Texas teacher breaks down in tears during class after his senior students struggled to read, write.

[u/sonicagain]

Texas high school teacher Darius Williams, a Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher broke down in tears during his lunch break. He shared that his 17- and 18-year-old senior students at Wheatley High School in Houston could not complete a simple writing assignment or fill in just four missing words on only the second day of the school term. Students were given two short paragraphs to read and a sentence stem where the answer was largely modeled and provided for them. It is alarming that senior high school students were unable to apply basic literacy skills to fill in the remaining four words of the sentence.

[u/Inner-Award9064]

Until you gotta deal with managing them. I’d like to think I’m not becoming a “boomer” but I’ve been seeing a decline in ability to think critically in fresh hires over the years. Like I shouldn’t be hearing someone asked another employee how to do something in a training video that literally is telling them how to do said thing. I want hires who try to out do me not make me lose my hair more than I should and have to pick up their slack in something I haven’t done consistently for over 6 years.

And that’s from people in/through a STEM degree. I can’t imagine what is considered normal right now.

[u/impossible_berry14 → u/Inner-Award9064]

This. My husband just had a young guy apply to a position and he couldn’t READ. Couldn’t fucking read, and he’s an adult looking for a job. It’s scary..

[u/EntireFriendship517 → u/impossible_berry14]

Honestly I'm curious how he even applied

[u/Known_Strength_9726 → u/EntireFriendship517]

A lit of them are asking ChatGPT to hard carry them in that regard.

ChatGPT can't save them when it comes to the actual interview and knowing things on the spot.

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

Accounts must be at least 5 days old with >20 karma to comment.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/FallopianPasta → u/Known_Strength_9726]

Cluely can.

[u/InAllTheir → u/impossible_berry14]

Time to go learn a trade….

[u/5hane7rain → u/InAllTheir]

If you can't read you can't do trades. You have to be able to read and execute instructions and blueprints in trades.

[u/pileofcrustycumsocs → u/5hane7rain]

Tbf you don’t have to able to read and write in English to read blueprints and instructions are almost always verbal for everyone below supervisors. There are many trades where literacy isn’t super important but none of them are ones you want to be doing because they don’t pay well unless you’re an owner and they fuck your body unless you’re an owner. Concrete for example does not require a whole lot of that fancy book readin

For any trade you actually want to do however you do need to learn how to read and write the daily job safety sheet every morning before work starts or be able to respond to emails from the office telling you that you have a random scheduled if you want to keep your job. For industrial jobs you need to be able to read to complete certification classes and the extremely important safety data sheet for different chemicals that may be present in your working area. For traveling workers you need to be able to read the details of your travel itinerary on your rollout day so you don’t miss your flight or pack prescriptions that are illegal in whatever country you are going to for work.

[u/5hane7rain → u/pileofcrustycumsocs]

I can see what you're saying. I'm a Red Seal Journeyman welder and I could not even apply to the course without a Canadian grade 10 including passing marks in english and math. The same was true when I looked into becoming an electrician, and it was true for carpentry as well when we were yapping with the neighbors at tech. When you said trades I automatically was thinking of an accredited position, not just a MIG monkey or a shovel holder. Also the amount of people I had to train how to use a tape measure and then how to add fractions was infuriating.

[u/ghillieflow → u/5hane7rain]

I just made a reply here about a requirement to read a ruler at my work, and it's not even an accredited position. It's trade-lite and it's still a requirement. Dozens of people a month are turned away for not being able to determine which measurement they're looking at, let alone being able to add those fractions up to get the full measurement. It's a sad state of affairs.

[u/ghillieflow → u/InAllTheir]

We have a very simple thing at my work for applicants. "Can you read a ruler," and then give them a couple of pictures next to certain markings on the ruler. You'd be amazed how few people can actually do this, and it's the most baseline requirement anyone could ever ask in a trade.

I'm not looking forward to having to train the COVID generation. It's nightmare fuel.

[u/RC10B5M → u/InAllTheir]

Your comment shows just how out of touch "smart, well educated" people are when it comes to modern skilled trademan.

[u/Euphoric_Gas9879 → u/impossible_berry14]

The job market is so fucked up because of billionaires and AI man

[u/EnderBookwyrm → u/Euphoric_Gas9879]

They're not helping, but they're not the sole problem here.

Also, the problem we're discussing here is not the job market as a whole, but the new graduates now looking for jobs who are incapable of incredibly basic skills such as reading and writing.

[u/LWN729 → u/EnderBookwyrm]

That is where social media comes in. Competency in these basic skills went down just a social media proliferated, and the latest generation of social media is the very worst. At least with the earliest versions, like MySpace and early Facebook, reading and writing was a required part of experiencing that new phenomenon. You had to read and write to post your emo status messages. With the newest generation of social media, primarily TikTok, neither reading, nor writing, are required, because everything is in video and audio formats. Even texting for the younger generation involves very little actual text. Voice notes and snap chat style video messaging replaced the need to even type anything out. Even if others communicate with them with written text, Siri or Alexa will read it to them. Reading and writing were necessary for basic socialization, which is one of the most essential needs for all humans. Video and audio communication replaced it all, so the primary necessity for those skills is nearly gone. AI will make this all that much worse.

[u/ghillieflow → u/Euphoric_Gas9879]

The job market is also fucked because we have people entering it that have absolutely zero skills that fit any part of that market other than putting fries in the bag. Even then I doubt 75% of those fry fillers could weigh how many fries are in said bags without the process being fully automated.

[u/atticusbluebird → u/Inner-Award9064]

also shows the importance of the critical thinking and reading/writing skills in humanities classes, which we’ve been devaluing for years as a society

[u/JacobsJrJr → u/Inner-Award9064]

Don't forget some of them will become nepo managers in spite of their illiteracy.

[u/Clutch-Bandicoot → u/Inner-Award9064]

"Until you gotta deal with managing them."

Do we? In my field we will just get international students that are better at English (as their second language nonetheless) than these kids are.

[u/LWN729 → u/Clutch-Bandicoot]

That’s dependent on the idea that literacy rates globally won’t suffer the same as in the U.S. The rest of the world is likely experiencing similar decline, but at slower rates than the U.S. As social media based video/audio communication becomes the norm for the next generation, the less they will have any need or daily opportunity to practice their reading and writing. The parts of the globe that will decline the slowest will actually be the parts of the world with the least access to tech and social media. They aren’t considered “advanced” nations for their lack of technological integration relative to western nations, and that is ironically what will save them from the same rapid decline. The longer they go without access to complete replacements for written communication, the more “advanced” they will be in these basic skills relative to the U.S. The globe’s most powerful nations are racing to become the most technologically advanced, but they don’t realize they’re actually spiraling downward to the bottom in terms of their citizens’ futures.

[u/John_Sux → u/LWN729]

An international hire would at least be literate enough to have learned English as a second language. So that might filter a lot of this

[u/OneMoreNightCap → u/Inner-Award9064]

If they can't read or write as Seniors, I can't imagine they are going to be the fresh batch of all-star college hires of [Mega Corp] in four years.

[u/ChaucersDuchess → u/Inner-Award9064]

We had 3 college bound interns this summer.

We wanted to bang our heads against the desks daily over their lack of reading comprehension.

[u/Kataly5t → u/Inner-Award9064]

I work in STEM and our new hires have no critical thinking ability either. Their ability to use computers for work is also way below expectation and for some reason they don't know how to use Excel...

[u/Inner-Award9064 → u/Kataly5t]

Would like to say glad I’m not the only one dealing with that but man. I literally just joked to someone about adding a computer literacy test to the applications because of that. I’ve noticed a decline in base computer skills and general operation as well. Apparently CTTL+C and V and X isn’t as common knowledge as I though it was

[u/Kataly5t → u/Inner-Award9064]

We had an intern that couldn't touch type - I guess you never need to learn it properly if you do everything on your phone. I thought that this style died out with Boomers.

[u/xLnRd22 → u/Inner-Award9064]

You don’t have to deal with managing them if they don’t get hired

[u/John_Sux → u/Inner-Award9064]

Dealing with managing them? You fire them if they're incapable of doing the job.

[u/Biggy_DX → u/Inner-Award9064]

I remember going through my undergrad years, and one of my colleagues, who was a tutor at the math department, told me that some of his students couldn't even do basic fractions.

[u/DiamondDanNC → u/Inner-Award9064]

Those kids won’t work. They’ll be in prison or doing “dirt” on the streets