We're Raising a Generation That Can’t Handle Reality

I’ve been teaching history in Philadelphia for almost twenty years now. I got my degree in Education from Rutgers, and since then I’ve taught in overcrowded classrooms, underfunded schools, and dilapidated buildings that should be condemned by the city. There’s one thing that’s been consistent the entire time: the students are getting worse.

People love pretending this isn’t true because nobody wants to sound “mean” or “judgmental,” but I’m way past pretending. I’m in the classroom every day, so I get to see it with my own eyes. The attention spans are worse, the behavior is worse, and the accountability is almost nonexistent. The level of disrespect from these kids is absolutely incredible.

I became a teacher because I wanted to help young people learn something. I’ve dedicated a massive portion of my life to this profession. But somewhere along the line, society decided that discipline was evil, authority was oppressive, and consequences were traumatic. So now we’re all paying the price for it.

When I was growing up, if I acted like an asshole in school, there were consequences waiting for me at home. If I mouthed off to a teacher, threw something across the classroom, or hit somebody, my father would have whooped my ass with his belt so hard that my ancestors would feel it. My mother would have smacked my teeth right out of my mouth.

Before all you pearl-clutchers start foaming at the mouth, no, I’m not advocating child abuse. There’s a difference between discipline and abuse. A lot of modern parents are apparently too stupid to understand that difference anymore. Some parents go too far and create angry, damaged kids, and other parents treat basic discipline like it’s a war crime.

Meanwhile their kid is throwing desks around the classroom like a WWE wrestler.

Parents today want to be their child’s best friend instead of their parent. They stick an iPad in their hands at age three and let social media raise them. Then they act shocked when the kid grows up into an obnoxious little narcissist who can’t handle hearing the word “no.”

I ask, how the hell are we supposed to teach these kids? You want to know what us teachers are competing against now?

Everything.

We’re competing against TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, video games, livestreams, group chats, and all the other digital slop these tech companies are pumping directly into kids’ brains every hour of the day. These apps are specifically designed to be addictive and hijack attention spans. Entire teams of behavioral psychologists work behind the scenes figuring out how to keep people glued to their screens for as long as possible. How the hell am I supposed to compete with that?

It’s creating a generation that can’t focus, can’t regulate itself, and can’t handle frustration.

I’ll be halfway through explaining the causes of World War I and some little idiot is watching a video of a guy screaming at a cheeseburger while Subway Surfers gameplay runs underneath it. These kids are frying their brains in real time. They can barely focus long enough to read a full paragraph anymore.

We don’t get paid nearly enough for the amount of insanity we deal with on a daily basis. Some of these schools are warzones, and I’m not speaking metaphorically here. I’ve seen teachers threatened, assaulted, screamed at, spit on, and humiliated while pencil-necked administrators stand around like frightened deer caught in headlights.

Let me tell you a story.

A female colleague of mine had a student who quite frankly belonged in Friends Hospital instead of a classroom. This kid sexually harassed her almost daily. He exposed himself to her multiple times. Multiple times. She begged administration to do something about it.

Not only did nothing happen, but they also discouraged her from filing charges because they didn’t want the bad publicity. They wouldn’t even remove him from her class. The kid’s mother didn’t care either. As far as she was concerned, her precious little angel could do no wrong.

Eventually, even his classmates got sick of him and beat the hell out of him after school one day.

Suddenly everybody cared. Suddenly administration was concerned. Suddenly the mother became emotionally invested. Suddenly this little creep was the victim.

Do you understand how backwards that is?

The teacher gets sexually harassed and nobody lifts a finger. The student gets punched for acting like a degenerate and now everybody rushes to protect him.

That’s modern education in a nutshell.

Teachers today are expected to absorb endless abuse with a smile on their faces. Students can curse at us, threaten us, throw things at us, sexually harass staff members, and sometimes physically attack us, and we’re just supposed to “de-escalate the situation.” I’m not saying teachers should be allowed to beat students with rulers like back in the old days, but there needs to be actual consequences for this behavior. Especially for the parents. Half the problem is that these kids know their parents will defend them no matter what happens.

“My little Elijah would never do that!”

Your little Elijah threw a damn textbook at my head while my back was turned and five students watched him do it. Your child behaves like an animal because you failed to do your job as his parent and raise him better.

Schools also have another massive problem, and that’s administrators who haven’t spent meaningful time teaching in actual classrooms. Every year like clockwork they roll out another set of pointless policies and buzzwords cooked up by people who think education works like a corporate seminar.

Everything sounds great on paper, but then reality happens.

These pencil-pushers sit in air-conditioned offices talking about “restorative practices” while teachers are getting chairs thrown at them. They create policies based on theory instead of reality because most of them are completely disconnected from what classrooms actually look like now.

These are the same geniuses who push for more standardized testing. What a colossal waste of time, for teachers and students alike.

Teachers barely get to teach anymore because the entire school year revolves around preparing students to pass these ridiculous exams. Standardized tests do not measure intelligence, they just measure rote memorization and test-taking ability. That’s it. Students aren’t learning a damn thing that’s going to matter for their future.

I also think that schools need to teach students basic life skills.

We’ve got eighteen-year-olds graduating high school who don’t know how to cook, do laundry, prepare a resume, balance a budget, or handle a job interview. I learned how to use a washing machine when I was thirteen. I learned how to cook because my parents weren’t interested in raising a helpless adult who needed mommy to prepare chicken nuggets every night. Some of these kids are almost legally adults and still can’t function independently for more than six hours.

And you know what? I can’t even say it’s entirely their fault.

Their entire world failed them.

Their parents failed them. Their schools failed them. Social media failed them. The politicians failed them. The administrators failed them. And now teachers are standing in the middle of the wreckage with a roll of duct tape trying to patch up a sinking ship.

Don’t forget, these kids eventually become adults.

The disrespect, the lack of discipline, the inability to focus, the emotional instability, the learned helplessness, all of that is going to follow them into the real world. Eventually these students will become employees, voters, parents, and authority figures themselves.

That scares the shit out of me.

History teaches us that civilizations do not collapse overnight. They decay slowly through complacency, incompetence, and cultural rot. People stop valuing discipline, standards erode, and institutions become weak. Eventually, accountability disappears and everybody becomes more concerned with comfort than responsibility.

The world let these kids down.

And unless something changes soon, these kids are going to grow up and let the world down too.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

J. R. Heston

Joseph “J.R.” Heston is a Rutgers University graduate and a Philadelphia public high school teacher with over 15 years of experience. A lifelong student of history, his writing compares people who actually did things with people who can’t sit still for five minutes. He also writes for AJnet Magazine because teachers are severely underpaid.

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