Rather than list all the irritating things kids do, how about a discussion of what is going on with kids and which kids? All of them or just some? If just some, which ones?
I really need to drop this, but this age-old complaint against the younger generation has been a topic on this List since it started (I joined in 1995). If this goes on, I’ll start posting, as I did before, all the ugly things said about the generation that fought WW II: it’s all in a Homeric Greek textbook from a parochial school: each chapter is headed by a quote from a “famous American” decrying falling standards in all areas.
If you think things were better 20, 40, 80, 180 years ago, you just don’t know social history. So let’s look at the behavior — I encountered some today in a class I subbed in: IPods, cleavage, pants pulled down to show shorts, a little mouth here and there, inattentiveness, etc. — I’m not denying it occurs. I would just like to see a discussion of what is going on in society that results in kids not being like we want them to be. And just what is that? I read lots of what we don’t like. If we make lots of rules, we get good behavior. Really? The school I sub in is rigid and the kids do nothing unless they’re made to. That is NOT education. What do we think education is? Being trained to take a job? Leading the good life? Following some particular path? Rather than talking so much about what we don’t want students to do, let’s talk about what we want them to do and how to create a situation in which that will happen. OR, we can just continue to complain about them not knowing how to conjugate.
Excuse my less than friendly tone but what I’m seeing when I sub is depressing