Teacher Says Elementary Elementary Students No Longer Know How to Do These Things

A teacher shared a staggering list of basic skills once considered standard milestones for elementary-age students. She shared the clip to her @mommy_n_zachy TikTok account, where other users on the application echoed her sentiments. Many argued that these deficiencies speak more to the quality of parenting, or lack thereof, that the students she's speaking of receive.

The first deficiency she lists is an overall inability for children to read clocks. She says that she's constantly hearing her children ask her what time it is, prompting her to constantly tell them to just take a gander at the clock instead.

"They're like, 'I don't know how to read that,' and they say that to you with confidence," she tells her viewers.

Another once-fundamental facet of education that she's seen go the way of the dinosaur: cursive handwriting. She went on to commend the aesthetics of this handwriting style, calling it a "lost art."

Furthermore, she added that her children don't have any vital phone numbers memorized, not even those of their parents.

What's worse, she says, is that children aren't even aware of their home addresses, including the streets they live on or their apartment numbers. She says that this is even the case with her third-grade students, and that she noticed a similar trend with the second-grade class she instructed the previous year.

The fifth gripe she has with children these days is that they seem to have completely lost the ability to effectively count money. However, she does concede that this is "partially not their fault" because of card-centric transactions that take place in retailers. So kids don't see their parents counting out the cash they have in hand and receiving change for their transactions.

"If you give them a few coins, they don't even know the names of the coins. They don't know the value of the coins, they can't add it all together. Like, what is happening?" she says, urging educators to bring this practice back into the classroom.

Another major problem she noticed is that she's encountered a lot of school children who are completely incapable of tying their shoes. "They have these fancy shoes and they don't know how to tie their shoe laces ... at 8 and 9, like, what's happening?" she asks into the camera.

What's even more troubling, the teacher finds, is that there are a lot of children who are completely unaware of what their parents' names are. "You don't know your parents' names? They don't know where their parents are from. Like, do you speak to your parents at all?" she asks, shocked to learn that so many children are woefully ignorant of basic information about their personal lives.

And it appears that this lack of personal data about themselves also extends to their own birth years, too. "Some of them can tell you their birthday, but what year they were born, they don't know. Nor are they interested," she says.

Additionally, the teacher tells her viewers that kids are completely in the dark when it comes to using a dictionary.

While she concedes that smartphone access makes it easier for children to immediately discern what the meaning of a word is, that doesn't necessarily mean they're interested in learning what that definition is. Also, she says that their lack of understanding when it comes to the dictionary means that these same kids aren't aware of how to place words in alphabetical order.

The last aspect of learning that she says many of her students fail in is the ability to adhere to directions that include multiple steps. They're only able to comprehend and complete one task at a time. She says that if she asks a child to get a book, wipe a desk off, and then bring her a paper out of the book, they'll arrive at the book she pointed to.

However, after they do so, they'll forget the follow-up instructions. "You're not listening, you're not listening at all, and it's a problem," she says of students. At the end of her video she asked parents to do better at teaching their children to understand these fundamental concepts.

The instructor adds, "We're gonna do our part as teachers, we just need a little help. We need a little extra help at home, please, please. We're a community, we work together, so let's set our kids up for success. Let's set our students up for success. And let's work together and try to just bridge some of these basic gaps," she tells the folks in her video.