Dandelion Break Forget reading, the kids can't even think

[Aethalope]

I tutor kids like this, too. There’s just this blank panic, like my question opened a drawer in their minds, but there's nothing inside but a tangled slinky and two broken pencils.

It is salvageable...in small groups stuffed with kids who are not like this, with friendly interactions enforced by the tutor. I have this one year 8 who got 14% in her unit test. I asked if she had read the unit. No, she hadn't. A nerdy year 6 opined she might try doing so next time. She did as he suggested and got 62% on the next test.

The thing is, it wasn't that she couldn't read or struggled to understand the text. She honestly didn't know that reading it would help her get good grades. And this is an elite British-curriculum international school, available only to parents who can afford to know better.

 

[LJ Beck]

OMG. I just... what the... is it social media that's disintegrating their ability to think? Or all media perhaps? What is going on??? It seems like it happened fast, and now we're like, uh oh. We better do something about that. I don't have kids, and don't have kids in my life, so I am clueless about this, but like... how did this get so bad so fast without course correction sooner? Perhaps rhetorical questions, but I'm kind of gobsmacked.

 

[Hannah Faoileán]

Perhaps it's not the kids or the big-money-spending parents - it's the way the curriculum is taught (no offence to teachers; I've been one and know there are "rules" and "methods" you're supposed to stick to), and the way society encourages answers at the press of a laptop/mobile button. Perhaps the text books just aren't inviting and stimulating enough. Perhaps, with even novel reading being tested to the death of imaginative immersion, the kids are just totally turned off the idea. These are issues the 2026 year of child-reading promotion needs to address.

 

[Vagabond Heart]

I'm wondering if the helicopter parenting I've often witnessed has any impact on this? Because I see kids who are never given the opportunity to work anything out on their own. All problems are solved for them and they are kept in a 'safe-place' bubble. I'm sure there's very good intentions from the parents, but I do wonder if the children are paying the price.

 

[Aethalope]

I think social media (especially YouTube), the curriculum and helicopter parents are all significant contributors. Regarding the textbooks, may I present Exhibits A and B: pages on the same topic of seed dispersal for lower secondary. One is from 2005 and the other is from 2025.


The 2025 textbook is the one my student didn't know she had to read.