[extension]

> kids have no ability to be bored whatsoever

Funny how intolerance for boredom is framed as the problem, rather than the boredom itself.

> incarcerated students really want to learn

They also really want to see the sky. It's good that students in general don't behave as if they are incarcerated.

> children under the age of two are already spending more than an hour per day on screens

Most two-year-olds can fit an hour of Cocomelon into their busy schedule. Kids, like adults, are going to burn a few hours every day vegging out. Before the phone screen, it was the TV screen, which was worse.

> And they have a level of apathy that I’ve never seen before in my whole career. Punishments don’t work because they don’t care about them. They don’t care about grades. They don’t care about college.

Perhaps students increasingly feel that the things above obstruct and delay their future, rather than prepare them for it. Perhaps we should consider how to make school more relevant and engaging to them, rather than how to impoverish their lives outside of school.

[kulahan]

The ability to cope with boredom is an essential skill, and boredom is a necessary aspect of life. Great ideas come from boredom. Great questions do too. Boredom is not the problem, attention spans are.

Not to mention, who actually cares? Not every aspect of learning is going to be fun. Sometimes you have to sit down and memorize times tables, or read about an important historical event you just have zero passion for. That’s okay.

As for the screen-time, it’s not about having enough hours in the day, it’s about the concerns regarding what this is doing to kids. Losing out on interaction with your parents because they throw the iPad at you when they’re tired of parenting is probably affecting kids in some unknown way. If it were just an hour a day, probably nobody would be complaining about it.

As for kids thinking college or grades somehow obstruct their future… I have no idea how you overcome such ignorance. I’m actually at a loss for that one.

[rcxdude]

>As for kids thinking college or grades somehow obstruct their future… I have no idea how you overcome such ignorance. I’m actually at a loss for that one.

It's pretty evident at this point. A degree has gone from something you get if you are genuinely interested in further learning and a career in that area to an absolute must-have if you don't want to be stuck in dead-end low-paying jobs. So yeah, the process is being seen as a gatekeeper to a successful adulthood as opposed to an opportunity, because while for some kids it may still be the latter, for all kids it is most definitely the former (and one that's likely to saddle them with a lot of debt in the process).