Teachers Describe The Differences Between Students In 1997, 2007, And 2017

As society continues to evolve in unprecedented ways, it stands to reason that school students today differ greatly from students 20 or even 10 years ago. Students today compared to students in 1997 or 2007 possess nearly limitless resources when it comes to information and understand technologies that baffle generations before of them. Furthermore, many strides made in LGBTQ representation and an emphasis on political correctness exposed today's students to more open and accepting attitudes. Even still, many teacher horror stories also reveal students of today suffer from a lack of empathy and social skills. So how have today's students changed from those of 1997 and 2007?

Teachers point towards troublesome parents as one reason for the negative qualities they now see in their students, positing that shifts in parental attitudes towards schooling and grading adversely affect their students. With the advent of cell phones and tablets, students now also spend less time communicating physically, resulting in poor interpersonal habits. Thanks to the teachers of Reddit, the world is coming closer to an answer on how students have changed. But, like many answers, they're not necessarily fun to look at.

From teachasdf439:

"I graduated high school and went to college in the late '90s. I started teaching at the college level in mid-2000s, and amstill teaching at the college level.

I would say that in general I didn't notice much of a difference between when I went to college and when I started teaching at college. I went to a state school, and now teach at a (different) state school. Students generally got done what they needed to get done, partied, enjoyed chatting and having fun in the classroom, and more or less seemed to live their lives fairly similarly to how I did.

The last few years have been different, and I'm not entirely sure why, and it is specifically the last few years when the shift occurred. I've spoken with numerous other teachers about this, and everyone I talk to about it that's been teaching for a while seems to have noticed.

As people have noted, students now are more diligent. They work really hard, they're polite, quiet, but are woefully unprepared for adulthood. Yet, they're almost to the last all fairly 'corporate' and 'professionalized.' They act like they are all intending to become middle managers. The idea of college education as anything other than (incredibly expensive) job training is lost on them - likely due to that 'incredibly expensive' part. They diligently do busy work, but when asked to do creative, novel, or independent work/analysis, it's like that screen Chrome browser gives you when it crashes. They're also less anti-authoritarian than I've seen in the past. This is helpful for classroom management, but I worry about a society of people who unquestioningly do busywork, can't think independently, and blindly listen to authority.

If you think it's just me, all teachers teaching incoming freshman last year had to attend a lecture series given by a couple of the deans regarding the demographics and habits of our incoming freshman.

Basically, the takeaway was this: We should not expect students to be able to pay attention in class. We should not expect students to be able to socialize easily with their classmates. We should not expect students to be able to understand and/or figure out a syllabus. We should not expect students to be able to manage their own personal affairs outside of the classroom. We should not expect them to be able to self-task in terms of research/self-education. We should expect more phone calls from parents, more parental intervention, and a heavy reliance on parents by our students who, we were informed, are likely texting their parents during and/or immediately after classes if they get grades they feel are unfair.

Most of the 'we should not expect students to be able to do X' comes from research that the deans cited (I don't remember if it was from our university or published in a journal or what) that shows that most of those issues stem from that extreme reliance on other people, typically parents for younger students, through all of their K-12 education. In other words, their parents did so much for them down to explaining class expectations and how a course works (syllabi), that now that they're expected to do it on their own, they can't because they've never really done it.

I think the deans maybe were a bit hyperbolic, but most of that does seem to be true for a lot of students now, and I will say this: until three years ago, I had never received a phone call or email from a parent regarding their children's grades and/or academic performance. Since 2014, I have received numerous phone calls and probably a half-dozen emails.

You want to see a helicopter parent lose their sh*t? Explain to them that their children are legally adults and due to FERPA guidelines, I can't discuss their grades or academic performance with them. So, I don't fault my students necessarily, and I don't know if this is a long-term trend or not, but I definitely have noticed a pretty significant change in my students over the last few years. I also get the sense that they may know that there is something different about them vs. previous generations of college students, as I find them expressing concern about themselves and their classmates. They say things about people struggling to look each other in the eye, or make small talk, etc."

From LixpittleModerators:

"1997 - 'You won't always have a calculator with you everywhere you go in life!'

2017 - 'Before beginning the test, every student must disable the multi-function calculator that goes with them everywhere in life.'"

From dubled11:

"Senior Pranks in 1997 were outlandish and acceptable. Senior Pranks in 2007 were less common and more basic. In 2017 Senior Pranks are illegal."

From sadpato:

"'97 - sarcastic, grungy, smoking more cigarettes, more clique-y and edgy.

'07 - petty, attention starved, overwhelmed, but much nicer.

'17 - under so many layers of irony and memes they don't even know who they are anymore or care. There's no point in being creative or developing a personality, anything you could think of has already been done."

From hinklesauce:

"'97 - 'Quit passing notes.' 

'07 - 'Quit texting.' 

'17 - 'Are you seriously watching Netflix right now?'"

From abandoningeden:

"I teach in college.

• 1997: Colorful hair and piercings
• 2007: no Colorful hair, lots of tattoos
• 2017: Colorful hair and tattoos

The other main difference was that in 1997, no one talked about being gay. In 2007 students came out to me privately in my office. By 2017, students talk about being gay in class."

From djc6535:

"Everybody is going tech so I'll go with cultural. All teens rebel. They all think they have it right and the grownups have it wrong... but they show it differently.

In '97 the prevailing word was Anger. 'I hate the way things are..' Kids were harsher, meaner, and being nasty was the way to show you were cool. I saw a lot of kids get their kicks out of breaking the Santa illusion for grade schoolers for example.Think of the music of the time, Smashing Pumpkins, NIN, and the like: 'In spite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.'

In '07 the word was Mope. Kids were softening up, being nicer to each other, but also getting more into the 'sadness is beautiful' kind of thing. They weren't angry at the adults so much as they just wanted them to go away and hide into their hoodies: 'Leave me alone to my solitude.' Consider the way Emo was huge at this time.

In '17 kids are much nicer to each other. They're kind to young kids and friendlier in general, but there's this strange undercurrent of competition to be 'The Most Good Person.' In '17 kids want to explain to the grownups how they're all bigots. They also handle failure far worse than previous generations. '17 kids try harder and genuinely want to succeed in ways that the '97 kids didn't. In '97 you were cool if you avoided working hard and didn't care if you failed, but '97 kids also recovered from adversity faster. They didn't bruise as easily. They were harder, meaner kids, but also didn't quit as easily and thrived on constructive criticism."

From banquoinchains: 

"I teach English at a rural high school. The biggest issue for 2017 students is that they have almost zero self-confidence. I don't know if this is a product of culture, or if this is just a fluke with my students. However, they are unwilling to try anything challenging or new without an extreme amount of one-on-one guidance, something that's very difficult to give in a classroom of 30."

From OPNeedsToBeCalledOut:

"As a college instructor who is teaching all of them right now, taking those years as one year removed from HS graduation.

• '97: I'm taking school seriously to better myself and my career.
• '07: I should have not taken all those gap years, C's get degrees.
• '17: Oh sh*t if I don't get at least a Master's I'm going to be made redundant by a robot." 

From ColinHalfhand:

"No phones.

Small phones.

Big phones."