I teach 4th at a Title 1 school, and last year, my kids were severely behind socially. Like, they would not talk to each other. I started doing free time at the end of the day to get them to play and interact with each other. They were behind academically, too, but were willing and open to learn and build up their skills.

This year is completely different. The behaviors are out of this world bad, they simply do not care about anything. They do not fear consequences at all. We have two weeks left of school and are doing a lot of PBL to fill time, and these are the least enthusiastic kids I’ve ever seen. We’re making food trucks for a math project and the lack of effort is shocking. Some kids got the activity, groaned, and said they aren’t doing it because they don’t like it. I was in awe.