Around the world, Americans are known for being “stupid” when it comes to knowing about things outside of America. Videos circulate the internet of Europeans asking Americans to point out somewhere on Earth, and pick somewhere totally off. Obviously, it is not everyone, but many Americans do not know enough about the world. They aren’t to blame, but the American education system is. This has been a problem for ages, but it’ll only get worse for this new generation of kids. Changes must be made, or we could fail a big chunk of the new generation.

Putting pressure on students from a young age only makes the problem worse. We’ve started having people from colleges talk to children in elementary school on why they should pick the route of college, while the only thing most elementary children pick is their nose. In intermediate and middle school, you have people from the military trying to convince you to serve the country for a couple of years just to get free college. And when you’re in 8th grade, they try to force you into picking an “endorsement” and the only classes they offer are for a career route that ends up leading you to college. Expecting young children to make such decisions about their lives when everyone at that age is indecisive is setting up kids for the wrong things.

With this new generation of kids, some of us call “skibidi toilet kids”, “iPad kids”, or “Gen Alpha,” we must make changes for them before it’s too late. Ever since we were in quarantine, most everything has been online, including for elementary students. Before COVID-19, students only got iPads in middle school. I remember picking up my Chromebook two weeks before I started 6th grade, and my sisters turned in their iPads. While I was in elementary school, all we did was use paper. One of the electives we had was going into the computer lab, but it was only for 15 minutes two times a week. Now we’ve set up their education to be on technology. My younger cousins, who are a part of the new generation, can’t even read well. I’ve always been above an average reading level for being forced to read books as a child, which helped me in the long run, while they are below average.  They cannot write well enough to the point that if they wrote something on paper, it would most likely be incoherent since they just use autocorrect all the time instead of learning to spell. Even outside of school, all they do is sit on their iPads all day, not even playing with real toys. When I see my nieces and nephews who have just turned into toddlers or are literal babies, they always have someone’s phone or iPad with them since they’re so used to watching things like Cocomelon or other shows that are so over-stimulating that it acts as a drug stimulant. The second I see my nieces, nephews, or younger cousins doing stuff like that, I grab them to go play outside or play with toys to try and take time away from the screen.

Instead of trying to force kids into a career, we need to teach them about the world. Knowing the basic history and geography of the world is something everyone should know, especially in a country with so much government funding. I have been in class with people, and they will ask, “Where is Germany?” or, “Where is Nigeria?” or some other place that people should know. Americans on the internet constantly joke about how Europeans get mad we don’t know some “random country in the middle of nowhere in Europe,” but many of them can look at South America and call it Africa or say Africa is a country. Many people don’t even know the basic history of the World Wars and the Cold War. I’m not saying you have to be a historian, but learning these things is important. Many people say the quote, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” Which is right, but teaching history and teaching it correctly is important. In some states, such as here in Texas, they would rather spend a whole year teaching us about our state history for the third time instead of incorporating that into U.S. history and giving us a geography class when we’re young or another world history class when we’re older. Instead of having old people in office who are our representatives and really do not care about our youth and people, we must teach these kids so the next few generations of people in office actually understand the world, history, and what to do right.

On the internet, many young teachers who have just started working or teachers who have been in the field for over 30 years are speaking about why they’re quitting. Teachers do not get paid enough to make an engaging lesson for kids to pay attention to and enjoy and have to deal with crazy kids. This new generation doesn’t go outside enough, and their parents keep them on technology all day, and they have lost so much respect. Teachers speak about little children who disrespect them daily, and their parents never reprimand them by grounding them since they’d rather keep them on iPads all day rather than have to deal with their own child. When I first saw this on the internet, I realized this was the same reason I quit volunteering at the mosque to help teach students. Whether it was the classes in the morning or afternoon, I received constant disrespect from little kids, and so did the actual teachers and teacher assistants. I had genuinely given up and just stopped going because I could not tolerate the disrespect anymore. Sure, they’re just little kids, but when there are 20 of them disrespecting you every Saturday and you sacrificed your whole day for them, and their parents don’t even punish their children, you just give up. Most students I had to deal with had no motivation to come, and anytime I tried to motivate them, they would just start screaming at the top of their lungs. I’m not alone in this because I’ve always seen this happen to actual teachers on the internet.

So many things in the American education system need to be fixed for the next generation. Whether it’s teaching without technology, teaching our kids helpful history and geography, or actually leading our kids on the right path. We need to quit instead of forcing them onto one they don’t see themselves in, and how to actually read and write. If we continue with these ways, especially with post-quarantine technology, we will only make problems worse.