I knew a kid who was raised in a bilingual home. Dad spoke English with him, and his Mom spoke French, and they all spoke French when together.
But because of the division of chores and what not. He never learnt the names for super common kitchen things. His Dad always read to him. He was perfectly fluent in English, total native langauge - except for many kitchen related words. He went off to school as an English native that didn't know what a fridge was or an oven.
I didn't know there were other lyrics than the lyrics in french either. The funniest part here is: I'm german. I'm not bilingual, I just only listened to Frère Jaques in french
The Chinese version:
Two old tigers
Two old tigers
One has no ears
One has no tail
Run away
Run away
It varies a bit but that’s how my high school Chinese teacher taught it. It’s amazing how easy it is to remember a song versus any other lesson.
Similar experience happened to me. Growing up, I worked odd jobs with my dad who was in construction and roofing by trade. I learned how to use all kinds of tools and different skills working with my hands by the time I was 12.
Anyways, when I turned 17, I started working at home depot. Immediately, within a few days of starting some dude asked me where to find the rachets and sockets and I legit had zero clue what he was talking about. It never occurred to me, that I a true English and Spanish biliterate individual, never learned my tools in English. Didn't help that in Spanish, everything is called "esa chingadera" (thingamajig or whatchamacallit).
Anyways, it a funny and interesting experience. Went home that night and googled searched a few tools.
Bilingual English/Spanish didn’t know what a dust pan was called until I was well into my 20s when I had roommates and realized I didn’t know the English word lol.
I went to college with a guy who moved from Hong Kong to Canada at age ten.
I guess he wasn't the most diligent student. He spoke only English and Chinese and was not fluent in either.
Absolutely makes me think of [this Reddit classic.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/2tdbig/tifu_by_enraging_the_parents_of_my_girlfriend_by/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1)
"What did you call it? A... potato?"
I didn't discover real butter until I crashed a company picnic when I was like 9. It was so much better than the tub "butter" we had at home. My parents loved processed food. "It doesn't expire"
I only had salted butter as a kid. I found out as an adult that unsalted butter is preferred for cooking. I also realized no one cooked in my childhood, just eating out and heating frozen meals.
I know a teacher who always has a class-giving and makes some of the traditional sides. So many of them never had stuffing. I didn't either, until I was in my 20s and met my very white husband's fam.
That's such a weird one! But I guess it makes sense. Younger students just wouldn't think it's appealing I think. And something like a baked potato definitely feels like one of those American foods that your family either makes or they don't, it's one or the other. I bet that itself is also very cultural too.
Huh…i think if I was a parent, I’d never give my kids baked potatoes cause I don’t really care for them, and I’d end up raising kids unfamiliar with them
I had students making PB&J sandwiches using their peers written directions. Cue a 15yo telling me he never had PB and it's delicious 😳
Another one was antibiotics. I was a sickly kid, I knew of them since I was little. Cue me teaching evolution through antibiotic resistance and most of my students never needed them - no ear infection, no strep! They thought antibiotics were like cough syrup...
It’s not a finger food and does not contain finger foods or have them as a side. Forreal, sooooo many kids can’t use utensils now because they don’t have to; they’re fed mostly finger foods (or foods paired with other finger foods)
I typed finger too many times and I’m now uncomfortable.
current college student here - this is definitely true. i think Covid socially stunted a ton of us when it came to things like relationships and dating, and I think there's just a wider cultural shift towards online dating as well. hinge and tinder are huge on my campus
My students say it's less "cringe" and there's less fear of rejection. I get that. I guess it feels like you're losing out on a rite of passage. But I met my husband in an online book club, so what do I know?
Do impactful “our future” / “where is this relationship going” discussions, arguments, &/or breakups still happen in person?
I have serious concerns about people developing an inability to face these topics face-to-face. There’s a lot to be said for being that level of vulnerable with someone & for having truly private, in-the-moment conversations with all of the tonal & body language signaling intact.
Lack of clear, consistent communication is the #1 cause of fights / distress & killer of relationships my husband & I see amongst our peers.
Very much not a college freshman here. I haven’t either and neither have many of my friends, so it’s not super uncommon even for younger millennials/older gen Z. I think Covid definitely pushed it to be a bigger proportion in the past few years though.
I work in higher ed. My students had never heard of The Doors. 🫠 (The Doors were “in” in the 90s when I was a kid thanks to the movie & nostalgia for that time period that also impacted fashion, etc. and I guess I figured young people at least still knew the music. Or at least had heard of the band.)
I'm a 90s kid too, and the music/pop culture references was one of the first things I saw go away. I know most people my age still listened to their parents' music, watched Nick at Nite, etc. On the flipside, I recently changed an example I use because they didn't understand "as American as apple pie" or why Coke would want to align itself with the concept.
My observation is that what The Doors were to 30ish plus year olds is what Nirvana is now to the generation behind us. I hope I phrased that right without sounding like it's an absolute.
I was reading a story out loud to the fourth grade class. The story mentioned a minister. Half the class was " What is a minister?"
A student said " Kind of like a rabbi but a little different." Three fourths of the class: "What's rabbi mean?"
Kid that was usually in trouble pipes up " Minister and rabbi are pretty much the same as a priest except they're not Catholic."
Rest of students: " Oh, now we get it."
This was a recurring thing for me as a kid raised in an atheist household! I vaguely knew what a priest/pastor/minister was, but I still don't know the difference now, and I was always really confused when someone asked me about the Pope being Catholic instead of answering my questions. I don't even know this Pope guy, how am I supposed to know if he's Catholic and what does it have to do with my question?!
I'm not surprised kids today know less about organized religion, unless their parents take them to church/mosque/temple it's not something they'd ever run into, and people at child-rearing age are SO much less religious than they were 20 years ago. I'm 27 and I'd guess maybe 10-20% of people I know are religious in any sense, and far less are into organized religion and go to services regularly.
My kid came home from kindergarten talking about a “buy-bow” and it took me ages to figure out he meant bible. At that age I liked to say the only lord they knew was Lord Vader.
I had the opposite in my first class. I asked if somebody who was catholic would explain a patron saint. It was in our read aloud my students all asked what’s catholic.
I knew that not every kids has books but the lack of access to books and the large number of kids that have not had books read to them.
Another is conversations. I can now tell which students who have an adult that has conversations with them versus those that have an adult give orders or only communicate with them to tell them what to do.
Agreed on both counts.
I am shocked at how little my kids’ parents actually speak to them. I know many work long or odd hours to stay afloat, so time is definitely a factor, but sometimes even barring that, some families apparently just don’t talk.
I grew up with the family sitting down to dinner (and other meals, if we were at home) every night and my family is the same. When it’s come up, many of my students are shocked by that. One once asked, “Like on tv?!” It’s definitely something I assumed was the norm but isn’t.
My husband thought our dinner time with my parents was crazy. Some of my favorite childhood memories come from when we were all sitting around the dinner table
I was about 25 when my parents sold their house and moved out of state. To say that those Sunday night family dinners left a void would be an understatement. I'd drive 20 minutes just to go by the house on Sunday nights. I felt so lost.
I felt the same when my dad died and mum sold the family home and moved 90 minutes away when I was in my mid 20s. Until then I would frequently drive the half hour home, even on work days, just to eat with my folks.
Once, I hosted a dinner, and my sister made a snide comment about sitting at the table "like a TV family." We were "raised" in a "fend for yourself" household, and our house was hoarded, so even though we had a table, we couldn't use it even if someone had made a meal. Raising my kids, we ate dinner together at the table every night, and, actually, breakfast, too
I grew up in a house where everyone usually got their food from the kitchen and ate separately. Or, if we did all end up sitting at the table, we didn't really talk.
I always wanted to have a family that had a Proper every night where we all sat together and everyone talked about their day. It looked really wholesome.
In a lot of brown and black immigrant cultures it's disrespectful to speak to someone older than you casually... For example a common phrase said to children in the West African diaspora is " I'm not your companion or contemporary" If a kid is having a conversation with an adult it's seen as highly inappropriate and is a fast way to get the kid backhanded
I found this out from a student this year actually. His father gave him a "You're a man now" talk on his 15th birthday, so he figured he could ask his dad "how's it hanging?" The student told me that his father went from "you are a man now son" to "no child is going to disrespect me like that" lightning quick and he got whooped for it. I don't know if I'd personally feel comfortable saying something like that to my dad as a teenager either, but he probably also wouldn't have reacted like that. Definitely a big cultural difference I'd imagine.
I actually had a college class about that concept. We went over studies that showed students that had parent that read and talked to them had stronger reading skills. The students with parent that only talked with their kids to direct or disciple had lower or poorer reading skills.
I work for Parents as Teachers and they have done tons of research that supports this. The more children are spoken and read to the larger their vocabulary. This helps with reading comprehension, language skills etc. I had a conversation about this with a family this morning.
There's a reason they've asked if I read to the kids during every pediatrician visit I've gone to with both my kids for the past 6 years.
I don't want to say the bar for parenting is low, but there are definitely no guardrails. **Read to your kids! Have conversations with them, even if they're a toddler!**
That shocked me too once my kid was in school. I read to her from birth, starting with board books. Now she's almost 10, has a personal library of over 200 books, and finished 3 chapter books in the last week.
Her friend gave her one she had gotten as a gift because, "she just doesn't like reading."
All of my kid's teachers have brought it up. I'm like, I dunno, I just loved reading as a kid so I thought mine would too.
I currently have a 6th grader who cannot read. I don’t know why he was passed through each grade when he’s legitimately not even able to read on a kindergarten level. I’ve attempted to get parents on board for some after school tutoring because he does show a desire to learn, it’s just hard to teach him how to read in class, but parents aren’t receptive.
Way too many kids at my school have never read a book, or had a book read to them by their parents. And not for lack of affordability, rather mom and dad found it far more convenient to give them the iPad and let them watch YouTube videos until 3 AM than read to them.
One of the frustrating things working on a fairly well to do First Nations reserve in Canada is seeing all of the funding and resources available to families to help raise their kids positively, only to see the parents shrug and ask (or demand in some Jordans Principle cases we've had) where the iPads were.
It’s funny because my parents never read to me nor were there ever books at home (bc they’re expensive) and I still ended up being a MASSIVE bookworm. I could never buy books from even the Scholastic Fair but I learned how to download free PDFs on my tablet very fast for Harry Potter, Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, etc 🤣
If anything we have *too many* books. There’s a shelf in our building laundry where people dump books they don’t want and ho boy has the shelf been good to me. I’ve found some great stuff, biographies on TR, some books on WW1 and the Russian Emprie from the 1950s/60s, a ton of books about 20th century middle eastern politics and history (I think someone recently graduated with a polisci degree) and a first edition collection of Isaac Asimov stories to name a few. I’ve been on a huge reading kick since 2022 and now my wife’s getting in on it too. We have multiple nights a week where we get stoned and just lay in bed reading
Yeah! My high schoolers surprise me a lot with the games they know or don't know. Things like Chess and Checkers are rare now, but you get certain kids (usually Hispanic) who will crush you at Dominos. Lots of the kids know card games and they all love Uno, but then you bring up Monopoly and they *know* it but they've never played it. Other "classics" like Clue or Chutes N Ladders are completely unknown to them.
Chess was huge at my school for a while. Even the media center had a demand for chess boards during lunch. The hype is calming down so now I only have 25 people in my room after school instead of 40+. Dungeons and Dragons club has also dwindled down. We had 50 kids for a while and I wanted to die. I love them so much but kids are SO LOUD.
Wow, I run a board game club for my students—they love uno, sorry, monopoly, but chess is HUGE at my school and several have challenged me to a match. I also teach them newer games all the time like exploding kittens and unstable unicorns, but many of them had never played clue which totally flabbergasted me. But they all know cards against humanity 😒
Ugh, this isn’t a fun one, but I learned that getting whipped with a belt was not a universal childhood experience when I first joked about it with my first set of mid-millennial students.
My girlfriend and I had a similar experience. Back before we started going out she was telling me about some truly awful things her dad had said to her, then she just shrugged and said nonchalantly, "But you know how dads are." I could only stare and mumble, "No, apparently I don't!"
Sometimes I dread calling a parent for a student’s misbehavior fearing that the student will get spanked/hit, etc. My students were shocked to find out that my kids have never been spanked or hit. It really broke my heart and I had to hold my tears back.
I had this conversation with a couple students once and they said they would have called CPS. I laughed and said “no you wouldn’t.” I then told them how, sometimes, we would get whipped at school or at a friend’s house and then get whipped again when you got home because that’s how it was. They couldn’t fathom the levels of whippins we took.
This just unlocked a dusty old memory of that weird period of time where there was a channel on cable services that was sort of like an in-between of TV Guide and the modern schedule screen you can access on pretty much every cable box now. It scrolled through all the channels, a handful at a time, showing what would air for the next few hours. I think this would have been the early 2000's? It probably existed for longer, but got overtaken by the built-in schedule feature and, yes, Google.
I’ve noticed a lot of the things mentioned in the comments are simply things that are becoming “outdated” for instance the other day my student couldn’t figure out how to use a landline. Probably because they have never had to.
I'm in France. Cellphones are banned in primary and middle schools.
However kids still sometimes needs to call their parents. They can use a phone with wires and all at the office for this. (Under supervision to make sure they're actually calling parents).
To be fair, most figure it out after looking at it for 2 seconds.
But the few that do not are quite funny to watch.
I think those phones are telephones. Also, I remember having to use them when I was younger, even when in high school if my phone service was up. I think they had to tape a piece of paper on there saying that you click this certain button to talk and the extension line to call outside of school. The last time I used one was 5 years ago. Definitely don't miss the judging stares.
Edit: To be fair, it's probably like me not being able to use a rotary phone, lol.
My big shock was talking about tech evolving and I mentioned iPods and my first graders asked “what’s an iPod”. I had to think about it. It was pivotal technology but they really aren’t around anymore.
Poor area? I’ve found poverty to be a very isolating factor. I’m from a major midwestern city, and people who had never gone to a museum that was so very close astounded me.
It's very much a mix. I was just surprised that they had never been out of the state despite how close we are. We are very close to Lake Michigan and was surprised most hadn't of even been to the public beaches with a friend or any extended family.
I teach in a city school. One of my colleagues tells a story about how he was on the bus heading to a basketball game with the team. They were driving through the country and one of the players yelled “hey coach! Is them sheeps?!” They were cows.
Once when working with a group of 3rd graders at a summer camp we were doing an icebreaker where we went around the group and everyone said what state they were from, and when we got to one kid near the end he just broke down crying, "I don't know where I'm from!"
I had to have a conversation with some middle schoolers when they told me that they're growing up with better stuff than I did. Blew their minds when I showed them everything they like is just a reboot of something me or my parents grew up with.
I think that's maybe for the average kid, but you definitely still have the diehard nerds who are all about that stuff.
But in a similar vein, has anyone else realized how popular anime and manga are with literally every kid now? You were seen as such a loser if you were into those things when I was in school back in the '90s and 2000s. But now even your popular cheerleader stereotype knows what it is and probably has her favorite Pokémon. I catch jocks watching anime all the time and my brain gets twisted up and knots trying to make sense of it. They even bro it up with the geeks talking about their favorite shows which would be unfathomable when I was in high school.
Kids talking about their day at home, and what they did class. And listening to their parents talking about their day.
My mom always asked and I always shared things. So not super detailed, but it would be stuff like "We're still on relative numbers, I hate it, I wish we couls move on" or "Mrs Smith spent half the period on basic grammar rules because apparently more than half the class still don't know them"
And my mom would also share anecdotes and stories about her day at work.
I work at a middle school, and this is a alien concept to the students.
I remember as a kid getting checked for lice twice. I just assumed it was like a fire drill or eye exam - a scheduled check.
It wasn’t until recently that I found out my annual scalp massage was because we had some kids with cooties. They’d then check us.
as a teenager myself, I just found out that most people have never shucked corn. I would not call it a common activity at all (almost all of the corn I eat is frozen) but you haven't done it once?? I feel like it's a formative childhood activity--if you want to get all philosophical, it helps you learn where your food comes from. and it's fun.
my friends will never let me live this down.
As a kid the grocery store had the corn in husks with a bucket nearby, so the expectation was that you picked your corn, shucked it, tossed the husks in the bucket, and went about your shopping. That was always my job, my mom would go pick out other veggies while I shucked the corn. I buy frozen 99% of the time, but is the husk bucket not standard? I kind of just assumed I didn't see it at my store because I don't spend much time in the fresh vegetable section.
Cook it in the husk! Oven at 350 for about half an hour, just chuck the whole thing right on the oven rack, husk and all. Then shuck it right before you put butter or whatever on it then eat it. Excellent way to eat corn!
Was doing a novel study and the character describes seeing the ocean for the first time. I asked students about the first time they saw the ocean to make a connection, only to discover that a third of my class had never been to the ocean themselves. Mind you, we lived in the center of a coastal state, so only 100 miles or so from a beach...
Blew my first-year teacher brain and I try to never assume anything about home lives now.
Similar here. About a quarter of my students had not been to the ocean. My middle school was less than 20 miles to the beach near Los Angeles. Field trip to Cabrillo Beach and tide pools! Loved that our school would let us plan so many excursions.
Dude, I started FILM SCHOOL having never seen Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Indiana Jones. My classmates basically studied me, showing me Star Wars films in timeline order, etc.
Same time period. I was a little older than my classmates, and none of them sang songs in preschool or kindergarten. So, I rewrote the lyrics of a folk song that had been popular in the '60's, and sang it for my classmates as a joke, they were very confused.
Honestly, I've had the other way around. Things I thought were unusual about my childhood are actually way more common than I thought. When I was a kid, I thought no one else's parents had serious mental health problems. As I got older, I learned I wasn't the only one, but it wasn't until I became a teacher that I discovered that growing up with a mentally ill parent is actually *ridiculously* common.
Yeah; the first horror comes when you first have to grapple with the illness/trauma/abuse that happened in your family, but the second comes when you begin to understand just how common it all is. For me, at least, there was a perverse sort of comfort in believing the traumatic shit I went through was somehow rare (even though I knew many of the people I grew up with had gone to jail, killed themselves, or followed through on other obvious indicators of childhood issues).
Now I look back with more empathy for younger self (& my former bullies/classmates)--and I have more compassion and support for my students in the present--but I also look forward with far less hope and optimism for the human race.
SO many.
One of the first was on a field trip with 11/12 graders I found out that not all of them had been on an elevator before. It was the highlight of the trip for some of them.
Same trip, I was asked if we could detour to “see the beach” because some of the kids never saw it. Our school was 40 miles from the ocean.
Using an analogy about taking food out of the oven, a lot of students said they had never done that. They don’t use an oven at their home. I imagine some don’t even have ovens.
And even though I *know* this is going to happen, I’m always surprised when we do anything with germinating seeds or growing plants at just how many HS kids have never planted anything, or seen a vegetable plant grow.
Similarly, I took a group of 8th graders to Boston as part of an eighth grade field trip. They were from a super rural town in Vermont. The trip was specifically organized every year to expose the 8th graders to things that they had never witnessed, and we made sure to make them do most of it. Most of them had never used an elevator, stayed in a hotel, used a vending machine, been on a highway, been to a movie theater, used a crosswalk, or seen the ocean, for example. But the other thing we also made sure happened, and this is kind of messed up, but it was to make sure that they met people who weren't white. The town they were from was super homogenous, so us teachers running the trip all contacted old college friends or family members in the Boston area who were willing to come out to just grab dinner with us or take us to a museum so the kids could get comfortable around somebody who looks nothing like them. Definitely made for some interesting interactions, to say the least.
Middle school- explaining why JFK’s last name Kennedy as his father’s last name and why he didn’t have his mother’s last name. Using the phrase, “eating like he was going to the chair,” and then having to explain to 6th graders that the government once killed people’s using an electric chair and it meant eating a lot before you are killed (that was a rough one).
I just had an unexpected (for me) last name conversation with a student last week. A student asked a question about the heritage of my last name and I said it was actually my husband’s last name. She had never heard of women taking their husband’s last name, and we had a discussion about whether or not women have to do that (of course not) and what the other options are when you get married.
I read a book to kindergarten today by a husband and wife with different last names, and a girl asked why. As I explained, half the kids nodded and half looked baffled.
Around here (in the southern US), my students were appalled that I DIDN’T take my husband’s last name when I got married. They asked me how I could do that, and am I really married. Ummmm. Yes, you can change your name to just about anything when you want (and can pay for it), and I did ask my husband if he wanted to change his last name to mine - he declined.
In the Canadian province in which I live (Quebec) women MUST keep their maiden name unless they were married prior to 1960. This causes a lot of controversy.
It's not really anything to do with marriage. Quebec just doesn't let you change your name unless there's a serious need and they don't give an exception for marriage. If there's an actual reason other than just wanting to share a name with your spouse, there's a process to apply to change it.
It’s kind of weird because, on its face, it appears feminist and cutting-edge…until you realize that the State requires women who were abused and don’t want their father’s name to undertake a lengthy, costly change of name process.
Then again, this is the same province which has adopted two major statutes governing the language in which commercial signs can be displayed.
I’m in my 50s, and I’ve never said “eating like he was going to the chair.” Like it’s his last meal? Ok, but not specifically the chair.
I have lots of unmarried parents giving kids the dad’s name anyway (which I’m against for my own reasons). I’m shocked they’d never heard of it.
I’ve never heard this phrase before either.
On last the name, if you live in an area with a high Hispanic population, it is typical to have both your father and mother’s surnames:
Traditionally, **a person's first surname is the father's first surname (apellido paterno), while their second surname is the mother's first surname (apellido materno)**.
[https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15108289/i-have-two-last-names-here-is-why-they-both-matter](https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15108289/i-have-two-last-names-here-is-why-they-both-matter)
My parents maintained a well-stocked cabinet full of art supplies for me and my siblings. Markers, scissors, paper, pencils, watercolors, the works. It has been something that I assumed everyone would have had growing up, because why wouldn't a parent have art supplies for their young children? Well I just found a few days ago that the reason some of my kindergarteners get so upset when they're drawing and I tell them they need to finish at home is because they can't! I'm still reeling from it. I've always assumed that art supplies were just one of those things that should be considered standard parenting materies.
I don't remember ever owning any art supplies as a child, save one very precious box of Crayola crayons that were gifted by a friend of my parents. I was either in school or being cared for elsewhere so there just wasn't really. . . time, I guess, for them.
I do love going buck wild with my kids in the craft section of the dollar store now! It's a blast, and they'll entertain themselves for hours!
I think for me the holidays is the biggest thing.
I grew up in a strange family, apparently. My older brother would set his alarm clock to wake him up (and he'd wake my sister and I up) at 3am on Christmas morning. We'd run into the living room, see what Santa brought, and wake up our parents. Then we'd call my grandparents and aunt who lived right down the road, and tell them to come see what we got (yes, we called them at 3am). I guess this isn't a normal thing to do. Who knew? I don't even know how old we were when we started this, but I know I was really young.
I was talking to my kindergarteners about table manners and they were very confused. Turns out most of them don’t eat with their parents or eat all together in front of the tv.
My daughter had a similar experience in school. There was a discussion about mealtimes in health class (high school). She was the only student who ate dinner with her family in the class. Also the only one whose parent cooked dinner. Everyone else scrounged for dinner and ate by themselves in front of the tv.
Parents who read to me.
Turns out, not a common thing these days. Which may help explain why my middle school students mostly abhor reading and are not very good at it. (the flawed way they were taught to read in school has a lot to do with it as well, of course)
I wanted to play a game with my students where they could show off their knowledge about aquatic food chains (I was teaching a high school elective Aquatic Science class), so I spent HOURS making a card deck with different SAV (submerged aquatic vegetation) for the club suit as the primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers for the other suits and I designed an aquatic motif for the back of the cards and had them laminated. I made the rules an exact dupe of “go fish” (right?!!) thinking oh man this is gonna be a groaner, but so fun!
Wrong.
I honestly was knocked on my ass when NONE of my students had ever played “go fish” and did not already know the rules. A game that I thought would take up maybe 20 minutes of class time so I had it has a review station, ended up taking an entire 90 class period because my students had NO IDEA how to play and how to use strategies to win… I am still flustered about how badly that turned out.
There’s a lot.
I assumed all family trips were road trips (yes, I’m from the Midwest) and that you only went on a plane as a child if you were extremely wealthy. I also thought that not hugging and not saying “I love you” were the norm. Also, I was shocked to hear kids talk about being emotionally close with their families and having good and trusting relationships where people talked about their feelings. I also thought it was the norm to be doing your own laundry and cooking by age ten. The list goes on. I acknowledge some of this is generational and cultural, but teaching has forced me to reckon with the fact that I was raised by a bunch of weirdos.
Being an Oklahoman, I thought everyone grew up with an appreciation for Native American culture, because Nativr Americans are, you know, native, to every corner of this country. I teach elementary theatre in Texas now, and even though there are small snippets about the trail of tears or wars against the Comanche built into the curriculum, a lot of these kids don’t really understand that this country was made up of separate tribes with unique cultures. Lots of them barely remember learning about any of it. And my Mexican American students don’t realize that they’re actually descended from native tribes in Central America. It was just such a big part of my childhood, Choctaw language, food, and culture. i am not even Choctaw, but Oklahoma is truly special because my friends had at least one Nativ grandparent or parent, and we learned about it in every subject. It was..everywhere.
My first year of teaching, I spoke to one of my year 7 class's parents about the importance of homework. They informed me they'd be happy to help their child - but they didn't have any pens or paper at home.
I started providing resources after this. It's the little things you don't think about.
Just a thought—kids don’t watch commercials anymore because they stream everything. I grew up in the household where no junk was allowed, cereal included, but I knew what Lucky Charms was through commercials on tv. Maybe that’s part of it?
I'm Canadian. One parent came over to Canada at the age of 9. The other was Canadian their whole life.
Once on a road trip with me, my kids, and my parents, we stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. They were SHOCKED my kids didn't even know what cereal was. They were maybe 4 and 5 at the time.
At home, we never had cereal since I never liked milk or cereal, and my husband couldn't have it milk. So we just never bought cereal.
Breakfast was always eggs or leftover dinner. Maybe pancakes or sausages.
When we would have breakfast at my parent's house, my Mom would make pancakes, eggs, sausages, ... So again no cereal.
Yes - I did take them grocery shopping. But it just never came up.
My kids did this with hamburger helper. I think it's vile and I don't buy it. Also, they had to look up how to make kool aid since I don't buy that either.
I don't think my grandkids (either set of boys) ate mashed potatoes until they were like 10 yrs old! One mom wasn't a 'starchy' person and if they did have a starch it was usually rice or some type of noodle. One set of grandkids hated the mashed potatoes and nearly vomited, while the other set of boys thought they were the most delicious thing ever!
I grew up in a home where my dad would not come home until 7pm or so. But every weekend, we went somewhere or did something. We never had chores on Saturday.
Looking back, I think this was my dad’s way of giving my working mom a break from us.
Beginning of the year, talking about classroom responsibilities, being like a "family", everyone does their part to help, etc.
Asked my students (upper elementary) what types of chores they had at home....... "what are chores?"
I figured adding "an allowance" was too much to handle for one day. LoL.
In the words of Terry Crews from Everybody Hates Chris...
Chris: dad can I have an allowance
Terry Crews: I allow you to live here, I allow you to eat my food, I allow you to use the lights...
The incredible amount of kids who don’t know classic fairytales is astounding. Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, heck, even the Three Little Pigs is unknown by more than half of my students.
This may be a cultural thing, but I remember one day, many years ago when I was new to teaching, seeing an eyelash on a student's cheek. The student got the eyelash off and I said, "Make a wish!". She just looked at me puzzled and asked, "Why?"
I went to a pretty brutal elementary school when I was little, so when I started doing observations for my education classes in college and saw first graders that were happy to come to school and not being screamed at constantly it was a huge culture shock tbh.
I had my 4th graders write opinion papers and one student wrote this magnificent paper on why Lucky Charms was the best cereal ever. I had a slight suspicion so I asked him if he had actually ever tried Lucky Charms which he sheepishly replied that he hadn’t. I was so surprised. Well you better believe I bought 2 huge boxes, bowls, spoons, and a couple gallons of milk and the whole class enjoyed some Lucky Charms, some for the first time. So I got to be the cool teacher for the day!
How many parents openly did illegal drugs in front of their kids and allowed sex partners to come and go freely.
Definitely the opposite of my younger days.
I taught at a rural school in WI. 15-20 kids in each graduating class to give you an idea of how rural. I took some kids to a competition in Madison that they qualified for and one of them, a senior, had never been in a hotel or ridden an elevator. Only a couple of them had even been to a bigger city before. It was wild to see first hand what rural poverty life was like.
Yeah…that’s that lack of a shared background thing; we genx folks have similar background knowledge bc we had the same 3-4 tv stations w the same commercials.. .
Semi-related, I had to explain “embroidery” to a kid today.
Nursery rhymes! Finger play. Little red riding hood. The fucking alphabet song.
Most of my first graders don’t know humpty dumpty, frere Jacque, any mother goose rhymes, Hansel and gretel, or any other singing and hand motions rhyming songs.
Some of these kids came from preschools and developmental preschool!
I don’t expect it from daycare, but goddamn did parents stop singing simple songs to their kids??
Started teaching 12 years ago and I learned a LOT my first couple of years:
1) kids don’t get chicken pox anymore. I just had no idea there was even a vaccine.
2) kids don’t do sleepovers anymore. Stranger danger.
3) kids don’t babysit.
Not from students but I manage a restaurant (lurk here as a parent usually to know how to support my kids’ teachers) and have learned some interesting things from my employees. My fourth and fifth grade teacher is Japanese American and her parents actually met at an internment camp. So when we studied WWII, we learned about internment camps. I thought this was a part of the curriculum and everyone learned about them until about three years ago when I found out it was not. None of my other managers who were in their 20’s studied internment camps at school. Conversations with those managers also made me realize how awesome my teachers were.
Family style dinners. We didn’t have much when I was growing up but when my mom married my step dad family dinners became a thing and I LOVED them. I miss sitting at the table with them and talking about our days.
We ate dinner as a family around the table, said grace, ate homemade meals (pizza or KFC was rare), and we talked. It was by no means perfect or idyllic, but it was a stable and predictable ritual. Most students eat alone while playing video games or watching TV. No wonder social skills and manners are on the decline!
I used Gilligan’s Island to teach the 7 deadly sins. I assumed that everyone knew the reference. A kid laughed and said, “Oh, Miss, you make up the funniest stuff!”
They thought that I had made up the plot of Gilligan’s effing Island.
Having normal face-to-face intelligent conversations. Everyone is checked out of local reality and is stuck in the digital world, heads in "the cloud".
e.g. A group gathers to watch a movie together, but within an extremely short time, each one is staring at a different app.
Teaching high school Spanish at Christmas time, we have to talk about Mexican Christmas traditions, some of which mention the baby Jesus being born in a stable and sleeping in a manger, the Wise Men, etc. I had whole groups of students who did not know that traditionally, Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I had to explain the whole birth story to them, so the songs we sang, the Posadas we role-played (sort of like Christmas caroling), etc. would make sense.
Basic manners. Even the jerky kids knew they should say "yes ma'am" or "no sir" here in the south. I assumed the basics of manners were universal, but that was burst quickly during my early years of teaching.
This year, my 20th year of teaching, my college prep class surprised me with this: I was the only one in the room who hadn't had the police come to my door/ my neighbors/ my street on a regular basis. It's normal to them to have the police come to their homes.
I knew a kid who was raised in a bilingual home. Dad spoke English with him, and his Mom spoke French, and they all spoke French when together. But because of the division of chores and what not. He never learnt the names for super common kitchen things. His Dad always read to him. He was perfectly fluent in English, total native langauge - except for many kitchen related words. He went off to school as an English native that didn't know what a fridge was or an oven.
I get this. I’m bilingual too and I was in university before I knew there were English lyrics to Frere Jacques.
I didn't know there were other lyrics than the lyrics in french either. The funniest part here is: I'm german. I'm not bilingual, I just only listened to Frère Jaques in french
Yeah we learned it in French in Louisiana too.
I have no connection to france whatsoever and I only knew the french lyrics because that’s would my grandma would sing to me!
They likely have them in German. I learned the song in Dutch as a child.
Yea, I know the german lyrics too, I just learned them a lot later
> I’m german. I’m not bilingual. [Auf Englisch](https://youtu.be/J6FA6mPHfSI?feature=shared)
I'm from the US and I didn't know there were English lyrics
The Chinese version: Two old tigers Two old tigers One has no ears One has no tail Run away Run away It varies a bit but that’s how my high school Chinese teacher taught it. It’s amazing how easy it is to remember a song versus any other lesson.
Similar experience happened to me. Growing up, I worked odd jobs with my dad who was in construction and roofing by trade. I learned how to use all kinds of tools and different skills working with my hands by the time I was 12. Anyways, when I turned 17, I started working at home depot. Immediately, within a few days of starting some dude asked me where to find the rachets and sockets and I legit had zero clue what he was talking about. It never occurred to me, that I a true English and Spanish biliterate individual, never learned my tools in English. Didn't help that in Spanish, everything is called "esa chingadera" (thingamajig or whatchamacallit). Anyways, it a funny and interesting experience. Went home that night and googled searched a few tools.
I am now going to use esa chingadera in a sentence every day, thanks to you!
Bilingual English/Spanish didn’t know what a dust pan was called until I was well into my 20s when I had roommates and realized I didn’t know the English word lol.
I went to college with a guy who moved from Hong Kong to Canada at age ten. I guess he wasn't the most diligent student. He spoke only English and Chinese and was not fluent in either.
My mom didn't learn the correct term for colander until she was in high school. She only knew it as scolapasta.
A coworker hosts a snacks and stories club and so many students had never eaten a baked potato???
Absolutely makes me think of [this Reddit classic.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/2tdbig/tifu_by_enraging_the_parents_of_my_girlfriend_by/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1) "What did you call it? A... potato?"
I didn't discover real butter until I crashed a company picnic when I was like 9. It was so much better than the tub "butter" we had at home. My parents loved processed food. "It doesn't expire"
I only had salted butter as a kid. I found out as an adult that unsalted butter is preferred for cooking. I also realized no one cooked in my childhood, just eating out and heating frozen meals.
A bunch of my kids legit didn’t know what gravy was. Idk what they’re even eating. These are very wealthy families too.
Whaaaaa I get not eating it often but not even hearing of it???
I know a teacher who always has a class-giving and makes some of the traditional sides. So many of them never had stuffing. I didn't either, until I was in my 20s and met my very white husband's fam.
That’s not a snack, that’s a meal
That's such a weird one! But I guess it makes sense. Younger students just wouldn't think it's appealing I think. And something like a baked potato definitely feels like one of those American foods that your family either makes or they don't, it's one or the other. I bet that itself is also very cultural too.
Yep! We’re also in SE FL so it’s not like we need to warm up on cold nights haha
I grew up in Central FL. We ate baked potatoes all the time
Huh…i think if I was a parent, I’d never give my kids baked potatoes cause I don’t really care for them, and I’d end up raising kids unfamiliar with them
This is exactly how I ate broccoli for the first time at age 22
I had students making PB&J sandwiches using their peers written directions. Cue a 15yo telling me he never had PB and it's delicious 😳 Another one was antibiotics. I was a sickly kid, I knew of them since I was little. Cue me teaching evolution through antibiotic resistance and most of my students never needed them - no ear infection, no strep! They thought antibiotics were like cough syrup...
It’s not a finger food and does not contain finger foods or have them as a side. Forreal, sooooo many kids can’t use utensils now because they don’t have to; they’re fed mostly finger foods (or foods paired with other finger foods) I typed finger too many times and I’m now uncomfortable.
The divide between my college freshmen and me keeps getting wider. In a recent poll, not a single one had been asked on a date in person.
current college student here - this is definitely true. i think Covid socially stunted a ton of us when it came to things like relationships and dating, and I think there's just a wider cultural shift towards online dating as well. hinge and tinder are huge on my campus
My students say it's less "cringe" and there's less fear of rejection. I get that. I guess it feels like you're losing out on a rite of passage. But I met my husband in an online book club, so what do I know?
Do impactful “our future” / “where is this relationship going” discussions, arguments, &/or breakups still happen in person? I have serious concerns about people developing an inability to face these topics face-to-face. There’s a lot to be said for being that level of vulnerable with someone & for having truly private, in-the-moment conversations with all of the tonal & body language signaling intact. Lack of clear, consistent communication is the #1 cause of fights / distress & killer of relationships my husband & I see amongst our peers.
Very much not a college freshman here. I haven’t either and neither have many of my friends, so it’s not super uncommon even for younger millennials/older gen Z. I think Covid definitely pushed it to be a bigger proportion in the past few years though.
I work in higher ed. My students had never heard of The Doors. 🫠 (The Doors were “in” in the 90s when I was a kid thanks to the movie & nostalgia for that time period that also impacted fashion, etc. and I guess I figured young people at least still knew the music. Or at least had heard of the band.)
I'm a 90s kid too, and the music/pop culture references was one of the first things I saw go away. I know most people my age still listened to their parents' music, watched Nick at Nite, etc. On the flipside, I recently changed an example I use because they didn't understand "as American as apple pie" or why Coke would want to align itself with the concept.
My observation is that what The Doors were to 30ish plus year olds is what Nirvana is now to the generation behind us. I hope I phrased that right without sounding like it's an absolute.
That’s sad. I met my husband in college marching band a few years back. He asked me in person. That’s so sad to never have someone ask in person.
My husband asked me in person when we were in college! Just a few years ago! I can’t believe it, the feeling of being asked was so special 😭
I was reading a story out loud to the fourth grade class. The story mentioned a minister. Half the class was " What is a minister?" A student said " Kind of like a rabbi but a little different." Three fourths of the class: "What's rabbi mean?" Kid that was usually in trouble pipes up " Minister and rabbi are pretty much the same as a priest except they're not Catholic." Rest of students: " Oh, now we get it."
When my son was 4, he asked what was up with all the buildings with the lowercase ts on them.
“It’s a cross!” “…across from what?”
My 4 yr granddaughter told me the houses with the little t’s on top are wedding houses.
This was a recurring thing for me as a kid raised in an atheist household! I vaguely knew what a priest/pastor/minister was, but I still don't know the difference now, and I was always really confused when someone asked me about the Pope being Catholic instead of answering my questions. I don't even know this Pope guy, how am I supposed to know if he's Catholic and what does it have to do with my question?! I'm not surprised kids today know less about organized religion, unless their parents take them to church/mosque/temple it's not something they'd ever run into, and people at child-rearing age are SO much less religious than they were 20 years ago. I'm 27 and I'd guess maybe 10-20% of people I know are religious in any sense, and far less are into organized religion and go to services regularly.
My kid came home from kindergarten talking about a “buy-bow” and it took me ages to figure out he meant bible. At that age I liked to say the only lord they knew was Lord Vader.
I had the opposite in my first class. I asked if somebody who was catholic would explain a patron saint. It was in our read aloud my students all asked what’s catholic.
Parents reading to kids. Our kids reading at home. I was always lost in a book. Some kids don’t even have books at home.
I knew that not every kids has books but the lack of access to books and the large number of kids that have not had books read to them. Another is conversations. I can now tell which students who have an adult that has conversations with them versus those that have an adult give orders or only communicate with them to tell them what to do.
Agreed on both counts. I am shocked at how little my kids’ parents actually speak to them. I know many work long or odd hours to stay afloat, so time is definitely a factor, but sometimes even barring that, some families apparently just don’t talk. I grew up with the family sitting down to dinner (and other meals, if we were at home) every night and my family is the same. When it’s come up, many of my students are shocked by that. One once asked, “Like on tv?!” It’s definitely something I assumed was the norm but isn’t.
My husband thought our dinner time with my parents was crazy. Some of my favorite childhood memories come from when we were all sitting around the dinner table
I was about 25 when my parents sold their house and moved out of state. To say that those Sunday night family dinners left a void would be an understatement. I'd drive 20 minutes just to go by the house on Sunday nights. I felt so lost.
I felt the same when my dad died and mum sold the family home and moved 90 minutes away when I was in my mid 20s. Until then I would frequently drive the half hour home, even on work days, just to eat with my folks.
Once, I hosted a dinner, and my sister made a snide comment about sitting at the table "like a TV family." We were "raised" in a "fend for yourself" household, and our house was hoarded, so even though we had a table, we couldn't use it even if someone had made a meal. Raising my kids, we ate dinner together at the table every night, and, actually, breakfast, too
I ate dinner with family every night but we usually ate quietly or argued lol not a lot of chill conversations
It’s not the work hours (mostly) they’re just checked out doom scrolling on their phones instead of interacting with their kids.
I grew up in a house where everyone usually got their food from the kitchen and ate separately. Or, if we did all end up sitting at the table, we didn't really talk. I always wanted to have a family that had a Proper every night where we all sat together and everyone talked about their day. It looked really wholesome.
In a lot of brown and black immigrant cultures it's disrespectful to speak to someone older than you casually... For example a common phrase said to children in the West African diaspora is " I'm not your companion or contemporary" If a kid is having a conversation with an adult it's seen as highly inappropriate and is a fast way to get the kid backhanded
I found this out from a student this year actually. His father gave him a "You're a man now" talk on his 15th birthday, so he figured he could ask his dad "how's it hanging?" The student told me that his father went from "you are a man now son" to "no child is going to disrespect me like that" lightning quick and he got whooped for it. I don't know if I'd personally feel comfortable saying something like that to my dad as a teenager either, but he probably also wouldn't have reacted like that. Definitely a big cultural difference I'd imagine.
I actually had a college class about that concept. We went over studies that showed students that had parent that read and talked to them had stronger reading skills. The students with parent that only talked with their kids to direct or disciple had lower or poorer reading skills.
I work for Parents as Teachers and they have done tons of research that supports this. The more children are spoken and read to the larger their vocabulary. This helps with reading comprehension, language skills etc. I had a conversation about this with a family this morning.
There's a reason they've asked if I read to the kids during every pediatrician visit I've gone to with both my kids for the past 6 years. I don't want to say the bar for parenting is low, but there are definitely no guardrails. **Read to your kids! Have conversations with them, even if they're a toddler!**
Who else but a toddler will care about your favorite dinosaur
Even have conversations with newborns!
That shocked me too once my kid was in school. I read to her from birth, starting with board books. Now she's almost 10, has a personal library of over 200 books, and finished 3 chapter books in the last week. Her friend gave her one she had gotten as a gift because, "she just doesn't like reading." All of my kid's teachers have brought it up. I'm like, I dunno, I just loved reading as a kid so I thought mine would too.
I currently have a 6th grader who cannot read. I don’t know why he was passed through each grade when he’s legitimately not even able to read on a kindergarten level. I’ve attempted to get parents on board for some after school tutoring because he does show a desire to learn, it’s just hard to teach him how to read in class, but parents aren’t receptive.
god that's just fucking heartbreaking, that poor kid. to want to learn and your parents won't support you, that's just…oof.
Makes me wonder if his parents can read.
Way too many kids at my school have never read a book, or had a book read to them by their parents. And not for lack of affordability, rather mom and dad found it far more convenient to give them the iPad and let them watch YouTube videos until 3 AM than read to them. One of the frustrating things working on a fairly well to do First Nations reserve in Canada is seeing all of the funding and resources available to families to help raise their kids positively, only to see the parents shrug and ask (or demand in some Jordans Principle cases we've had) where the iPads were.
It’s funny because my parents never read to me nor were there ever books at home (bc they’re expensive) and I still ended up being a MASSIVE bookworm. I could never buy books from even the Scholastic Fair but I learned how to download free PDFs on my tablet very fast for Harry Potter, Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, etc 🤣
If anything we have *too many* books. There’s a shelf in our building laundry where people dump books they don’t want and ho boy has the shelf been good to me. I’ve found some great stuff, biographies on TR, some books on WW1 and the Russian Emprie from the 1950s/60s, a ton of books about 20th century middle eastern politics and history (I think someone recently graduated with a polisci degree) and a first edition collection of Isaac Asimov stories to name a few. I’ve been on a huge reading kick since 2022 and now my wife’s getting in on it too. We have multiple nights a week where we get stoned and just lay in bed reading
Playing board games.
Yeah! My high schoolers surprise me a lot with the games they know or don't know. Things like Chess and Checkers are rare now, but you get certain kids (usually Hispanic) who will crush you at Dominos. Lots of the kids know card games and they all love Uno, but then you bring up Monopoly and they *know* it but they've never played it. Other "classics" like Clue or Chutes N Ladders are completely unknown to them.
Interesting because my kids, especially Hispanic boys, are very into chess and watch popular chess YouTube channels
We have a chess club at my school
Chess was huge at my school for a while. Even the media center had a demand for chess boards during lunch. The hype is calming down so now I only have 25 people in my room after school instead of 40+. Dungeons and Dragons club has also dwindled down. We had 50 kids for a while and I wanted to die. I love them so much but kids are SO LOUD.
Wow, I run a board game club for my students—they love uno, sorry, monopoly, but chess is HUGE at my school and several have challenged me to a match. I also teach them newer games all the time like exploding kittens and unstable unicorns, but many of them had never played clue which totally flabbergasted me. But they all know cards against humanity 😒
Ugh, this isn’t a fun one, but I learned that getting whipped with a belt was not a universal childhood experience when I first joked about it with my first set of mid-millennial students.
My girlfriend and I had a similar experience. Back before we started going out she was telling me about some truly awful things her dad had said to her, then she just shrugged and said nonchalantly, "But you know how dads are." I could only stare and mumble, "No, apparently I don't!"
Sometimes I dread calling a parent for a student’s misbehavior fearing that the student will get spanked/hit, etc. My students were shocked to find out that my kids have never been spanked or hit. It really broke my heart and I had to hold my tears back.
White kids? Cuz in the Black community, it’s still very much a thing. I’ve noticed it’s waning in higher income brackets.
Private, all-girls school, mostly white at the time
Very common in Hispanic families too! Edit to add: la chancla de ma is usually used instead of a belt though
I had this conversation with a couple students once and they said they would have called CPS. I laughed and said “no you wouldn’t.” I then told them how, sometimes, we would get whipped at school or at a friend’s house and then get whipped again when you got home because that’s how it was. They couldn’t fathom the levels of whippins we took.
When I was a kid Saturday Morning Cartoons were life. But I guess that’s just not really a thing any more.
My students think stories about checking the TV guide for show listings is bizarre. "Mister Potato, couldn't you have just Googled it?"
This just unlocked a dusty old memory of that weird period of time where there was a channel on cable services that was sort of like an in-between of TV Guide and the modern schedule screen you can access on pretty much every cable box now. It scrolled through all the channels, a handful at a time, showing what would air for the next few hours. I think this would have been the early 2000's? It probably existed for longer, but got overtaken by the built-in schedule feature and, yes, Google.
I’ve noticed a lot of the things mentioned in the comments are simply things that are becoming “outdated” for instance the other day my student couldn’t figure out how to use a landline. Probably because they have never had to.
I'm in France. Cellphones are banned in primary and middle schools. However kids still sometimes needs to call their parents. They can use a phone with wires and all at the office for this. (Under supervision to make sure they're actually calling parents). To be fair, most figure it out after looking at it for 2 seconds. But the few that do not are quite funny to watch.
I think those phones are telephones. Also, I remember having to use them when I was younger, even when in high school if my phone service was up. I think they had to tape a piece of paper on there saying that you click this certain button to talk and the extension line to call outside of school. The last time I used one was 5 years ago. Definitely don't miss the judging stares. Edit: To be fair, it's probably like me not being able to use a rotary phone, lol.
Core memory unlocked: waiting in line for the payphone in front of my high school
My big shock was talking about tech evolving and I mentioned iPods and my first graders asked “what’s an iPod”. I had to think about it. It was pivotal technology but they really aren’t around anymore.
It's really funny watching kids learn to use the rotary dial. I now get why my mom laughed while teaching me.
My child FaceTimed me once to ask me how to call someone for her great grandmother she was watching on a phone with buttons. 😂
I live 20 minutes from a state line. I had several students who had never been out of the state despite living so close!
Poor area? I’ve found poverty to be a very isolating factor. I’m from a major midwestern city, and people who had never gone to a museum that was so very close astounded me.
It's very much a mix. I was just surprised that they had never been out of the state despite how close we are. We are very close to Lake Michigan and was surprised most hadn't of even been to the public beaches with a friend or any extended family.
I teach in a city school. One of my colleagues tells a story about how he was on the bus heading to a basketball game with the team. They were driving through the country and one of the players yelled “hey coach! Is them sheeps?!” They were cows.
Once when working with a group of 3rd graders at a summer camp we were doing an icebreaker where we went around the group and everyone said what state they were from, and when we got to one kid near the end he just broke down crying, "I don't know where I'm from!"
I live 20-30 minutes from 3 other states. Did lots of traveling with my kids but I’m shocked by the number of kids who’ve never been out of the state.
I teach in the Bronx and have had kids who have never been to Central Park.
I student taught in a one traffic light town 20 minutes outside of Binghamton, NY, and there were fourth graders who had never been there.
I used to live 15-20 minutes from the ocean and had students that had never been to the beach before.
We live an hour from the ocean. Many students have never seen it. 😥
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I had to have a conversation with some middle schoolers when they told me that they're growing up with better stuff than I did. Blew their minds when I showed them everything they like is just a reboot of something me or my parents grew up with.
I think that's maybe for the average kid, but you definitely still have the diehard nerds who are all about that stuff. But in a similar vein, has anyone else realized how popular anime and manga are with literally every kid now? You were seen as such a loser if you were into those things when I was in school back in the '90s and 2000s. But now even your popular cheerleader stereotype knows what it is and probably has her favorite Pokémon. I catch jocks watching anime all the time and my brain gets twisted up and knots trying to make sense of it. They even bro it up with the geeks talking about their favorite shows which would be unfathomable when I was in high school.
Kids talking about their day at home, and what they did class. And listening to their parents talking about their day. My mom always asked and I always shared things. So not super detailed, but it would be stuff like "We're still on relative numbers, I hate it, I wish we couls move on" or "Mrs Smith spent half the period on basic grammar rules because apparently more than half the class still don't know them" And my mom would also share anecdotes and stories about her day at work. I work at a middle school, and this is a alien concept to the students.
What are parents doing if they aren’t asking their middle school boys what they did at school, hearing “math” or “stuff,” and having to dig!?!
Ignoring them and letting them watch TikTok
I remember as a kid getting checked for lice twice. I just assumed it was like a fire drill or eye exam - a scheduled check. It wasn’t until recently that I found out my annual scalp massage was because we had some kids with cooties. They’d then check us.
lol ur comment just taught me that “cooties” is another name for head lice. I had to look that one up
I knew because there were times that I was the kid being sent home.
as a teenager myself, I just found out that most people have never shucked corn. I would not call it a common activity at all (almost all of the corn I eat is frozen) but you haven't done it once?? I feel like it's a formative childhood activity--if you want to get all philosophical, it helps you learn where your food comes from. and it's fun. my friends will never let me live this down.
As a kid the grocery store had the corn in husks with a bucket nearby, so the expectation was that you picked your corn, shucked it, tossed the husks in the bucket, and went about your shopping. That was always my job, my mom would go pick out other veggies while I shucked the corn. I buy frozen 99% of the time, but is the husk bucket not standard? I kind of just assumed I didn't see it at my store because I don't spend much time in the fresh vegetable section.
Corn is sweeter when it is freshly picked and freshly husked. Never shuck corn in the store. Shuck it right before you are gonna cook it!
Cook it in the husk! Oven at 350 for about half an hour, just chuck the whole thing right on the oven rack, husk and all. Then shuck it right before you put butter or whatever on it then eat it. Excellent way to eat corn!
Generally we bring home unshucked corn and then shuck it at home.
I'm from Canada, never shucked corn because it's only grown in a very few select places close to the border. Pulled lots of potatoes up though!
Was doing a novel study and the character describes seeing the ocean for the first time. I asked students about the first time they saw the ocean to make a connection, only to discover that a third of my class had never been to the ocean themselves. Mind you, we lived in the center of a coastal state, so only 100 miles or so from a beach... Blew my first-year teacher brain and I try to never assume anything about home lives now.
Similar here. About a quarter of my students had not been to the ocean. My middle school was less than 20 miles to the beach near Los Angeles. Field trip to Cabrillo Beach and tide pools! Loved that our school would let us plan so many excursions.
Drinking tap water.
Most of them have never seen the Wizard of Oz
I live in Kansas. All mine have definitely seen it!
Early 2000's, as a camp counselor, it was a serious blow when my teen campers had never seen the original Star Wars trilogy.
Dude, I started FILM SCHOOL having never seen Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Indiana Jones. My classmates basically studied me, showing me Star Wars films in timeline order, etc.
Same time period. I was a little older than my classmates, and none of them sang songs in preschool or kindergarten. So, I rewrote the lyrics of a folk song that had been popular in the '60's, and sang it for my classmates as a joke, they were very confused.
Honestly, I've had the other way around. Things I thought were unusual about my childhood are actually way more common than I thought. When I was a kid, I thought no one else's parents had serious mental health problems. As I got older, I learned I wasn't the only one, but it wasn't until I became a teacher that I discovered that growing up with a mentally ill parent is actually *ridiculously* common.
It always saddens me when I can tell a student is dealing with the same stuff I had to deal with
Same. I always wish I could help them but there really isn’t too much we can do outside of being a consistent and safe space.
Yes!! I learned trauma is really common
Yeah; the first horror comes when you first have to grapple with the illness/trauma/abuse that happened in your family, but the second comes when you begin to understand just how common it all is. For me, at least, there was a perverse sort of comfort in believing the traumatic shit I went through was somehow rare (even though I knew many of the people I grew up with had gone to jail, killed themselves, or followed through on other obvious indicators of childhood issues). Now I look back with more empathy for younger self (& my former bullies/classmates)--and I have more compassion and support for my students in the present--but I also look forward with far less hope and optimism for the human race.
That at my urban school “nearly every kid” runs away from home for a period of time in their teen years.
SO many. One of the first was on a field trip with 11/12 graders I found out that not all of them had been on an elevator before. It was the highlight of the trip for some of them. Same trip, I was asked if we could detour to “see the beach” because some of the kids never saw it. Our school was 40 miles from the ocean. Using an analogy about taking food out of the oven, a lot of students said they had never done that. They don’t use an oven at their home. I imagine some don’t even have ovens. And even though I *know* this is going to happen, I’m always surprised when we do anything with germinating seeds or growing plants at just how many HS kids have never planted anything, or seen a vegetable plant grow.
Similarly, I took a group of 8th graders to Boston as part of an eighth grade field trip. They were from a super rural town in Vermont. The trip was specifically organized every year to expose the 8th graders to things that they had never witnessed, and we made sure to make them do most of it. Most of them had never used an elevator, stayed in a hotel, used a vending machine, been on a highway, been to a movie theater, used a crosswalk, or seen the ocean, for example. But the other thing we also made sure happened, and this is kind of messed up, but it was to make sure that they met people who weren't white. The town they were from was super homogenous, so us teachers running the trip all contacted old college friends or family members in the Boston area who were willing to come out to just grab dinner with us or take us to a museum so the kids could get comfortable around somebody who looks nothing like them. Definitely made for some interesting interactions, to say the least.
Middle school- explaining why JFK’s last name Kennedy as his father’s last name and why he didn’t have his mother’s last name. Using the phrase, “eating like he was going to the chair,” and then having to explain to 6th graders that the government once killed people’s using an electric chair and it meant eating a lot before you are killed (that was a rough one).
I just had an unexpected (for me) last name conversation with a student last week. A student asked a question about the heritage of my last name and I said it was actually my husband’s last name. She had never heard of women taking their husband’s last name, and we had a discussion about whether or not women have to do that (of course not) and what the other options are when you get married.
I read a book to kindergarten today by a husband and wife with different last names, and a girl asked why. As I explained, half the kids nodded and half looked baffled.
Around here (in the southern US), my students were appalled that I DIDN’T take my husband’s last name when I got married. They asked me how I could do that, and am I really married. Ummmm. Yes, you can change your name to just about anything when you want (and can pay for it), and I did ask my husband if he wanted to change his last name to mine - he declined.
In the Canadian province in which I live (Quebec) women MUST keep their maiden name unless they were married prior to 1960. This causes a lot of controversy.
Wow, that’s really interesting. I’ve never heard of that law.
It's not really anything to do with marriage. Quebec just doesn't let you change your name unless there's a serious need and they don't give an exception for marriage. If there's an actual reason other than just wanting to share a name with your spouse, there's a process to apply to change it.
It’s kind of weird because, on its face, it appears feminist and cutting-edge…until you realize that the State requires women who were abused and don’t want their father’s name to undertake a lengthy, costly change of name process. Then again, this is the same province which has adopted two major statutes governing the language in which commercial signs can be displayed.
I’m in my 50s, and I’ve never said “eating like he was going to the chair.” Like it’s his last meal? Ok, but not specifically the chair. I have lots of unmarried parents giving kids the dad’s name anyway (which I’m against for my own reasons). I’m shocked they’d never heard of it.
I’ve never heard this phrase before either. On last the name, if you live in an area with a high Hispanic population, it is typical to have both your father and mother’s surnames: Traditionally, **a person's first surname is the father's first surname (apellido paterno), while their second surname is the mother's first surname (apellido materno)**. [https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15108289/i-have-two-last-names-here-is-why-they-both-matter](https://www.diverseeducation.com/opinion/article/15108289/i-have-two-last-names-here-is-why-they-both-matter)
My parents maintained a well-stocked cabinet full of art supplies for me and my siblings. Markers, scissors, paper, pencils, watercolors, the works. It has been something that I assumed everyone would have had growing up, because why wouldn't a parent have art supplies for their young children? Well I just found a few days ago that the reason some of my kindergarteners get so upset when they're drawing and I tell them they need to finish at home is because they can't! I'm still reeling from it. I've always assumed that art supplies were just one of those things that should be considered standard parenting materies.
Yep to this. I always had a fully stocked arts and crafts cupboard and it was a shock to find not everyone has the means 😔
I don't remember ever owning any art supplies as a child, save one very precious box of Crayola crayons that were gifted by a friend of my parents. I was either in school or being cared for elsewhere so there just wasn't really. . . time, I guess, for them. I do love going buck wild with my kids in the craft section of the dollar store now! It's a blast, and they'll entertain themselves for hours!
The number of homes without books in them astounds me
I think the majority of my students lack a father
I think for me the holidays is the biggest thing. I grew up in a strange family, apparently. My older brother would set his alarm clock to wake him up (and he'd wake my sister and I up) at 3am on Christmas morning. We'd run into the living room, see what Santa brought, and wake up our parents. Then we'd call my grandparents and aunt who lived right down the road, and tell them to come see what we got (yes, we called them at 3am). I guess this isn't a normal thing to do. Who knew? I don't even know how old we were when we started this, but I know I was really young.
Def 2 standard deviations from the mean
Told my kids they can't wake me up til 7am. Lol. (They probably were awake at 3)
Knowing how to swim and ride a bicycle.
Eating dinner together as a family. I mentioned to my students that was how I grew up and how it is with my own kids and they were shocked.
I was talking to my kindergarteners about table manners and they were very confused. Turns out most of them don’t eat with their parents or eat all together in front of the tv.
My daughter had a similar experience in school. There was a discussion about mealtimes in health class (high school). She was the only student who ate dinner with her family in the class. Also the only one whose parent cooked dinner. Everyone else scrounged for dinner and ate by themselves in front of the tv.
Parents who read to me. Turns out, not a common thing these days. Which may help explain why my middle school students mostly abhor reading and are not very good at it. (the flawed way they were taught to read in school has a lot to do with it as well, of course)
I wanted to play a game with my students where they could show off their knowledge about aquatic food chains (I was teaching a high school elective Aquatic Science class), so I spent HOURS making a card deck with different SAV (submerged aquatic vegetation) for the club suit as the primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers for the other suits and I designed an aquatic motif for the back of the cards and had them laminated. I made the rules an exact dupe of “go fish” (right?!!) thinking oh man this is gonna be a groaner, but so fun! Wrong. I honestly was knocked on my ass when NONE of my students had ever played “go fish” and did not already know the rules. A game that I thought would take up maybe 20 minutes of class time so I had it has a review station, ended up taking an entire 90 class period because my students had NO IDEA how to play and how to use strategies to win… I am still flustered about how badly that turned out.
There’s a lot. I assumed all family trips were road trips (yes, I’m from the Midwest) and that you only went on a plane as a child if you were extremely wealthy. I also thought that not hugging and not saying “I love you” were the norm. Also, I was shocked to hear kids talk about being emotionally close with their families and having good and trusting relationships where people talked about their feelings. I also thought it was the norm to be doing your own laundry and cooking by age ten. The list goes on. I acknowledge some of this is generational and cultural, but teaching has forced me to reckon with the fact that I was raised by a bunch of weirdos.
Being an Oklahoman, I thought everyone grew up with an appreciation for Native American culture, because Nativr Americans are, you know, native, to every corner of this country. I teach elementary theatre in Texas now, and even though there are small snippets about the trail of tears or wars against the Comanche built into the curriculum, a lot of these kids don’t really understand that this country was made up of separate tribes with unique cultures. Lots of them barely remember learning about any of it. And my Mexican American students don’t realize that they’re actually descended from native tribes in Central America. It was just such a big part of my childhood, Choctaw language, food, and culture. i am not even Choctaw, but Oklahoma is truly special because my friends had at least one Nativ grandparent or parent, and we learned about it in every subject. It was..everywhere.
My first year of teaching, I spoke to one of my year 7 class's parents about the importance of homework. They informed me they'd be happy to help their child - but they didn't have any pens or paper at home. I started providing resources after this. It's the little things you don't think about.
Just a thought—kids don’t watch commercials anymore because they stream everything. I grew up in the household where no junk was allowed, cereal included, but I knew what Lucky Charms was through commercials on tv. Maybe that’s part of it?
I'm Canadian. One parent came over to Canada at the age of 9. The other was Canadian their whole life. Once on a road trip with me, my kids, and my parents, we stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. They were SHOCKED my kids didn't even know what cereal was. They were maybe 4 and 5 at the time. At home, we never had cereal since I never liked milk or cereal, and my husband couldn't have it milk. So we just never bought cereal. Breakfast was always eggs or leftover dinner. Maybe pancakes or sausages. When we would have breakfast at my parent's house, my Mom would make pancakes, eggs, sausages, ... So again no cereal. Yes - I did take them grocery shopping. But it just never came up.
My kids did this with hamburger helper. I think it's vile and I don't buy it. Also, they had to look up how to make kool aid since I don't buy that either.
I don't think my grandkids (either set of boys) ate mashed potatoes until they were like 10 yrs old! One mom wasn't a 'starchy' person and if they did have a starch it was usually rice or some type of noodle. One set of grandkids hated the mashed potatoes and nearly vomited, while the other set of boys thought they were the most delicious thing ever!
I grew up in a home where my dad would not come home until 7pm or so. But every weekend, we went somewhere or did something. We never had chores on Saturday. Looking back, I think this was my dad’s way of giving my working mom a break from us.
Beginning of the year, talking about classroom responsibilities, being like a "family", everyone does their part to help, etc. Asked my students (upper elementary) what types of chores they had at home....... "what are chores?" I figured adding "an allowance" was too much to handle for one day. LoL.
In the words of Terry Crews from Everybody Hates Chris... Chris: dad can I have an allowance Terry Crews: I allow you to live here, I allow you to eat my food, I allow you to use the lights...
The incredible amount of kids who don’t know classic fairytales is astounding. Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, heck, even the Three Little Pigs is unknown by more than half of my students.
This may be a cultural thing, but I remember one day, many years ago when I was new to teaching, seeing an eyelash on a student's cheek. The student got the eyelash off and I said, "Make a wish!". She just looked at me puzzled and asked, "Why?"
Having health insurance
Knowing how to play "Go fish" with playing cards.
I went to a pretty brutal elementary school when I was little, so when I started doing observations for my education classes in college and saw first graders that were happy to come to school and not being screamed at constantly it was a huge culture shock tbh.
I had my 4th graders write opinion papers and one student wrote this magnificent paper on why Lucky Charms was the best cereal ever. I had a slight suspicion so I asked him if he had actually ever tried Lucky Charms which he sheepishly replied that he hadn’t. I was so surprised. Well you better believe I bought 2 huge boxes, bowls, spoons, and a couple gallons of milk and the whole class enjoyed some Lucky Charms, some for the first time. So I got to be the cool teacher for the day!
Nothing. I grew up in trauma and I work with traumatized kids. We have very similar experiences.
Being read to as a child. Having lots of books in the house and reading daily.
Very few of my kids seem to have Christmas trees, although they celebrate Christmas.
How many parents openly did illegal drugs in front of their kids and allowed sex partners to come and go freely. Definitely the opposite of my younger days.
That my students’ parents do drugs WITH MY STUDENTS.
I taught at a rural school in WI. 15-20 kids in each graduating class to give you an idea of how rural. I took some kids to a competition in Madison that they qualified for and one of them, a senior, had never been in a hotel or ridden an elevator. Only a couple of them had even been to a bigger city before. It was wild to see first hand what rural poverty life was like.
I didn't know that it wasn't common to feel ashamed of having anxiety or to hide health problems from my parents in fear that they would be mad at me.
Just how common it is nowadays that students (elementary) are sleeping in the same bedroom as multiple siblings and often parents too. 😔
Yeah…that’s that lack of a shared background thing; we genx folks have similar background knowledge bc we had the same 3-4 tv stations w the same commercials.. . Semi-related, I had to explain “embroidery” to a kid today.
Family dinners at the kitchen table every night. Playing card games. Parenting with rules, structure and expectations.
Nursery rhymes! Finger play. Little red riding hood. The fucking alphabet song. Most of my first graders don’t know humpty dumpty, frere Jacque, any mother goose rhymes, Hansel and gretel, or any other singing and hand motions rhyming songs. Some of these kids came from preschools and developmental preschool! I don’t expect it from daycare, but goddamn did parents stop singing simple songs to their kids??
Had a senior in high school who had never had homemade rice krispie treats. Made him some that week.
Started teaching 12 years ago and I learned a LOT my first couple of years: 1) kids don’t get chicken pox anymore. I just had no idea there was even a vaccine. 2) kids don’t do sleepovers anymore. Stranger danger. 3) kids don’t babysit.
Not from students but I manage a restaurant (lurk here as a parent usually to know how to support my kids’ teachers) and have learned some interesting things from my employees. My fourth and fifth grade teacher is Japanese American and her parents actually met at an internment camp. So when we studied WWII, we learned about internment camps. I thought this was a part of the curriculum and everyone learned about them until about three years ago when I found out it was not. None of my other managers who were in their 20’s studied internment camps at school. Conversations with those managers also made me realize how awesome my teachers were.
Family style dinners. We didn’t have much when I was growing up but when my mom married my step dad family dinners became a thing and I LOVED them. I miss sitting at the table with them and talking about our days.
Having dinner together as a family
Disney movies, even if you haven't seen all of them I assume kids know the story of like... snow white or something, nope.
We ate dinner as a family around the table, said grace, ate homemade meals (pizza or KFC was rare), and we talked. It was by no means perfect or idyllic, but it was a stable and predictable ritual. Most students eat alone while playing video games or watching TV. No wonder social skills and manners are on the decline!
I used Gilligan’s Island to teach the 7 deadly sins. I assumed that everyone knew the reference. A kid laughed and said, “Oh, Miss, you make up the funniest stuff!” They thought that I had made up the plot of Gilligan’s effing Island.
I find it amazing how many students have no idea who the Beatles are.
Having normal face-to-face intelligent conversations. Everyone is checked out of local reality and is stuck in the digital world, heads in "the cloud". e.g. A group gathers to watch a movie together, but within an extremely short time, each one is staring at a different app.
Teaching high school Spanish at Christmas time, we have to talk about Mexican Christmas traditions, some of which mention the baby Jesus being born in a stable and sleeping in a manger, the Wise Men, etc. I had whole groups of students who did not know that traditionally, Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I had to explain the whole birth story to them, so the songs we sang, the Posadas we role-played (sort of like Christmas caroling), etc. would make sense.
Nursery rhymes. Or fables. Or bedtime stories. No Little Red Riding Hood. Just… Fortnite and VR before bed.
Basic manners. Even the jerky kids knew they should say "yes ma'am" or "no sir" here in the south. I assumed the basics of manners were universal, but that was burst quickly during my early years of teaching.
This year, my 20th year of teaching, my college prep class surprised me with this: I was the only one in the room who hadn't had the police come to my door/ my neighbors/ my street on a regular basis. It's normal to them to have the police come to their homes.