Teens - reading and general knowledge

[Disco]

Monk just out of teens, was a voracious reader until secondary school. He’s come back to reading now but his general knowledge hasn’t suffered for the break as YouTube is watched a lot. There’s not that much the boy doesnt know.

[Ruby]

General knowledge doesn't have to be reading books. It's watching the TV, films, radio, talking, music ... reading shit on your smartphone. Plus any reading is good - horror, sweet valley high. The lot. I've been reading about Jimmy Hoffa this morning (lol) on my phone.

When I say kids have no general knowledge, I mean that there's a swathe of kids with virtually none. A boy in my form couldn't name a single dinosaur in Year 9 - not even a TRex. A good quarter of my current Year 9 class couldn't point to France on a map. To be clear, I work in a working class area but I'm not talking about 'deprived' children. I used to talk about Robin Hood being an example of a legend or myth but now I cannot guarantee that the majority of children will have even heard of Robin Hood. I recently taught the Muslim version of the story of Noah and had to rapidly think on my feet because most of the class did not know the standard story of Noah. They don't know fairy tales, they can't play board games or cards.

The younger year groups are worse. I blame austerity - the lack of children's centres/library services etc. - as well as Covid. Some of it comes back to completely dogshit parenting. I'm not talking about children who don't watch Newsnight or listen to classical music with their parents - I'm talking about kids who have never seen a Disney animation. I just can't tell you how bad it is - easily the worst it's ever been.

[Ruby]

Kids who obsessively watch YouTube & TikTok - FINE. I teach kids who know some really weird niche aspects of American or Tudor history from doing that. It's not the medium of delivery that's the problem. It's not even the content - although it sometimes is the content - it's that these children have such a narrow frame of reference that nothing beyond their everyday sticks or links-up to other stuff. There is knowledge everywhere but you can't acquire new knowledge if you have nothing to stick it to.

For example, in order to take some knowledge about the Vikings from playing Assassin's Creed, you first need to have heard about the Vikings. If you know even a tiny bit about Vikings or Saxons first then it's actually a relatively rich and knowledgeable game and you will learn stuff - things like commerce, religious beliefs, navigation. But if you've never heard of Vikings then you might as well be playing Tetris and you will soak up nothing.

[Ruby]

Sorry. I've gone off on one. The country is in a state.

[sally maclennane]

The younger year groups are worse. I blame austerity - the lack of children's centres/library services etc. - as well as Covid. Some of it comes back to completely dogshit parenting. I'm not talking about children who don't watch Newsnight or listen to classical music with their parents - I'm talking about kids who have never seen a Disney animation. I just can't tell you how bad it is - easily the worst it's ever been.

I read an interview with Angela Rayner recently and she said Sure Start centres showed her to play with her baby when she was a teenage mother. Its criminal the way these resources have been depleted. As Alexei Sayle said "austerity seems to be the notion that Wolverhampton has too many libraries".

[Luce]

Blimey. I find that both fascinating and horrifying, Ruby!

[Topcat]

Ha! I was going to mention Assassins Creed and I am playing that one right now (out of sync), it obviously isn't accurate but it does set a scene. It is pretty amazing that there are children out there that don't know who the Vikings were though, they are so intertwined with this country's past.

[Ruby]

It's appalling. People underestimate the effect. When the chaps were tiny, literally every library had some sort of Time For A Rhyme thing. There was a countryside and parks service where they used to do bug hunts in the school holidays or 'wellie walks'. The local Youth Service used to do stuff with teenagers and there were free multi-sports programmes in the holidays. I can't speak for every local area but almost all of that has just completely disappeared here. It was struggling and then Covid killed it.

[Ruby]

Ha! I was going to mention Assassins Creed and I am playing that one right now (out of sync), it obviously isn't accurate but it does set a scene. It is pretty amazing that there are children out there that don't know who the Vikings were though, they are so intertwined with this country's past.

Well yes. You're not going to know the 'facts' or understand Harthacnuts claim to the throne or whatever from playing Valhalla but the general knowledge is there, in your long term memory, waiting for other bits of specific knowledge to stick to it.

[Topcat]

Yeah, I totally get that.

[Cerise]

Similarly to Ruby, I once tried to teach the Rainbow Song in French to back up our colour learning. Turned out they didn’t know it in English!

[Princess Morripov]

Mine are obviously considerably younger so not quite in the teen "reading for fun" category, but I am often surprised at what they pick up on/learn from what I consider mindless TV viewing that I like to keep to a minimum

I don't like them watching those weird Red Piggy/Roblox type videos as I do actually see how it affects their behaviour, even after watching for a short time, it's properly weird voodoo, but there's definitely things I think are shite that are clearly providing some educational benefit.

Ruby, I've noticed similar with out of school clubs too. Before Children/Covid, there were definitely loads of things on the go in the locality (free or subsidised/paid), even a holiday club ran out of the school they go to, but now there's only a very pricy sports camp (well it would cost £300 for both of mine to go for a week!) and that would involve a 45 minute round trip to take them to, and isn't even working hours (9am-3pm).

[Bat Macdui]

I asked someone in my company what we signpost people to as part of a bid I was writing and unleashed a rant about how there's nothing to signpost anyone to now. Except sodding Multiply. Fuck general wellbeing, fund maths. That can't be delivered because there's not enough maths teachers anyway, nevermind for extended provision that no one actually wants. [/rant]

[Ruby]

We were meant to have access to catch-up tutors at school for English & maths but we couldn't find anyone to do it. We had a weird bloke for a while but he left after a child threatened to cut his hair off. We are really struggling to recruit trained teachers too - and the quality of student teachers we have had has been noticeably worse.

Trips are also really difficult now. The cost of coaches has gone up hugely and parents don't want - or aren't able - to pay for trips. I think really, we can't hope to plug the massive gaps that are already there when kids go to primary school. The data on vocabulary, for example, is really concerning. It's a bit dismaying tbh. This is likely to be the last decade of my career and it's shaping up to be the most difficult. It's like the perfect storm of political shit and covid has created a nightmare.

I don't like them watching those weird Red Piggy/Roblox type videos as I do actually see how it affects their behaviour, even after watching for a short time, it's properly weird voodoo, but there's definitely things I think are shite that are clearly providing some educational benefit.

Yeah there's so much weird YouTube content for younger kids. I would give that a wide berth.

[Smunder Woman]

Mine have always refused to read, the fuckers. Well, in Joe's defense, he couldn't read very well until he was about 10. He does read a bit now, but not much. Both of them, particularly Joe, have better general knowledge than I do, partly because I can barely remember my own name these days

[Kleio]

Cube doesn't read at all and blames his dyslexia for that but he's very political (in a I know everything there ever is to know teenage way) but he really enjoys a good debate.

Betty and Elf read a lot/daily and both are fascinated with museums and learning as much as possible.

I've had comments from teachers about how much general knowledge they have and I've always been quite proud of that. Just don't talk to me about common sense as that seems to be lacking.

They've all got friends who strike me as quite deprived educationally. They don't seem to know much about anything at all and are struggling at school. It's quite heartbreaking really. Not just educationally actually. I need both hands to count the kids who have social services involved, are living with grandparents rather than parents and have other issues in the home.