficient with technology tools. They might have been slightly prone to being distracted by them, but they could find a balance because they were able to use their tools for learning.
'I am not, seeing that in the last two years with the groups of students that I have. They are not able to use Google in a way to find information. They don't even know what questions to ask the search engine.'
Other social media users were quick to agree.
One anonymous Redditor wrote that of his class of 38 fifth-graders, 'only two were at reading level.'
'And we tested every three months. Many of them can't read most words and simply guess from context clues. Give them a brand new word, and they can't sound it out,' he added.
Lou Haze, 26, has been a middle school teacher for the past four years - two in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and two in Belton, Texas.
In an interview with DailyMail.com, she details the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to teaching Gen Alpha in the classroom.
For example, Haze purposefully uses a fake name while teaching and keeps her face out of the yearbook so students cannot 'troll' her online.
'I haven't ever come across a student that has dreadfully hated me, but I have seen troll videos of teachers in our school,' she said. 'But I don't ever want to be that teacher that goes viral on TikTok by just a screenshot or something.
'It's very scary world, and it's just getting worse.'
With the onset of artificial intelligence and the ever-changing technological landscape, Haze said Gen Alpha students are questioning whether or not the lessons their learning are relevant or have real-life applications.
For example, they'll wonder whether there is any point learning how to spell if a voice-to-text application exists on their phones.
'The self-helplessness is atrocious,' said Haze. 'They don't know how to do for themselves because there is technology that can do for them.'
As the first generation to have full unbridled access to revamped technology, Generation Alpha has become the scapegoat for what happens to students when their parents, mostly Millennials, replace discipline with distraction (Pictured: Angelique Schoorens and her students)
On top of low morale, another April study revealed that 92 percent of leadership at public schools were concerned that their students were not meeting academic standards according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (Pictured: Angelique Schoorens with her students)
Adding that her students 'don't have critical thinking skills anymore,' Haze said that they could talk about their favorite superhero 'for hours,' but couldn't 'make a Powerpoint... write me a paragraph... write me a story.'
'They can't do that. It's so disconnected.'
And with Gen Alpha's very real screen addiction and reliance on technology for dopamine, Haze said she has seen her students actively experience withdrawal symptoms.
'They will have tantrums and they will fight you for it,' said Haze. 'They'd rather accept the zero than do their work on paper, because there's no consequences - they'll go to the next grade regardless.'
Gen Alpha students who are well below where they should be in reading, writing and arithmetic and don't pass their end-of-the-year state exams still move on to the next grade.
And the classrooms are overpacked as it is, with some seeing more than 30 students per class.
'The sad truth is, most schools can't afford to retain children,' said Haze. 'I don't have anymore desk space in my classroom.'
Haze said some of her Gen Alpha students lack enthusiasm, cut corners and do their assignments as quickly as possible so they can get back to their tablets.
'There's no incentive anymore for students because they now they're going to get passed on [to the next grade],' said Haze. 'There's no higher push to make them want more in life.
'When we were kids. It was like, you're going to college. You're gonna get your degree. You're gonna get a really high paying job. And you're gonna be successful. These kids are not surrounded by that anymore.'
She continued: 'They can see what's around them, which is the internet. And they're like, 'I can make a video for 30 seconds and get money for that. I don't have to put in work and still get paid - that's a loophole.'
The two billion-plus toddlers and pre-teens are already being cited for their illiteracy, unruly behavior, and an uncontrollable addiction to screens, raising fears over what is to come for the future leaders of the US
Haze believes the reason so many veteran teachers are leaving is because they don't know how to adapt to new ways Gen Alpha learn information.
'There are veteran teachers that have been teaching for 20 or 30 years that are still using their old-school methods of teaching Gen Alpha - those are the teachers that are leaving because they refuse to adjust their standards to what is currently going on in the world.'
Across social media, content creators often refer to Gen Alpha as the 'doomed' generation. But Haze remains hopeful.
'I definitely think we can save them but we need to figure out the best way to assist them,' she said.