Tag: teaching

Nov 10 2025 2025-11-10 2025-11-10 by Ross

From “Whatever” to “What’s the Point?”…

Posted in Old Man Yelling at the Sky

In the past few years, I’ve seen too many young people collapse under the weight of their own minds — from mild anxiety to full-blown crisis. Some bounce back. Some don’t. It’s become impossible to ignore.

Gen Z, especially the younger half, seems adrift in a way that’s different from anything I remember. They aren’t just stressed — they seem hollowed out, like the world has been drained of purpose before they even had a chance to find it.

Everything Taken Apart

They’ve inherited a culture that deconstructed everything. Institutions, faith, politics, tradition — all dismantled, analyzed, and memed into oblivion. What used to be serious is now suspicious. What used to be sacred is now cringe.

And what’s left after you tear down all the meaning? Snark. Ironic detachment. Self-awareness as armor. But you can’t build a life out of irony.

A Sense of Powerlessness

They’ve grown up in an age where the big things — climate, politics, the economy — all feel out of control. They’re told they can “change the world,” but every time they look around, the world looks worse. It’s like being handed a bucket and told to bail out the ocean.

Many of them also haven’t had the chance to practice independence. Their lives have been micromanaged from childhood — always supervised, always scheduled, always monitored. So when real problems hit, they don’t have the muscle memory for struggle.

Connection Without Anchor

They’re always connected, yet lonely. The phone is a lifeline and a noose. Every moment is lived under comparison — who’s happier, hotter, more successful, more “authentic.” The pressure isn’t just to keep up, it’s to be seen — constantly performing an identity that changes by the week.

No wonder they’re exhausted. It’s like living in an infinite mirror maze.

We Were Cynical Too

Gen X wasn’t exactly brimming with optimism. We came of age in the shadow of the Cold War, sky-high mortgage rates, and the collapse of job security. We perfected the art of the eye-roll. “Whatever” was our national anthem.

But here’s the difference: our cynicism didn’t metastasize into self-loathing. We didn’t think the whole world was broken — just that the people running it were idiots. Ours was a “fuck it” attitude, not a “fuck me” one.

We were alienated, sure, but we still believed there was something out there worth doing — even if it was just music, art, friends, or getting out of town.

The Hollow Freedom

Today’s kids have more options and less direction. They can be anything, which somehow translates into being nothing in particular. The boundaries that once gave shape to identity — religion, nation, even gender — have all been sanded down. Freedom has turned into fog.

Purpose doesn’t come from infinite choice; it comes from commitment. You find yourself by attaching to something that matters, not by endlessly reinventing yourself.

Rebuilding Meaning

I don’t think this generation is doomed. But they can’t keep living in a world made entirely of fragments. They need adults who model conviction, who show that it’s okay to care about something, to believe in something, to build rather than dismantle.

Because without purpose, connection becomes noise, freedom becomes emptiness, and irony becomes despair.

We can’t just deconstruct forever. At some point, someone has to start building again.  One of my children mentioned that Gen Z is turning towards religion.  I’m not sure if that’s true, but at least it would be a start towards finding a higher purpose.

 

 


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Oct 28 2025 2025-10-28 2025-10-28 by Ross

The Slow Death of Accountability…

Posted in Work

I’m just tired.

Tired of walking into a classroom every day trying to make good lessons, trying to make something that might actually matter — and getting apathy back.

They don’t care about learning. They aren’t curious. I know they’re teenagers. I know I wasn’t perfect either. But I wasn’t this. I didn’t treat school like background noise.

And if a kid truly doesn’t want to learn or go to college, fine — give them a path out. Let them graduate at sixteen and spend two years in trade school. Why force kids who don’t want to be there into classrooms where they drag everyone else down?

Yesterday was report card pick-up day. Seniors rarely bring parents, but when they do, it’s the same scene: the parent’s surprised, the kid promises to “do better,” and everyone nods like something’s been accomplished. I’ve seen it for years. One kid out of dozens ever actually changes. The rest go right back to doing nothing the next day.

Some teachers try pep talks — “You’ll regret not trying harder.” No, they won’t. I’ve never seen it happen. They’ll blame the system, their parents, or anyone else. Never themselves.

That’s the real problem: we’ve built a system where no one is allowed to fail. We push kids forward whether they’ve earned it or not. Teachers are pressured to pass them so the school’s numbers look good. We shield them from consequences, then act shocked when they crumble later.
It’s always someone else’s fault this happened to them.

You see it every day.

I had two guest speakers in class — real people with real stories — and a handful of students still scrolled through their phones or slept. I stop class and call them out. I tell them it’s disrespectful. I ask them to put the phone away or sit up and engage. Sometimes they do — for a minute. Then it starts again.

I write referrals. I log incidents. I contact parents. And nothing happens. Admin shrugs. Phones are allowed, and if a kid’s asleep, I’m told they “might have outside issues.” Write-ups get closed in minutes. No follow-up, no consequence, nothing.

The message is clear: it’s not worth enforcing rules when no one else will back you up.

This generation doesn’t even think it’s rude. It’s not rebellion — they genuinely don’t see it as wrong. They live on their phones, permanently connected to friends and family. The boundary between social time and learning time has vanished.

Until schools ban phones completely — lock them up all day — it’s not going to get better. I’ve even tried incentives: kids earn tokens for locking up their phones that can replace a low grade or earn snacks. You’d be amazed how many have D’s or F’s and still won’t do it. They don’t care enough to trade their screen for a better grade.

Maybe I’m just an old man yelling at clouds, but I don’t think so. The divide in this generation won’t come from wealth. It’ll come from attention — from values. Some will learn to focus and care about something real. The rest will have their lives outsourced to screens, and they’ll never get them back.

We call all this compassion, but it’s really sabotage. We’re raising a generation of learned helplessness.

I still love my AP Government class — the kids who care, who ask questions, who think. They remind me why I started doing this. But the rest? It’s hard not to feel like I’m part of a broken system, propping up a fantasy of “equity” that’s really just avoidance.

Maybe burnout isn’t hating the work. Maybe it’s realizing the work doesn’t mean what it used to — and wondering if it ever will again.


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Sep 30 2025 2025-09-30 2025-09-30 by Ross

The Apathy That Will End Me…

Posted in Work

There’s a moment every teacher reaches — not a dramatic explosion, but a quiet one. The moment when the silence in the room isn’t thoughtful; it’s indifferent. You’ve planned the discussion, you’ve found the connection, you’ve tried to make the material matter. But the students — bright, capable, nearly adults — just… don’t.

It’s not disrespect, not rebellion. It’s apathy. And apathy is worse than defiance, because at least defiance means they care about something.

I teach high school seniors. They are so close to the world, just a few months from voting, working, and making choices that actually matter. You’d think that would ignite something in them — curiosity, urgency, even anxiety that fuels engagement. But most days, I see heads on desks, eyes on phones, conversations that have nothing to do with the world I’m trying to open up for them.

I plan lessons that spark debate, that challenge assumptions, that ask them to wrestle with real ideas. I design experiences, not just assignments. But when the room is a wall of apathy, it starts to feel like shouting into the void.

And that’s the hardest part — not the grading, not the administration, not even the meaningless PD days and silly paperwork. It’s caring deeply in a space that feels empty. It’s showing up every day with energy and intention, only to have it bounce off glazed eyes.

I know it’s not all of them. There are always a few — the ones who think, ask, push back. The ones who remind me that what I’m doing matters. But the ratio has shifted. The disengagement feels heavier, the spark rarer.

I’m not angry at them. I’m just tired of caring more about their learning than they do. Tired of carrying the weight of a classroom where curiosity feels like an endangered species.

It’s not that I’ve lost love for teaching. I still believe in its power. But belief alone can’t fill a room with life. And if something doesn’t change — not in policy or curriculum, but in culture — I think this apathy might be the thing that finally drives me out.

Because it turns out, the opposite of inspiration isn’t ignorance. It’s indifference. And that’s what breaks teachers — one quiet, unblinking classroom at a time.


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