Paraprofessional Says There’s ‘Something Seriously Wrong’ With Middle Schoolers Today — ‘They Don’t Know How To Exist With Other People’
Student behavior seems to be getting worse.
ViDI Studio, PeopleImages.com Yuri A / Shutterstock.com From students to school districts, there’s an array of problems that have made life miserable for educators — but nothing seems to be changing.
In a Reddit post, one paraprofessional shared that what she’s overheard from her middle school students has been appalling. “There is something seriously wrong,” she wrote. “They’ve been disciplined and addressed, but they just don’t care.”
A paraprofessional suggested there’s ‘something wrong’ with middle schoolers after overhearing what they say in the classroom.
“I’m still a baby to the profession (3 years as a paraprofessional),” she started, “I don't even know what to say. There is something wrong with our current batch of middle schoolers.”
From decreased motivation to poor social skills, she’s noticed a handful of other issues in her middle school students, especially in recent years. “The things I’ve been hearing this year are nauseating,” she wrote. “Today alone … the first thing I heard when I came in the building was a student yelling” expletives and bad names at another student.
She’s not the only one noticing this behavior; in fact, almost 40% of teachers in 2023 said misbehavior, disrespect, and inappropriate behavior interrupt their daily teaching.
She claimed educators are 'too burnt out to push back.’
“This isn't just about the language: somewhere between COVID-19 and social media and just...how nasty many adults have begun to act towards one another, I genuinely believe these kids simply don't know how to exist around other human beings,” she explained. “I'm tired. I'm tired, and I'm very, very scared.”
Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock.com
In the early stages of life and adolescence, kids are sponges. They’re going to soak up the values, views, and social behavior of their parents without ever realizing it. It's why the pandemic had such a significant impact on the social skills of younger generations. They didn't learn how to socialize and build relationships, and they are suffering for it.
When addressing this misbehavior, teachers and other teaching professionals shouldn’t have to bear the burden of correcting it. It should be the district and administrators' responsibility to either take care of misbehavior in an ethical and empathetic way or hire a professional in the field to do so.
She argued middle schoolers today 'don’t know how to exist with each other.'
“Not only do they not see the problem with what's coming out of their mouths, apparently they have no problem saying these things IN THE CLASSROOM and LOUD ENOUGH FOR STAFF TO HEAR!!!” she emphatically stated. “On top of that any time a teacher tries to address any of this we're immediately met with the usual ‘we're just joking, don't be so serious’ crap.”
Of course, it’s not just misbehavior, disrespect, and crude language teacher’s are reportedly worried about, it’s also the general learning trends they’re noticing in the classroom. From kindergarten to high school, kids don’t know how to socialize, respect authority, or even read in many cases.
This learning deficiency should be alarming for society as a whole.
Whether it’s a lack of social skills, a general misunderstanding of basic concepts, or a lack of critical thinking altogether, the longer we let the consequences of social media, the pandemic, and new-age parenting “fads” go unacknowledged, the worse off we'll all be.
Of course, it’s not the students’ fault; they’re only a product of their environment — changing that is what’s essential.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.