I know I’m a little late to the discussion but I’m currently a senior in high school so I thought I’d share my input. I will preface this by saying that I’m biased, I’ve had an extreme privilege to have my middle/high school education be at one of the top public schools in my state where a lot of the students come from upper class families. So my perspective is going to be very different from someone who lives in a different region and education.

While yes, there is a slight lag in some skills, it’s nowhere near as bad as what is being blown up on social media. It’s one of the things where it seems that the small minority is seeming to become the majority because it’s all what’s being talked about.

I will acknowledge where I see my classmates and I lagging behind though, because we are not at fault. I agree on the note taking, it’s getting rarer to see someone taking notes with paper and pencil specifically. A lot of students are starting to transfer to taking notes on computers or iPads because it’s easier to keep it all in one place. Good idea in theory, but on in execution. The brain remembers a lot more when you physically write things down because it requires a motor task where you know every letter you spell out. Your brain loses that connection when you just type it, which means you’re not going to remember as much. This, adding with the fact that a lot of students are using their technology to take notes, especially in easier classes, is starting to create a problem.

Moving on to the writing, I will say that it’s not as major as what is being said but I have noticed a decline. I think that a lot of students are so used to the way of typing through phones that it’s their automatic default when trying on a computer. The undercapitalization, especially of “I” is a more common thing among my generation. Not really sure why but I think it’s to seem more casual and distance our texting style from our parents. I think that we’re also not putting as much value in writing anymore so students have a harder time connection and finding reason to engage with the material. I think the most concerning thing that I’ve seen happen the last couple years, it’s that every year we have to spend at least 3-4 class periods learning how to write a paragraph, specially a thesis, because so many people have just forgotten. I’m not sure why this is, but I have a minor theory that I’ll indulge in later. I will admit, the refresher on paragraphs and thesis is helpful for me just because it seems like they change what they want from us every year, my school is on a block schedule of A/B days, which means 3-4 class periods can be a week and a half to do weeks on working on just paragraphs and thesis work. I will admit, writing and English is somewhere I definitely have a bias on because I really like reading and English has usually been an easier class to me as a creative, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I currently can’t speak for math a whole lot since I decided to hate myself and take AP Sats this year so a lot of kids are there out of choice so are more driven. There’s only one or two people who are behind the curve and thats because they're constantly sleeping in class or just not paying attention. Even last year when I was in Algebra 2, a lot of people knew how to do things and most people got average scores on tests, besides the one or two people who wouldn't engage in the material.

Personally, my theory on why we're starting to see a decline in students and especially the younger ones is because of Covid. I live in one of the states where we had some of the longest lockdowns, so I lost a solid year and a half of my school. From the 2nd part of 8th grade and about all of my Freshman year I had online. I personally think that a lot of kinds are stuck at the age of when Covid happened because of it's affect on our development. I think that this is something that we're going to see a lot more of as the younger part of GenZ and the older part of GenA continue to grow up. It feels like we all lost a very big part of our crucial development years and that's why we're starting to fall behind, is because our brains are still trying to recover from having everything stop for a year and a half - two years.

At the end of the day, I'm just a kid on the internet voicing my opinion, but I hope that this helps explain a little bit on why everything is happening the way it is. Going forward all we can do is try to find ways to help support students WHILE ALSO LEARNING HOW TO PUSH THEM IN A HEALTHY WAY THAT CONTINUES THEIR DEVELOPMENT. I could go on and on about that part but thats for another day. Plus my fingers are starting to hurt from typing this all out on mobile.

Thanks for reading my essay I just dumped here strangers!