The Robot really seems to like square brush strokes here. Whatever.

Students are not the problem

Some thoughts on the oldest argument in education.

I hang out in various places online. The teacher-centered ones are always an interesting time. While it’s not universal, these spaces are filled with the sentiment that students are different these days. It’s generally never the argument that these differences are to the good. Rather, these differences are almost always bad. Students, the argument goes, are worse.

I’m too lazy to figure out when the first time an argument like this was made. I’m almost certain it shows up pretty soon after writing things down became a thing. And yet, we persist. Society has not fallen apart. If your perspective is long enough, it’s quite possible to make an argument that things are improving.

Which suggests to me that for as much as some of us might want to claim otherwise, whatever reasons teachers have for being unhappy in their work, students are not a major driver. In fact, for many of us, they continue to be the very best thing about the work of education.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that there isn’t the occasional problem child, or difficult class. I’m not even saying that children aren’t prone to all sorts of annoyances and irks. They absolutely are because they are kids. But they’ve always been this way, and this is the same way they…