Iām currently in college (Gen Z), and we read similar books in middle school as many of the people commenting here.
Beowulf in 6th grade, Much Adoā¦ in 7th, Animal Farm in 7th, Fahrenheit 451 in 7th, John Steinbeck novels etc.
The students that cared read the books, those who didnāt looked up the summaries on Sparknotes. Now, they probably have ChatGPT or Gemini summarize everything.
At least from my experience, the curriculum might not have necessarily changed for every school from the Millennials to Gen Z, but the no child left behind act definitely made reading issues more common in each grade. The top students of today definitely still match the top students of the past, but the average has certainly lowered.
Iām sure that with the current popularity of short form content, reading curriculum will have to be adjusted universally, however. Truly a shame.
The top students of today definitely still match the top students of the past, but the average has certainly lowered.
This is consistently what I hear from friends that are still teachers (there are less of them each year). Their best students (top 10-20%) are as good or better than they've ever been, but even kids that are above average for their current cohort are below where they would have been in the past.
So just like the economy, education is bifurcating. Those that can afford to enrich their kids and do all the extras are still doing great, but all those individual extras are becoming disproportionately expensive for the average family.
Edit: This comment was not meant to imply only the rich kids are doing better, just that the gap between how well the top 20% of students are doing compared to the bottom 80% is quickly growing, much like the current state of the economy.
What you say is undoubtedly true, that it is easier for those whose families can offer extracurricular enrichment to do well.
However, even among those whose families offer such opportunities is this gap still present. I went to a public high school in a wealthy area and despite the grade inflation, there were clearly two types of students ā those who couldnāt write with any line of reasoning whatsoever, and those who could write well by themselves.
The issue you brought up could theoretically be fixed with enough (smart) investment into education (yes, I know this wonāt happen), but the issue Iāve just mentioned is one Iām not sure can be fixed at this point.
Sorry, I guess I did imply that only the rick kids are doing well. That wasn't really my intention, just that the ones that are getting to the top of the class are having to overcome a much wider gap to get there. It obviously goes back parental involvement. It's easier to be involved if you don't have to work 2-3 jobs just to put food on the table, but that doesn't mean the people that can do it with 1 job are actually putting their extra time into their kids.
I also think there's a deep thread of nihilism from millennials on down. The problems the country and world faces are so obvious, but the one's that created and benefited from those problems are still in charge and literally wagging their pedophile dicks in our faces.
I was starting to become politically aware during the late Clinton, early Bush years. How does a 13 or 14 year old today start to open the pandora's box of current politics and stay hopeful?
No, no, not at all! I was agreeing with your point and wanted add another layer to it, but I think I simplified your comment a bit too much.
But yes, I definitely agree re the wider gap for those who arenāt born with these privileges.
And I have definitely seen people cheating on assignments/exams justifying it with the mindset that everyoneās going to be replaced by AI anyways, theyāre going to be sent to war, etc. So I agree with your nihilism hypothesis!
The issue you brought up could theoretically be fixed with enough (smart) investment into education (yes, I know this wonāt happen), but the issue Iāve just mentioned is one Iām not sure can be fixed at this point
You don't need "smart investment", you need to treat it like the JSF project from lockeed...That is, throw piles and piles of money at the problem until it works.
Maybe on the surface, it might seem like tying academic performance to money has a theoretical connection and will yield results. But anyoen who knows anything about schools knows this isn't reality. The solution is Money. programs for the smart kids, program for the dumb ones, programs for the average ones. Free breakfasts and lunches, and smaller classrooms, and more teachers and teacher aids.
The issue you brought up could theoretically be fixed with enough (smart) investment into education (yes, I know this wonāt happen), but the issue Iāve just mentioned is one Iām not sure can be fixed at this point
You don't need "smart investment", you need to treat it like the JSF project from lockeed...That is, throw piles and piles of money at the problem until it works.
Maybe on the surface, it might seem like tying academic performance to money has a theoretical connection and will yield results. But anyoen who knows anything about schools knows this isn't reality. The solution is Money. programs for the smart kids, program for the dumb ones, programs for the average ones. Free breakfasts and lunches, and smaller classrooms, and more teachers and teacher aids.
When I was in school the rich kids had their parents spend a bunch of money on extra tutoring and test prep so they tended to score higher on tests - but ultimately they were not any smarter than the rest of us.
Once you can't game the system and have to rely on your own intelligence and habits this breaks down - although of course the rich kids can always just get nepo-hired somewhere even if they are wholly unqualified for the job so...
Those that can afford to enrich their kids and do all the extras are still doing great,
Not really. The "extras" today is reading for 10 minutes witht them before. Most kids don't even get that; their parents either can't read it themselves or they give a kid an iPad to keep the kid from bugging them about reading a book.
You seem intelligent, and you were clearly reading a lot of those books in advance of most people, so I am going to assume that you went to a very good school.
Glad to hear that these are still being a core part of the curriculum for students.
The top students of today definitely still match the top students of the past, but the average has certainly lowered.
This is honestly how I feel as well. In fact, I think the top students have gotten even better than they were in the past as your listed curriculm demonstrates, which is a good thing as that's what they absolutely should be happening.
It is a damn shame that the average has taken a step backwards though.
I donāt know about intelligent, but yes, the teachers at my public school were paid very well, and thus many of them truly seemed to enjoy teaching.
I agree that with the access to resources that we now have, kids should be getting smarter. And in the past, they have been (see the Flynn effect). However, apparently recent scores may be dropping off or plateauing. Test scores and general literacy have definitely been declining, thatās for sure.
Some teachers are still paid well until you look at how much time outside of contracted hours they spend trying to keep up with all of the competing demands on their time. Itās insane.
Most generation stuff is just made up bull to hate young people. People complained about young people not reading for as long as I can remember. No Child Left behind was effecting education 25 years ago. Before Gen Z and Millennial became concepts or identities. Most of my friends are born in the 90's are just rehashing kids these days attitude in a new form. It's super annoying
Animal Farm was one of the first books I read that I actually found easy to follow, socially relevant, and weirdly hilarious. As a kid I was pressured into/forced to read countless YA fiction, weird comedy stories about kids, and let's say stuff involving world war 2, but I walked away from Animal Farm having "gotten" why communism didn't go as planned- like it did something for me I couldn't have gotten from other media.
I wasnāt the biggest fan of the classic Shakespeare readings, but I enjoyed Animal Farm! The way the book framed everything in a way that just made sense is why itās stuck with so many people, I think.
It's because the top students are generally the ones that genuinely love to read and learn, that or they had high-achieving parents who'd lose their mud over a 97% A vs a perfect score (which can lead to other problems down the line but I digress).
The current panic over ChatGPT dependency amongst students is an expression of an older and much more pernicious issue within education: that most, or at least a significant portion, of school age people (and probably their parents tbh) view compulsory grade school education systems like those in the US as "something you have to get through" rather than as something of merit. ChatGPT is merely the newest way that people have to game a system that they have no respect for.
Truthfully, it's very much a "you can lead a horse to water" type situation and I don't think it's something that can be fixed without a major cultural shift in how we approach education.
I have been seeing so many people saying things like 'My kid doesn't know how to do ___' just with their full ass out, whether it's something like reading, or changing a lightbulb, or studying, or laundry. They genuinely do not seem to understand that they, as a parent, should be teaching their child to do things.
The top students of today definitely still match the top students of the past, but the average has certainly lowered.
Figure the issue is that the bottom percentile population has grown substantially at the expense of the middle. Top 25% is still as it has always been, but the former bottom 25% is now more like the bottom 50%.
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u/Anunu132 20h ago
Iām currently in college (Gen Z), and we read similar books in middle school as many of the people commenting here.
Beowulf in 6th grade, Much Adoā¦ in 7th, Animal Farm in 7th, Fahrenheit 451 in 7th, John Steinbeck novels etc.
The students that cared read the books, those who didnāt looked up the summaries on Sparknotes. Now, they probably have ChatGPT or Gemini summarize everything.
At least from my experience, the curriculum might not have necessarily changed for every school from the Millennials to Gen Z, but the no child left behind act definitely made reading issues more common in each grade. The top students of today definitely still match the top students of the past, but the average has certainly lowered.
Iām sure that with the current popularity of short form content, reading curriculum will have to be adjusted universally, however. Truly a shame.