Question for you all

[Kteach2]

It has been awhile since I've posted, but frequently visit this site and LOVE IT!! I've been teaching over 30 years in CA and 20 of it has been in K. My question to you all is if you have noticed a change in this year's student's abilities, maturity, behavior, etc? Every K class in my school and many in the school's in my district have noticed how different several of these students are from previous years. Some of the biggest differences are: difficulty with self-regulating (very emotional), lack of self-help skills, lower motor skills (both small and large), very low academic skills, inability to follow simple directions, and a much lower vocabulary bank. We know that these students were mostly stuck inside during the Pandemic when they were 3/4 and missed out on attending preschool and interacting with other people. Have you noticed this with your classes and, if so, what accommodations are you or your district making to help these students? Thanks for your input.

 

[Summerwillcom]

I started teaching in the mid 80's. I started seeing a big decline in maturity, academic levels, attention skills, and behaviors about 12 years ago.
It may be because I moved to a different state with different philosophies on raising kids too.
Also, I taught kids from 2 totally different cultures.
I retired 2 years ago. The students here did not miss school or preschool except for 3 months.
Schools stayed open here with butts in seats except for 3 months. Many of the students in 6th grade are still 2-3 years behind academically.
A lot of their behaviors are off the wall. A couple of the teachers there blame Covid. These kids missed 3 months of school. They were naughty before Covid. lol
The reason being: The schools pretty much did away with any consequences. A lot of parents want to be their child's friend instead of parent. Plus, kids are on devices too much up here.
The majority of the parents where I worked did not change their lifestyles because of Covid either.
Even the 3 months when we did class online, the kids were playing with their friends and parents on the school playground and keeping playdates.

 

[Lottalove]

I am not in K but teach Special Ed. I could say these same things about my students in the last 2-3 years. As the PP mentioned, our students too only missed 2 months--mid-March to mid-May. (We still had summer school that summer.)

The following year was formatted differently at the start (August to December 2020) but we were still here every day.

Other than what you mentioned, I feel my students are very needy and very self-centered and narcissistic now. They all feel they have to be first--in talking, playing, getting attention, etc.

 

[Haley23]

I'm a sped teacher but I work with K. Our current K group is thankfully better than last year's group (now, current 1st graders). The K teachers are very relieved! Last year's bunch was insane. Last year, they were instructed to really "slow down" on the academic expectations and focus on social/emotional. Unfortunately, this year we're on to pretending the pandemic never happened and school/district admin is asking why these kids aren't all on grade level.

Our OT also works at the preschool. She is saying they are seeing HUGE numbers of children who are displaying Autistic-like characteristics. Of course, they are wondering do all of these children really have ASD, which statistically would be very unlikely, or is it that their development was impacted by the pandemic.

 

[Sbkangas5]

We noticed a big difference last year, but this year they seem to be better. I actually moved down to TK this year and am surprised at how capable and independent my kids are. Plus the growth in social skills in the last 3 months has been tremendous.

 

[Kteach2]

Thanks for the feedback. We had all kinds of help and support with our kids last year and also slowed down the academics a bit. This year, our district acts like there was never a pandemic and just has taken away most of the support and services we had last year to help and are expecting the kids to all be on grade level

 

[PPCDTeacher]

I have noticed a big difference around the last five years.
i worry all the technology Kids and their parents are on all the time has effected not just their fine motor skills but also drastically effected their social skills and self help skills. At least where i live i see parents on their phones all the time while theyre kids are at the park or in the store or in a restaurant, they dont take the time to interact with their children. And the kids are suffering in a big way,