This is a TikTok video that is now unavailable on that platform for some reason—maybe the Chinese don’t want the truth getting out there. The video is long, and the distraught teacher is obviously not a video pro, but her message is heartfelt as well as astute. Attention should be paid.
I stumbled on Hannah’s lament as I was preparing to write another post that it quickly subsumed. That one was a response to this [Gift link!] in which a Hollywood screenwriter blames the public for the fact that Hollywood movies stink now. “The true problem lies with you, the audience,” he writes. “[I]t’s hard to argue that Hollywood is doing anything other than giving you, the moviegoing public, what you want.” I was going to call my response, “It’s the Culture, Stupid!” and point out that Hollywood is as much responsible for the culture as it is now a victim of it.
Hollywood helped create the attention deficit-afflicted, literature starved, culturally illiterate generations that drive politics and commerce now. As Hannah’s video makes clear, there are a lot of factors that have created an American public that is unable to absorb complex issues or enjoy stories that will teach them something valuable about life and humanity. Hollywood and the entertainment industry are as culpable as any of them.
I learned a lot by watching TV as a child, and I was one of those kids always being told to get out and play outside by his mother. Many of the Westerns had moral and ethical lessons at their centers. Dramas like “The Defenders” revealed the dilemmas and conflicts in the law. “Combat” and “The Gallant Men” explored the ethical challenges of war.
History was all over the broadcast channels: There was “The Great Adventure,” which told inspiring tales from American history (I first learned about the Underground Railroad from that show), and “Profiles in Courage,” based on Jack Kennedy’s book celebrating political courage (which he didn’t write, but it’s still a great book). “The Twentieth Century” gave me perspective on our wars, elections, labor conflicts and entrepreneurs; the various Disney series repeatedly sparked my interest in notable figures of the past, like Davy Crockett, Elfago Baca and Kit Carson. The movies my parents guided me to were thoughtful and informative too, and often sent me to the books (and sometimes plays) they were based on: “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Swiss Family Robinson,” “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” “The Longest Day,” “A Night to Remember,” “Abe Lincoln of Illinois.” On PBS, we watched “The World at War,” listening to Lawrence Olivier’s narration of the events leading up to World War II straight through to Hiroshima, accompanied by unforgettable film records. Today, broadcast television is truly the vast wasteland critics claimed it was when the medium was still informative and educational.
Hannah, as she announces that she will quit teaching because it is too frustrating and hopeless, blames the failure of the education system to educate on technology. That certainly is a substantial part of the problem; I have written several post here about how the Unabomber, Theodore John Kaczynski, was basically correct about where technology was leading society; he just picked the wrong way to make his point.
Just as the screenwriter doesn’t accept his own industry’s culpability for the public deficiencies he describes, Hanna the teacher never points the finger at her own profession. Yet our schools have virtually stopped teaching classical literature (because it’s racist, or something), and American history has been crammed into a bottleneck that only allows events through to kids’ brains that support ideological narratives. Where would a Gen Z student learn to appreciate plotting, tragedy, and a carefully devised story that builds to a powerful climax and denouement? If teachers won’t nurture those abilities and instincts, all that is left is parents. But since The Greatest Generation, each succeeding demographic group has been less well-read, less able to communicate eloquently or even adequately, and less trained in critical thought.
Parents, the schools, popular culture, culture generally. All of these have to reform for future generations in the United States to escape the dead-end that Gen Z has reached. Hannah, the despairing teacher, wants all web-based technology withheld from students until college. That would be swell, but since it can’t possibly happen, even making the suggestion is useless.
What we can’t do is what Hannah is doing now: give up. It took decades for the culture to get into this mess, and it may take just as long to get out of it. As usual, solving a problem that must be solved will take leadership, courage, innovation and determination….and, scarily, luck.
We had better find all of those, and get to work.
Ethics Alarms 
Former Sherman MS (Madison, WI) teacher Karen Vieth expressed similar concerns while identifying a similar problem in the 77 Square Miles Surrounded By A Sea Of Reality, which was chronicled by local blogger Ann Althouse at the time.
When this occurred****, Sherman MS was staring down “20 vacant positions (of) over 60 years of collective educational experience and wisdom […] exiting at the end of this school year.”
Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) representatives were dutifully outraged; but was it because of the comically inept state of MMSD classrooms and their abysmal learning atmosphere?
Not exactly.
They were dutifully outraged because Vieth had the temerity to lay the blame exactly where it should have been laid; at the Principal’s feet.
One BIG problem; the (mercifully) former Sherman MS Principal Kristin Foreman was black.
****This was seven (7) years ago; have things gotten better, stayed the same, or gotten worse?
PWS
Long ago former teacher here (and descendant of countless teachers and school librarians in the family tree). One year 7th grade all subjects, one year ninth grade English, one half year tenth and eleventh grade English. I got out because of the low pay, a few too many insufferable parents and dispirited fellow faculty. Ultimately, I couldn’t justify penalizing my family for the benefit of other people’s kids. Went to law school.
Short of quitting the profession (a move with which I have no problem. Not everyone is cut out to teach for their entire lives), Hannah needs to find a charter school or church school. The one aspect unfocused on here is classroom discipline and order. She mentions the kids are out of control but makes very little of it. If the school administration doesn’t back teachers and insist they are able to discipline the kids, the situation is hopeless. If the principal and doubtless the union don’t have your back in dealing with misbehavior, you’re doomed and need to get out. All the other problems she discusses and alludes to are nits if there’s no discipline. Teaching high school and junior high school is a lot like being a lion tamer in the circus. If you can’t stand up there and maintain control and respect, nothing good can happen in the classroom.
I hope Hannah finds some satisfying work. We all need to choose our battles in life. Her attempting to clean up the situation at her school and in her district is a suicide mission. Career suicide is not an ethical path. Good luck, Hannah. I, for one, salute you. You gave it a try and were a shining example to the few good students you had. Your time in the circus was not wasted.
Discipline-related laws seem to be the biggest complain I hear from teachers. We have students in my kids’ school who have assaulted other students and even teachers and there’s nothing that can be done. They don’t get expelled, they can’t have any meaningful discipline done to them. The schools have tied teachers’ hands to a degree that many feel completely powerless to control their classrooms.
The schools have tied teachers’ hands to a degree that they are completely powerless to control their classrooms.
Unfortunately private, charter, or church schools aren’t immune from discipline problems. I once gave middle school boys detention for yelling racial slurs at some men working on church school grounds. I had a parent berate me because he was the customer and the customer is always right. I almost lost my job.
Another teacher I know (different school) was told the reason students were fighting in his classroom was because he didn’t have it decorated. They weren’t engaged in their surroundings. Sure, that’s why they were stabbing each other with pencils.
I got burnt out by toxic parents and teachers that I left the profession. When you’re willing to take a job with longer hours and less pay than a church school, you know it’s bad. The other teacher I referenced left the profession as well.
There are so many problems with the education system. From DEI all the time. To parents thinking their precious is always right. It has lost its way in more ways than one.
On a side note to Jack–You mentioned great TV with important stories to tell. I remember watching a re-run of Route 66. The first episode was about the murder of a German POW in Mississippi. Not what one would expect from a series about two guys adventuring across the US. Not Jack Warner’s cup of tea. But even great TV can have a message.
This person is delusional. It’s not hard to argue that at all. If Hollywood were giving audiences what they wanted, we would not be seeing one bomb after another at the box office, even as the Hollywood types heap laurels on one another. Hollywood is producing what they, not we, want to see.
What they want US to see….
I work in a college, and the cheating is rampant. No one acts like they know how to do anything about it except wring their hands and bitch. It’s especially bad for things like introductory English classes.
The teacher shouldn’t give up, but I can relate to her feeling.
Instead of completely quitting, I think Hanna should try start teaching K-4 where the foundations are built.
While I’m sure her complaints are genuine and heartfelt, I have a sneaking suspicion that the actual quitting part probably has more to do with an undisclosed change in life circumstances (such as the financial support of a new boyfriend or spouse) than the frustrations of the job. After all, it’s not like 19th century coal miners kept going underground because it was so fulfilling and the working conditions were nice.
Good point.
Another and perhaps key reason I got out of teaching after only two and a half years: I realized I wasn’t the special kind of teacher who could stay enthused about the material indefinitely. Having done it once or twice, it wasn’t easier, it was just less interesting. There are special people who can teach successfully for years, and I am not one of them. So, I moved on.
As a 30+ year teacher (and counting), I don’t disagree with anything she says but I don’t think technology in general is the biggest problem – it’s just part of the larger puzzle. Education, just as politics, is downstream of culture. Technology enables lazy parents and teachers. The educational system encourages laziness and apathy; just do enough to pass the standardized test.
Many of today’s kids lack any sort of inquisitiveness or desire to understand things. They have been brought up (looking at you media) to have short attention spans. They do not want to spend time figuring things out and get bent out of shape if you expect them to think for themselves. Some students fully expect to just be told what to do by AI or something and that they’ll supply the physical part of the job, no thinking required.
For so many, our culture has changed drastically. Parents, when there are even parents in the picture, are too busy working, caring for others, and just trying to get by, and don’t spend time developing their kids brains early in life. Expecting teachers and the public school system to do all the things necessary to make healthy, productive citizens is a very big problem.
I’m starting to count down to retirement. Each year gets worse and I expect that if we continue this way, and if I live long enough, Idiocracy will truly be a documentary instead of fiction.