Why have kids become so dumb? ?

[MrChinaski]

Global student test results are out today and... well, it ain't pretty. 62% of 15 year old kids globally are now as dumb as the bottom 50% were two decades ago... and if you understand that, they don't. Thus begins the ritual of staring gravely at a chart and asking what the heck have we done. Followed by three years of a sustained effort to do nothing. Lather, rinse, repeat. Is it smartphones? Whole-language learning? AI? Inquiry-based learning? TikTok? Or are YOU to blame for ruining your kids' lives?

I never was one for book-learning, me

Kids just ain't what they used to be

Teachers are dropping the chalk

Mark Zuckerberg is to blame

Parenting skills? Huh?

Meh. By the time they graduate school, human intelligence will be irrelevant

Other (please explain)

Updates

47 min

A different way of looking at it is that 20 points is about 1 year of schooling. 15 year old kids today are doing what 13 1/2 year old kids were doing two decades ago, on average.

[OneViewpoint]

From my perspective it's several factors with a single common theme. We are over protecting kids from life and reality. When I grew up there were 3 network TV stations and kids spent 90% of their time outdoors with other kids. We did shit that would give parents today a heart attack. By age 14-15, my parents were dropping me and a friend off in a wilderness area to climb an entire mountain range in 1 or 2 weeks. We had nothing but a topo map and compass and a guide book for the area. No cell phone, No GPS. We figured stuff out for ourselves. We blew shit up with M80's. We rode our bikes off a sand cliff at a local quarry and competed in a backflip contest on the way down. And we learned social skills playing football, baseball, frisbee, tag, basketball, exploring swamps, and generally sticking our noses where we didn't belong.

For about the last 25 years, parents have both become more protective and tried to remove all risk from their kids lives and supplied them with alternate realities where they can avoid other people playing video games, scrolling social media all day, or swiping left on dating apps. As a result (I think) kids today are whining wimps who never learned to deal with risk or challenges. They never got the satisfaction or confidence of solving problems themselves or the hard lessons of failure. And it's showing up in academics, relationships, depression, and the way they try to interact with the real world with 72 fantasy genders and unrealistic expectations for what their lives are going to be.

[MrChinaski]

I largely agree.

[fonduegirl]

Precisely. Nowadays parents need to chalk up every waking movie in their kids life.

Like, the phrase on youtube "unstructured 90s endless summer" which is basically the kid going cycling, playing with friends, doing homework, playinh with toys, spinning in circles etc.

That is normal childhood, but parents today panic over their kid going this and there or showing up one hour late

[fonduegirl]

Mom said in her childhood days, they were studying better. Grandmommy didn't care what they did in their spare time so long they were polite, active and studied during mornings

[Clara4567]

I agree that sometimes teachers can be a problem, or the lack of interest of the students, or the parents, but personally I think that we live in a time where politics ( no one specifically, but all) need sheeps, and we can be sheeps only if we are ignorant, so the fact that government are investing less and less resources in education is a huge reason to considerate.

[MrChinaski]

Here, in Australia, at least, the problems are linked. Governments have been paying teachers less and less compared to average wages for 40 years. The quality of teachers has adjusted accordingly.

[OneViewpoint]

It's the same here in the US. Teachers have always been under paid. Schools have always been under resourced. Except for boys football and basketball programs. People will spend money on crap in our economic system based on consumerism. But they become angry if asked to fund their own kid's education. And all hell breaks loose if you're asked to contribute to schools through taxes and you have no kids. We are selfish and short sighted.

[Clara4567]

Here to, teachers are not payed that much, but the problem is that new teachers need to be ha a master's degree, have a teaching qualification and all the certifications needed to gain points, while people who are 50 can start to teach without having all these titles just because they graduated high school 30 years ago. These people usually did a different job but now because they don't need much decide to go back to teaching even if they don't have the skills or don't know the new methods.

[Anonymous]

Probably chemicals in the water. ㅤ

[goaded]

"PISA data show that students who use AI for specific schoolwork tasks, such as summarising texts, drafting or conducting research, attain lower scores in science than students who do not use AI. In these scenarios, students who do not use AI outperform those who do, on average, by around 20 points – equivalent to being around one year of schooling ahead of their peers."

https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2025-results-volume-i_73451bc5-en.html

That said, the downturn started seriously in 2018, which is before most people had even heard of it.

I do wonder why the US isn't included in the epistemic profiles table. It measures how likely students are to fall for misinformation.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/30066853/embed?auto=1

[fonduegirl]

1. Parenting has gone soft. Gen z parents genuinely can't handle young ones.

2. AI. Young brains have gone bad from scrolling too much, for hours. Parents give kids phones to relax, instead of getting nanny. Social media is worse than TV.

3. No great TV shows. Disney, Nick etc are now corporate tools. How would the kid learn manners?

4. Lack of going out and playing with other children.

5. Instead of baby proofing the entire digital landscape, how about parents dont hand over their phones at every tantrum?

6. School system is pretty terrible. They dont teach life values, morality, survival skills etc. To top it off, they have smart board in place of black board inside classes. Thats fucked.

7. Lack of time spent with loved ones. Parents nowadays work like three to four jobs, they are hardly home.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

It's parenting skills for starters. Then it's the fact teachers no longer have any legal means to discipline students who keep disrupting classwork. If you attempt to discipline a child today, you get sued by the parents or fired by the Superintendent, or even jailed.

We're basically training students to be criminals, or at the least disruptive at work, where they will likely be fired for their behavior.

My Nephew is a straight A+ student since Kindergarten, and scored 33 on the ACT as a Sophomore, and he says the number one barrier to learning in school is the negative behavior of the other students and the lack of ability of the staff to discipline negative behavior.

Note to Admin: Grammar Check doesn't know the correct use of the word "their".

[purplepoppy]

Never a single cause. I suspect the main culprits are kids believing schools are brainwashing them and can't be trusted. A belief that education won't get you anywhere and the future is working as an influence. The demonisation of education by the right that tells kids qualifications are for losers. An education system that tries to cover too much without mastering the basics.

[Sevenpointfive]

it was about the time i graduated high school in 1998 that i learned that a lot of schools don't actually have certified teachers. they use substitutes and high school graduates. teachers aren't paid enough i guess, so there are less actual teachers that accept these low paying jobs. and if you're being taught by a dumbass then you'll become a dumbass.

[Anonymous]

Many reasons. I hear Norway and sweden are going back to the old way of teaching in school after moving to tablets and computers.

Basically kids are put in front of screens all day, no exercise, no play outside.

You see the kids that are doing well in school and life, their kids are involved in sports of some kind.

[Anonymous]

The major failure in children's education falls squarely on the teachers' union and its president, RANDY WEINGARTEN, who had kept the schools locked down for almost two years. Great work, Randy; you should receive a medal for the most destructive action taken to destroy education in this nation, at the behest of the AMERICA LAST DEMOCRATIC COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERICA

[4ngelic]

social media, terrible parenting by millenials, no child left behind policy (lowering the level so everyone passes)

[NathanDavis]

because those between your age and mine... made them that way

we're incompetent AF in this regard, lol

[fishbone77]

Schools are focused on indoctrination instead of critical thinking. No child left behind has been a disaster.

[Kvass]

Because they stare at screens until their brains turn into potatoes

[DryGermanGuy]

They waste too many hours for the worthless nothingness of Facialbook and Tic-Tac.

[msc545]

Bad teaching by people who are grossly underpaid and undersupported. What did you think was going to happen?

[andreasderjuengere]

Because you and I have failed, I'd say. :)

[Kelly6]

@MrChinaski Parents and media to blame

[jahaims]

Society and culture became dumb

[Anonymous]

They could have a disability?

[6942Dantheman]

teachers dropping standards

[Paige2006]

Parents