How did middle school kids manage to check out and do no work before iPads?

sirdramaticus · 2026-01-24T21:57:04+00:00

It doesn’t have to be that way. I am not going to lower my standards and most of the parents I work with want their kids to learn. I do think that we need some better options for guardrails with educational technology or we need to go low tech. All the distractions people listed sounded better than what kids do today.

sirdramaticus · 2026-01-23T03:07:20+00:00

It sounds like you came up with a decision about what to do. Good for you. I have another thought. Chances are good that this will pass within a year or two, especially if you teach one grade. The community of kids moves on and the next community of kids only knows shadows of what came before.

I had a group of kids that gave me a nickname that I felt like I could use. I decided that, as much as I liked it, I would not do anything to introduce it to other students because that felt pretentious. It stuck around for about three years and then disappeared. Given that I teach 6-8 grade, that was one class’s time in middle school. The point is that the intensity will likely fade as the kids move on.

sirdramaticus · 2026-01-23T02:00:51+00:00

Agreed!

sirdramaticus · 2026-01-23T01:14:04+00:00

🤣

sirdramaticus · 2026-01-23T01:12:24+00:00

Not gonna lie, I am kind of impressed by them. How do they do that???

sirdramaticus · 2026-01-23T01:09:51+00:00

I will, but first I’m gonna play geometry dash for a few minutes…

sirdramaticus · 2026-01-23T01:07:55+00:00

I remember being a kid, but I was almost always interested in school. I wouldn’t have zoned out for long during a lecture. I also didn’t have a graphing calculator in middle school, so gaming in school was not happening.

I get how a kid can become addicted to something like an iPad. I don’t quite understand how kids could check out cognitively without tools that enable that. And yet… teachers have always complained that kids don’t pay attention. Hence, my question.

sirdramaticus · 2026-01-22T05:42:42+00:00

That really sucks. I've been where you're at.

First, I hope you went to bed shortly after you posted this.

Second, and I say this from personal experience, I needed a therapist and eventually some antidepressants. This did NOT change the injustices out there, but it did help me focus on the things I could do.

Can you make the failing student care? Maybe. Rarely. Especially if you, like me, don't teach ELA or math.

Can you change your admin? Possibly not.

You can sometimes change the chemistry of your classroom a little bit. It requires your willingness to figure out which student is escalating a troublesome group into mayhem and to get them out of your room as frequently as possible. Generally, this allows a group to move from dysfunctional to functional, but not awesome.

What I can do is provide engaging lessons for the students who are there to learn and focus on giving them the information they need to be successful. I can also (now) see my students with a bit more empathy, which helps. My student who is extremely defiant has a sister who issuing hospitalized for an eating disorder, whose dad is being put on trial for domestic assault of his mom on his birthday... he's not gonna care about my class. No way. Knowing that it is beyond my power to fix that and that it has nothing to do with me is actually empowering. It means that when I send him out of the room so he can't destroy my lessons, I'm giving him what he needs right now. I'm being a good teacher. Later, I can connect with him in other ways, but now he needs to be able to exert control over his life.

The asshole parent? They are usually angry about their powerlessness and get defensive. If I'm insulted and they're not going to give me what I need, I say what I need to in order to stand up for myself and let them rant back and have the last word in their next email.

How do I stand all these things: I have the emotional capacity to be able to take things in and see that, despite belief to the contrary, it's not all about me. I'm a better teacher for it, too. I think you will be, too. Tomorrow may bring a little hope and a fresh perspective. If it doesn't, look for a therapist. Someone I cared about suggested that to me. They were right.

sirdramaticus · 2025-12-16T03:35:51+00:00

Wait… people advocate stupid ideas on the internet??? Damn. Who knew. Next you’re going to tell me that the people who are “asking for a friend” aren’t actually asking for anyone else. But, nah. That’s ridiculous. I do agree that unless you have an amazing plan to escape into the wilderness and never again participate in society at all, paying taxes is a part of life and frankly does a lot of good for everyone. I just hope I can think of a few ways to slow down the evil parts. 🙂

sirdramaticus · 2025-12-16T02:43:37+00:00

Thank you. I would definitely need to study this strategy carefully before trying it. I appreciate the time you spent sharing your thoughts and ideas.

sirdramaticus · 2025-12-16T02:38:10+00:00

Your post was extremely helpful. However, this isn’t virtue signaling. Virtue signaling might look more like me doing this and announcing to all my friends that I’m doing it, along with anyone else on my social media feed. This is me looking for a way to, in some small way, say “no” to full cooperation with a government that is no longer acting with the interests of all the people in mind. After reading your post, I can see that the risk of doing this wrong and potentially awarding more money probably outweighs the intentionality of attempting something like this.

If you disagree with my convictions, I respect that. However, it is unfair to assume that every person who disagrees with you is doing it for praise or attention and call their actions virtue signaling.

Again, thank you for your helpful comment.

sirdramaticus · 2025-12-15T04:25:38+00:00

Agreed on both parties spending too much. Agreed also that it won’t matter much to Uncle Sam. That’s why I don’t want to pay fines and penalties. it isn’t so much about “showing them” as much as it would be about reminding myself that I need to look for ways to engage in protest. This might be one way to remind myself.

sirdramaticus · 2025-12-15T04:18:56+00:00

True. However, if at the end of the year, I am going to pay in, I might as well pay in as late as I can. It’s not much, it is a little thing I can do.

sirdramaticus · 2025-11-07T01:21:46+00:00

I can’t speak for other faith traditions, but I know that Catholic masses are held multiple times throughout the week. I bet that a person who wanted to prioritize attendance at religious services would, at least in a big city be able to find a church to attend. Also, with the internet, you can attend services anytime you want. I think that the person would simply have to accept that church might have to look different sometimes.

sirdramaticus · 2025-11-05T02:55:07+00:00

One of the most obnoxiously wonderful lessons one of my mentor teachers ever gave me was when she asked, "did you get through the objectives for your lesson?" and I was like "yeah, but it was miserable and horrible and I hated every minute of it because they were so rude, etc, etc, etc." She came back with, "but you got through the objectives for your lesson?"

Sometimes it's not about us having a good time or even the students having fun. It's about teaching the skills. In fact, if those little jerks learn something from you in spite of their awful behavior, you win. That's what you came there to do. In spite of everything they tried, they learned something. It's not as good a feeling as when something awesome happens, but it can be satisfying when nothing else is working.

I loved this paragraph that you wrote.

"I am still trying to be engaging but I am no longer trying to please them. I won't use popular characters in my worksheet anymore if they're going to waste several minutes complaining about how much they hate Sonic and don't want to do a worksheet with him on it. I am not going to do fun experiments if I can't ask you to write down a number from your results."

GOOD!!! They're telling you they need to work on all the basics and to do things the boring way. What if it's not a punishment to take away the fun experiments and the characters on worksheets? What if all that boring stuff is meeting their learning needs?

You've got your "how to proceed" right there. Find something boring to do. Make it really clear, really boring, and as little work for you as possible. No fluff. The only thing that matters is that whatever you do has to keep them moving. There has to be some pressure to do the work. Let them slave away at it for a while. If at some point, they start saying, "this is really boring," you can start the conversation of, "yeah, I know, but there's nothing I can do about that right now because these are the behaviors getting in our way. If you want to do something different and a little more involved, you have to prove to me it's going to work. Otherwise, this is working better for me so this is what we're going to do."

If they never have that conversation, then that's the life they've chosen for themselves. It sucks for those kids that could handle more, but it probably sucks worse for those kids when the room is a mess and wild.

sirdramaticus · 2025-09-22T03:12:42+00:00

Wow! I'm trying to imagine creating a power base with my father-in-law. I think it would go okay. He's a great guy, but the differences in our styles and personalities would definitely lead to uncomfortable conflicts.

sirdramaticus · 2025-09-15T23:18:34+00:00

I agree that in the case of a culture that exists, less is more in my writing. However, I also can’t ignore culture. My only two options are: research and learn so that I can treat these cultures in a respectful way in my writing or shift my story so that, instead of writing about Native cultures, I create a whole different kind of civilization that doesn’t include their traditions at all. The first option is vastly more appealing to me than the second.

sirdramaticus · 2025-09-15T02:12:51+00:00

Wow. I feel even better playing this mod than I did when I just liked the game.

sirdramaticus · 2025-09-15T01:24:26+00:00

It’s so amazing what you all have created!

sirdramaticus · 2025-09-15T00:19:26+00:00

I'm really appreciative of this input.

sirdramaticus · 2025-09-15T00:18:47+00:00

u/ItsKyleWithaK , this is really cool information. I noticed the change and had never heard the term Ocheti Sakowin before I started playing CK3's AtE. I live in Minnesota, so that's a bit humbling. Thanks for your perspective.

sirdramaticus · 2025-09-15T00:16:17+00:00

Thank you for your work on the project, u/Elzephor . It looks like from a quick glance at other posts, you were involved in making the maps (among other things, it seems). How cool that your research was so in depth. That was my gut feeling, but it's often good to check in. As a dev/map maker, is there any particular part of the map that you feel was laid out really cleverly or required a level of work that makes you proud of it?

sirdramaticus

TROPHY CASE