I'm the Problem!

Welcome back to the 'Sleepless Nights' series, for those of you who are new here this is where I rant about things to do with reading, books and social media.

You can take a look at some of the other articles (but not all of them because I couldn't be bothered to find them all, these things come out every fortnight I'm not going back that far. I just clicked random pages in my 'published' tab and looked for 'sleepless nights'. Please don't hate me) in the links below:

"Most of Our Students are Functionally Illiterate..."

A Very English (Literary) Education

How Do We Fix the Kids?

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I think you guys will probably remember when I was talking about having some empathy for Gen-Z for the fact that they weren't raised to read things but just consume quick content. But I think I missed part of that problem: I mean, who raised, looked after and eventually taught Gen-Z?

That is correct. It was us. That is us: the millennials. That is you: Generation X and in some respects, it is also you: Boomers. (And if you're still about in the world of work, I'm going to include you: the Silent Generation). So welcome to another side of the problem, where we look at where we went oh so wrong in this weird and twisted cycle.

However, let's not simply play the blame game just yet. I want to show you a breakdown of ideas and how this came to be because it isn't just us - this is a direct result of a watered-down, rigid and monstrous education system which has turned literature into the same, consumption of quick content on factory settings rather than embedding a deep appreciation of literature. It might not be just us, but those of our generations definitely designed it to be 'easier' to 'consume' rather than 'more streamlined' to 'learn'.

Then again, I also understand that not all education is created equal. With student behaviour becoming worse to the point of criminal by the day, a state education classroom in 2025 of 35 or so students can be worrisome to say the least and physical aggression towards the teacher at the worst. So I think this doesn't really only apply to English, if reading is going down the drain then so is all modes of comprehension mainly because reading is, by far, the easiest and the most natural. I mean, go on then, go and read those Greek letters they keep throwing around in maths and tell me that's natural. It isn't.

NASUWT in the UK did some research in 2025 into 5800 or so teachers in which at least 40% reported back to the behaviour survey. This is what they had to say:

If you have these types of behaviour issues in schools, teaching becomes impossible. For example: say you have a 50-minute lesson (which seems to be a standard average across state schools in the UK to my knowledge, don't quote me on that though). In that 50 minutes, you spend about 5-10 minutes on each side of the lesson getting out books and pens, settling the students down and making sure everyone's in the correct seats. Let's say 10 minutes at the start and 5 at the end. So now you have 35 minutes left. After this, you spend about 10 minutes doing recall. Then you have 25 minutes left. After this, you probably need to manage behaviour for at least 15 minutes in bursts throughout the lesson. This means you have 10 minutes left. That 10 minutes will be for teaching. It's a farce if you're thinking about reading Dickens or any book for that matter.

I have actually been told before 'not to teach the entire book' but just pick out snippets that are part of the main story, so they get an idea of what the book is about without worrying about long descriptive sections. Are they assigning the book for homework? No. Why? On average, in state schools, parents prefer the child to do all of their work in school. This is a shame. I went to a private school and well, I had homework from every subject I did that day and all pieces were due the following day. On top of this, I had much longer school days with extra curricular more than often being after school meaning sometimes I was going home at stupid o'clock. Again, on top of this, school started earlier. So honestly, what are we doing to these children? We have to remember - our generation are also the parents so don't go spinning it and blaming them. There is no them. It's all us.

Let me identify a host of three issues:

1. Soft Parenting (the parents)

2. 'No Child Left Behind' and Other Affirmations (the teachers/state education system)

3. The Fear (generations Z and alpha)

1+2 = 3

Easy.

Soft Parenting

Soft Parenting is based on the very dodgy idea that 'all behaviour is communication'. This basically means that when a child is acting out, they are trying to communicate that they are bored or under-nurtured or perhaps they are upset in some way. This is scientifically wrong and any affirmations that try to reinforce bad behaviour especially, being communication also reinforce the bad behaviour as being a selfish way of getting what one wants.

This means that whilst they are very young (0-5 years' old) a child will learn that if they want to get their way, they simply need to throw things, have tantrums and behave in a way that is not only socially unacceptable but, if not contained can turn criminal and/or violent.

Soft Parenting was basically created by the millennials and Gen-Xers who were often cruelly disciplined or even hit by their parents when they did something wrong and, not wanting to be a 'boomer' like their parents, they turned to affirmations - thus, insisting on soft parenting styles which have reinforced the worst behaviours in children, especially in boys.

In no way am I stating that you should go to the other extreme, but regulation is a key factor in growth. If a little child is acting out, using coaxing as discipline ("you may not have X for Y amount of time if this continues..." for example) can be friends with parents who think that 'all behaviour is communication' is something to be practiced.

Where Does This Lead?

Well, of course if a child does not have regulation skills at home with the parent then how do you expect them to have regulation skills at school when the parent is not around? The lack of discipline in the school setting will be worse ten-fold than it is at home because now there is nobody the child recognises as an authority figure to look after them. As the parent has not taught them to recognise adults as people who need to be listened to, the child will lack the power to self-regulate and listen to the teacher. This can not only be detrimental to their own education, but also to the education of any student who happens to be in the same room as them.

'No Child Left Behind' and Other Affirmations

This and other affirmations such as 'teach to the top' and 'mixed ability sets' have very much destroyed the foundation of state education. Why? Well, it is teachers basically assuming that every single child can be taught in this style they are teaching in, every single child in a room of 35-40 can be adapted for and out of them, perhaps only 3-4 actually care about what the teacher is saying. 'Teach to the middle' might be a better affirmation but I don't care for affirmations altogether.

But that's besides the point, the actual point is this: there are children who very clearly do not care about doing the work in school and children who cannot therefore, be adapted for. How do you adapt for children who simply do not care about being there? You don't. You leave them behind. But, in the USA I have heard that this affirmation of 'No Child Left Behind' means you have to continuously adapt and pass children when they have failed your class, moving them on to the next grade when they are ill-prepared.

Yeah, that's not going to have a growing and worsening impact (she says sarcastically). So now, three years' on and the child is supposed to be sitting their exams - they've now got depression because they feel like they can't do it because their soft-parenting-affirmation-loving parents never taught them regulation. Fantastic.

In the UK there is an obsession with mixed ability sets and 'teaching to the top' so that the children who are struggling can 'learn from those doing well' and rise to the challenge. I'm sorry but if they physically cannot read or spell, how are they supposed to read AC Doyle or Dickens? Should they not have their own set where they are taught these skills first? No? Okay then... No wonder the education system is broken.

This is a teacher problem as much as it is an education system problem. Teachers are very soft in state schools, very careful not to hurt the feelings of the students. For example: I once gave an example of when I, at private school, acted out in class and I was made to stand behind my chair until I was given permission to sit back down. My crime? Talking whilst the teacher was.

My colleague immediately told me that it sounded humiliating and that would definitely not fly at this institution. But that was the entire point. You realised what you were doing was wrong by receiving soft-punishment. It wasn't anything traumatic, but it definitely showed you who the authority was in the room and was a good reminder of the rules.

In this institution (I was reminded), you were supposed to - (and I shit you not) - go to the student and quietly remind them, one-to-one, and make sure they were paying attention to the lesson with a nice happy smile on your face. And they wonder why the kids don't take them seriously. I may have been to private school yes, but even we would not have taken that seriously.

Note: Laughing when I was first told that was what they did was not getting me on anyone's good side.

So, because these students have already had soft parenting and now they have soft-schooling with affirmations and 'joy in the classroom' being the number one priority - they are even more ill-equipped for growing up and actually achieving anything.

The Fear

Generations Z and Alpha are developing 'the fear' which is fueling things like using Chat GPT to write their university work. This is because they are quite literally afraid of failure. They've never been taught to self-regulate and so, they've never been taught that they actually need to learn things to know them. They've been filled with affirmations and 'good vibes only' to the point that when they get to university, they are quite literally expecting it to serve their shortened attention spans and inability to read. But then it isn't.

University is a whole different ball game and if you snooze, you lose. Not wanting to lose out on the still soft-parenting that is going on at home, they become afraid and just do whatever they can with the tools available. I call this, 'The Fear'.

Imagine this, a child that has been passing at school by getting 30% every year then gets a 30% on English and then passes because of the bell curve and goes to university to do something like Literature, thinking it will impress his parents. Then, whilst there they learn that they have to score 60% or more to pass an examination on Shakespeare and Marlowe. There's five plays to read and this child at university once read Horrid Henry when they were nine, but nothing else. They were force-fed extracts on Dickens and taught the answers to tests when at secondary school because nobody could read to their chronological age. When it comes to a full play or novel, they don't know what to do.

What do you think they are going to do?

Conclusion

This is our fault. Ipso facto.

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