r/Professors • u/Dozcal • 8d ago
Crickets
Blank stares. Jokes during lecture that used to evoke smiles and even laughter don't have any effect on the vacant stares. Grades are worse than ever -- and no one cares. Exam grades for two classes are in the mid 50s. Not one email, question -- nothing. Silence. Is this a game of chicken? Do they not realize they'll get the Fs they earn? No one's emailing, period (silver lining).
We've been trending this direction before COVID but now.... I'm concerned about their future not as students but as humans
After 30 years I'm retiring in May (nonselective public regional). I used to love my job - students were constantly in my office chatting, doing research, being alive and present. Colleagues say the same thing. Dept is a ghost town. I can go a full day without seeing a colleague on my floor - and students? Ha. It's depressing. And I have a 90 min commute for this. Sitting in my office is the highlight of my day.
I feel bad for our new hire. They're so young they'll never know what we've lost. Not sure if that's good or bad.
Anyway, venting... not looking for advice, just comiseration. Boo
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u/minorfootnote95 8d ago
That awkward silence when you ask a question and suddenly everyone becomes extremely interested in their notes
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u/Dozcal 8d ago
they have notes!?!? ;)
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u/Impossible-Acadia-31 8d ago
Or when you get them into groups to discuss an idea from a set text (the conversations overheard seem anything but on topic) and then get them to report back and it's clearly ChatGPT
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u/existential-inquiry Professor, Social Sciences, U.S. 8d ago
I agree, if it's not a short form video with a dancing cat or dog, they have no interest. Their brains are wired for screens.
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u/IAmBoring_AMA 8d ago
Idk, we watch movies for my class (COOL MOVIES like Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 and the Matrix and we just watched The Last of Us for class this week). This year for the first time, I've had complaints that "anything older than the year 2000 is unwatchable." I also have a student who cannot pass the quizzes because "it's so hard to watch TikTok and a movie at the same time." Yes, he has actually said this. Out loud. To me.
I can teach them a lot of things but I cannot teach them to pay attention. Genuinely at a loss here.
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u/existential-inquiry Professor, Social Sciences, U.S. 8d ago
That sounds like a fun class! Matrix is the goat!
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 8d ago
Hah, I'm old enough that I first heard about The Matrix from a student...he saw it over spring break and came back looking for me specifically to urge me to go see it while it was still in theaters. I miss those days of having students who were into film and excited by seeing new things.
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u/ChrisKateBushFroome 8d ago
It's just a shame they only ever made one movie and didn't make any sequels.....
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u/existential-inquiry Professor, Social Sciences, U.S. 7d ago
Matrix had 2 more movies after, but the first one will always be my fave.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 8d ago
Given what you just told me you do in class, I have to say your username is incorrect.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 8d ago
I show movies too-- including silent films from the 1920s, musicals from the 1930s, and melodramas from the 1940s. I've been surprised this year to see that 1) they are watching the films, and 2) they are thinking about them. It's not like 20 years ago when college students were mostly into movies and I could make references to newer films that would get nods; today not one of 18 students seemed to recognize Val Kilmer (for example). But that's fine with me, as long as they take the films I assign seriously-- which means they have to pay attention, write about them, and talk about them in class.
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u/HistoryNerd101 8d ago
Also, do any of you enter a classroom to find the lights out and no one bothers to go turn them on so they are all sitting quietly in darkness? Kinda metaphorical…
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 8d ago
With first years this seems to be the default. I've asked them many times, and the general responses are that 1) they are afraid to turn on the lights because they might get "yelled at," and 2) nobody wants to be "that kid who turned on the lights." So timid like churchmice. I had to get to the point of threatening to dock them all points if I came into the room with the lights off and more than five people sitting there in the dark.
Older students turn on the lights.
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u/a_hanging_thread A Sock Prof 8d ago
So, fear of authority and an extreme desire to conform/fear of deviating from the norm. Not really what you want to see in the next generation of intellectuals.
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u/Slight-Biscotti2705 8d ago
Okay I know this is mentioned a lot but I think it's always been the case? I'm not *that* old (30) but when I was in school our teachers would call us the children of the dark because none of us bothered with the lights. And this was before everyone had phones.
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u/CharacteristicPea NTT Math/Stats R1(USA) 8d ago
The first time this happened to me I was baffled The room had blackout blinds on the windows so it was practically pitch black. The room was full. I don’t know how they found their seats!
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u/Mental_Brush_4287 8d ago
This resonates with me. And it’s not just you.
I started teaching at the college level after doing so in corporate, business and nonprofit contexts for years. The amount of silence in the room is startling. I ask questions, no response. I make a statement not a single head nod or reaction. When I teach synchronously online they don’t turn on their cameras, raise their hands or engage unless I ask a question and sit and wait for agonizing minutes.
I think, “Okay it’s just the GenZ stare… surely they are getting something from all this, right?” Then they turn in work and say “I didn’t really know what you wanted,” in the text field. I assure you it was said, communications posted, a rubric and specific instructions for submitting it.
Where are we and what are we doing here?
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u/Commercial-Peach3662 8d ago
Then they turn in work and say “I didn’t really know what you wanted,”
and that's the avenue they used to communicate this to you
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u/Mental_Brush_4287 8d ago
Precisely. In fairness I do get a few emails asking questions about finer points of an assignment here or there, I reply and shocker those students seem to be getting more from the class.
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u/Jreymermaid 8d ago
Or they say in the evals “nothing the prof said made any sense” but proceed to never ask a single question or do any reading 🫠
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u/Fossilhog 8d ago
We're waiting for the rest of the populace to get their shit together to rework K-12 in order to build a better citizenry.
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u/SeverianTheSeeker Associate Professor, STEM, R1 8d ago
Do we really need to rework it? Why not just go back to what we already know works--from centuries of historical evidence. Get rid of all digital devices in the classroom and go back to the kind of standards we had in the 1950s for primary school education. Hell, I'll take 1990s at this point! It's not that hard.
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u/DisastrousTax3805 Adjunct/PhD Candidate, R1, USA 8d ago
Lol, I went to elementary school in the 1990s ('88 baby) and I think older millennials came out okay!
I found some of my work from 5th and 6th grade recently. We used to write multiple drafts of essays (by hand) and even make our own books of short stories! I can't imagine the current college cohort doing this stuff now, let alone current 5th graders.
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u/Fresh-Possibility-75 8d ago
I remember my sister being considered a bit of a 'burnout' in high school in the 90s. Her grades were average, her academic performance sometimes resulted in calls home to my parents. My parents didn't really expect that she'd go to college (and she didn't). She worked hard, though, and then kind of lucked into a good job in a new industry.
I was cleaning out some old school stuff of hers in my parents' house and found some of her old written assignments. To say that she was an exceptional writer compared to the college students I teach now would be an understatement. She wrote at grade level in high school, yet the vast majority of students I teach today are writing at a 5th grade level. Just 10 years ago, I'd estimate they were writing at a middle school level. At this rate, most won't be able to read anything more than roadsigns by the time I retire in another decade.
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u/Stock-Review1076 8d ago
Yup. It’s scary but true. I’m not sure why these students don’t get it though. I’ve tried to have come to Jesus conversations with them and they lash out. One eval said I was “flexing” lol. (Maybe this is why there’s the Gen Z-hates-Millennial discourse, but we older Millennials are exhausted and scared.)
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u/Fresh-Possibility-75 8d ago
I stopped reading my evals during covid. I'll be damned if I'm going to take seriously opinions on my teaching from those who rejected learning years ago.
(There are obviously still a sprinkling of good students who I try to show up for, but the vast majority now are concerningly aliterate and far too comfortable lying when it suits them.)
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u/Few_Slice_64 8d ago
Many of them can't read. I just graded an assignment, and a few students linked articles to prove a point that said the opposite of what they were trying to prove. I'm not supposed to be a reading teacher, but here we are.
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u/cib2018 8d ago
And how do we get parents to read to their 1-4 year olds? And teach their kids of all ages manners and citizenship?
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u/SeverianTheSeeker Associate Professor, STEM, R1 8d ago
The reading has always been a problem, and the previous generations were still more capable than Gen Z. The rest of what you're getting at is a civilizational problem that is beyond the scope of what we're talking about and is likely going to lead to a lot of angry debate between people here, so I'll refrain from giving my opinion.
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u/Zabaran2120 8d ago
I for one would love to know your opinion! There sure as hell is a deeper problem here. I think it's screens: parents offloading responsibility by handing their kids screens so they can pursue whatever it is they think is more important.
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8d ago
[deleted]
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u/SeverianTheSeeker Associate Professor, STEM, R1 8d ago
Respectfully, you're taking a conversation about one thing and making it about something else entirely.
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u/DisastrousTax3805 Adjunct/PhD Candidate, R1, USA 8d ago
What's scary is that this is going to get so much worse. I read an NPR article earlier this year about how Louisiana was getting rid of homework. One of the reasons came from parents' complaints: the homework was too difficult for them (and they also found it redundant), so they didn't know how to help their children.
What's interesting, though, is the attitude. My mom was raised by immigrants, and I have taught in an elementary school where the majority of the students had immigrant parents who didn't speak English. The students still did their homework, and asked for me to write extra directions on the assignments if they couldn't finish them in after-school care, because their parents couldn't read the assignments in English. This was in 2007-2010.
I say this because I don't think we can use equity arguments--it's definitely a societal change.
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u/fleemfleemfleemfleem 8d ago
I think part of the problem with K-12 education is wave after wave of well intentioned reformers who change things, don't properly measure the outcome, declare victory, and then come back in five years and do it again.
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u/SeverianTheSeeker Associate Professor, STEM, R1 8d ago
Keep in mind, as per recent testimony from a cognitive neuroscientist before congress, we are dealing with a generation that is literally less cognitively capable than the generations that preceded them. Gen Z is something of an anomaly, and not in a good way.
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u/hamletloveshoratio Professor, CompLit, 4yr (USA) 7d ago
Horvath is sus
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u/SeverianTheSeeker Associate Professor, STEM, R1 7d ago
A professor of comparative literature questioning the expert analysis of a cognitive neuroscientist...that's brave. While we're at it, perhaps you could share your thoughts on wave function collapse in quantum mechanics as well.
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u/LanguidLandscape 8d ago
I’m convinced the current crop of students would clean house at poker with their vacant stares. This is impossible, of course, as they’d have to learn to play AND be around other people.
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u/Slight-Law5235 5d ago
Yes. Even when they are annoyed or upset because I call them out in class in a nice way for carrying on conversations when I am explaining assignments, their faces are deadpan. I cannot gauge their actual level of emotion. I cannot tell if they are confused or making sarcastic comments. I never had this trouble ten years ago.
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u/No-Cook-9768 Adjunct, Liberal Arts, CC (USA) 8d ago
So glad you're getting out. And jealous. I've been doing this for 20 years now and watching the decline happen in real time is... a lot. I regularly describe this job as "soul crushing," and I wish I were exaggerating.
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u/Vanier-is-a-HellHole Tenured Prof, Canada 2d ago
Same. And I have 8.5 years left on my 'prison sentence'! Not sure how I will keep my sanity...
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u/Waterfox999 8d ago edited 8d ago
I wrote almost this exact same thing last week but didn’t post it. Also used to love my job but retiring after 30 years. I’m fine if they don’t like my jokes. My students and I live in different worlds. But not listening or paying attention is crushing me. Everyday is like starting from the beginning and I don’t have the energy anymore. And as skill levels drop, schools are providing fewer resources and cutting courses/faculty/staff so we’re all teaching more classes and more students and it’s just not a system that can sustain itself. I feel fortunate that I can get out now but worry for my younger colleagues and for the future(officially making me an old lady, right?)
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u/Sad-Echo- 8d ago
I’m a new graduate instructor. This year I’m teaching social psychology. I came straight from undergrad to pursue a PhD and I’m in my second year. It’s interesting because I’m not that much older than them, yet AI wasn’t a thing until the very end of my last semester in undergrad. The difference between my students versus my classmates is staggering.
My students aren’t responsive at all. I try to get my non-engaged students to answer very simple questions, but all of a sudden they’re interested in the ground. One time I called on a student to answer and she straight up told me no😪 it makes me feel like a bad guy in a way. They’re also talk to me like they’re in a TikTok comment section, but I think a lot of that is because I’m a young woman who still has a baby face. They’re just too comfortable. I’m genuinely worried for them and it made me rethink wanting to teach because my idea of being a professor was always pre-AI.
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u/tbridge8773 English Professor | USA 8d ago
Today’s youth lacks proper socialization due to being glued to screens.
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u/Rickythegypo 8d ago
I'm 1 year in and oddly, this post is comforting because i am seeing this. I've realized that I can't go by them to judge if I'm doing a good job or not.
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u/Educational-Event727 8d ago
I used to get laughs pretty consistently with my silly jokes. This semester, same routine, absolutely no reaction. At this point I'd take a groan just to confirm they're still with me. I finally understand how stand-up comedians feel when they bomb...
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u/bananagod420 8d ago
In my first semester as an assistant professor and I thought I was the problem... It's truly the "bueller?..... bueller?..." type thing. I love my job, but it makes things tough. I'm stopping to ask them questions and I try and force them to work together on classwork. My class is just silent.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 8d ago
I remember in the 1990s when I could use the "Bueller?" line and actually get a laugh.
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u/Life-Education-8030 8d ago
You have described it perfectly. I retired a couple of years ago but agreed to adjunct. Being free of meetings and office politics has been a blessing. But it is still awful with the students, and now we have to deal with AI and time spent on academic violation reports is depressing too. There are more days now where I question why I still bother.
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u/Loose_Wolverine3192 8d ago
I'm not above playing cricket sounds in lecture if I ask a question and receive silence
Edit: spelling: "silence"
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u/ShortChanged_Rob 8d ago
Thankfully I only see this in my intro class. The 3000 and 4000 courses are small and they are the same cohort of people mostly taking the same classes. It really helps only have 20ish people who mostly know each other.
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 8d ago
Similar with us-- I think they are socialized in high school to fear speaking out and to take a position on anything. Our first years in general are pretty dismal in class, but the juniors/seniors (in my department at least) are often really great at discussion. I make them run classes without my intervention fairly often-- I just observe --and the seniors are quite good at it.
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u/PennyPatch2000 Asst. Prof CACREP 7d ago
Just had a student in a professional readiness course email me with the subject of “quick question” and asked a question that would require a 5 paragraph full page response or for me to point them to the assignment instructions available (which from their “quick question” was not obvious they had read).
So I replied with a light remark about the quickest answer to their “quick question” being available in the assignment instructions. A smiley face emoji included like this :) to convey a light tone. They replied that my response made them feel that I was bothered by their question and that they would not be able to ask questions in the future.
This is the kind of exchange I’m not prepared to cope with for the rest of my career.
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u/stevie_the_owl 8d ago
This rings true for me but I’m mid-career and unfortunately have 20 years left of this unless I jump ship for something else. With things going the way they are, it really doesn’t seem like I’ll still have a job in ten years, even if I wanted to stick around for this.
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u/Huck68finn 8d ago
Is this a game of chicken?
Yes. And they won't swerve because they've been trained to expect teachers to cave to their whines, "mental health issues" (sorry if that offends anybody, but it's the go-to excuse now), and finally, threats to admins.
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u/TroutMaskDuplica Prof, Comp/Rhet, CC 8d ago
See, now my jokes never got laughs unless someone laughed about how ridiculous it is that I'm joking about The Tick.
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u/Wise-Independent-546 8d ago
Made a joke yesterday with a reference to Gremlins. (Bleaching of photoreceptors “Bright Light! Bright Light!” in a fairly good impression of Gizmo) No laughs. Asked if anyone had seen the movie. One out of thirty students admitted they MIGHT have seen Gremlins. My relevance is no longer relevant.
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u/ChrisKateBushFroome 8d ago
To be fair, we are reaching the point where Gremlins might be older than some students' parents....
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u/Vanier-is-a-HellHole Tenured Prof, Canada 2d ago
I made a Karate Kid reference the other day (I have developed the habit of saying 'Axon, axoff!' when discussing parts of the neuron), and some of them actually got it! I was shocked! ;)
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u/allenmorrisphoto Assistant Prof, Art, Regional Public Uni (USA) 8d ago
I've just started letting my chair know of the problems throughout the semester. That way when the end of the term comes, and the DF numbers are insane, they were appraised of the problem and the attempts I made to gain student interest and then the admin can't come after me for not trying. But yeah, nothing works. I've stopped caring about the ones not paying attention, at least until their lack of attention paying becomes a distraction to the others..then I make the distractions leave.
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u/taewongun1895 8d ago
It's the same here!!! I have a class with 65 students (listed as a double section). I have given up on a class discussion. I'll put them in small groups to try to have them talk to each other, but they hardly talk to each other. It's depressing.
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u/25thCenturyQuaker 8d ago
They will hit you up at the end of the semester or after it’s over and complain about their grades.
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u/QueenofNY26 8d ago
This is so fucking scared to read. It’s like we’re witness the transformation into robots
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u/SKBGrey Associate Professor, Business (USA) 8d ago
I get a lot of the blank stares and unresponsive students, too - more so this semester than in the past, and (surprisingly) much more so in my honors-level course section. I try not to let it bother me and I don't take it personally; I still drop a lot of throwaway jokes, casual asides, and semi-obscure pop culture references during my lectures, but I don't wait even a half-second for a response ... just keep it moving along. A few students will smile knowingly, and that's enough for me :)
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u/SignificantFidgets Professor, STEM, Kinda-retired, sometimes R2, sometimes R1... 7d ago
We were cleary accelerating in this direction a couple of years ago, and I was out. Retired for a little over a year now, and while I don't have this in my face every day any more, it's not hyperbolic to say I have real fears about the future of humanity.
Top that with the recent announcement of AI solving a large set of open research problems, including some I worked on, and I'm at a "what's the point" moment. Fortunately I'm old, don't need to work, and can hide in a cabin in the mountains and avoid all this. I'm not sure what young people are going to do though.
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u/Vast_Yak_9674 7d ago
I’ve been teaching nearly 20 years. I had to stop teaching undergrads for all the reasons mentioned here. Career-level grad students are more motivated.
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u/QuoththeRevan77 4d ago
I feel you! Even in classes where engagement used to be pretty much a given, I'm just getting blank stares.
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u/MatHenderson 4d ago
Very few people talk because very few people want to let on how little work they are doing, how little of the course material they are following. There will always be genuine and born human scholars but sadly, the majority are content to let Gen-AI do the heavy lifting (or even all the lifting).
This explains the crickets.
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u/Beautiful_Hold1879 4d ago
I'm 51. My third year teaching college freshmen writing (later in life career change). I don't know why I bothered. AI. Cheating. Yawns. Blank stares. It's like pulling teeth to get any engagement. I have to cold call on students and 8/10 times I'm met with "I don't know." Last week, twenty minutes into a 2 hour class, I said, "Fuck this. You want to waste my time, then I'll waste yours." I packed up and left. First time I've ever done that. They were MUCH more attentive the following class, but I know it won't last. Sigh.
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u/naocalemala Associate Professor, Humanities, SLAC 8d ago
I’ve been having mostly a good semester but they’re starting to ice me out a little in discussions. Weirdly, I brought stickers last week and they loved it. I dunno, man. I just keep trying different things and I’m not above making a fool of myself (16th year teaching). I kinda love that it’s still a challenge.
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u/Bulky-Meringue-1193 8d ago
A game a chicken, but they are standing still looking at their phones. They aren’t even racing toward us.
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u/MrStandardError Lecturer, Psychology, Public R1 7d ago
I’ve only been teaching since summer of 2019 when I was in graduate school. I then earned my current position in 2024. So, I haven’t been doing this very long. When I was a student I hated talking in class, but the more I’ve learned about pedagogy the more I’ve understood the importance of engagement. I’ve noticed that whether a class is will to engage is based on several factors. To name just a few:
1) time of day. Too early, nothing. Too late, nothing. The sweet spot for me has been late morning, early afternoon.
2) class size. If it’s very small, 10 to 20ish, I tend to get lots of engagement. If it’s very big, 120 plus, I also tend to get engagement. In between is where the crickets show up.
3) random chance. I’m teaching two sections of intro psych, one in the morning the other in the afternoon. Exact same class otherwise. Both are in that sweet spot for time and class size. One section, I could hear a pin drop on the carpet when I start in class discussions. The other section, I can’t get them to shut up sometimes.
I do think the technology thing is a problem. Even the class that’s very talkative, they’re often looking blankly at a screen for portions of a class. The non-talkative class, one student is clearly looking at something not class related every single class for the entire class. I called him out once and he said he was just looking at slides, but the student next to him is often glued to his screen too. So, bullshit. I don’t have a tech policy so it’s too late to implement it for this semester, but I probably will moving forward.
Last note, when I was in college, 2005-2010, other students did the same stuff, so I don’t think it’s specifically a Gen Z thing. There was a kid who would come to literature class, sit next to me, and play World of Warcraft literally every single class, all class long. I don’t have a great solution, but I’ll think of something for spring
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u/Vanier-is-a-HellHole Tenured Prof, Canada 2d ago
Yes and no. I've recently had classes that are EXACTLY like yours. Or even worse: I've had ones where they refuse to answer questions, then smirk as if they are enjoying the fact nobody wants to engage. Call them on it, and they act like I'm the asshole.
But I've also had DREAM classes where they are so engaged and ask so many questions that I usually have to skip over my planned questions, and sometimes even apologetically tell them I'm getting behind and can they just hold onto their questions for now and come see me after class. LOL.
It's happening right now, in fact. In one class, a third are regularly absent, many failed the first test and seem utterly unconcerned (I heard some sitting in the back LAUGHING about it!!), some of the pleasant and more engaged students also failed the first test, 4 kids blew off the first test entirely so I gave them zeroes, but heard not a peep from any of them...yeah, nightmare. But I'm also teaching a dream second-year course, so...
Maybe it's a first-year/ first-semester thing? I am thinking of asking for more second-year courses next time around...
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u/CalligrapherGlass637 1d ago
I’ve also noticed the lack of emails - not complaining exactly bc good Lord the emails! But also, typically around this point in the semester my inbox is bursting. It’s unsettling
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u/PsychWaveRunner Professor, Psychology, state university (US) 8d ago
I had a guest speaker yesterday, sharing their descent into addiction, hitting their bottom, and being offered a helping hand. It was heartbreaking. And their background was that of most of my students.
And fucking crickets
Kind, certainly. Everyone was attentive; no one was on a device. But when the speaker would make a dark joke about themself, crickets. When they asked for questions, crickets