Teacher apologises over comments ripping into pupils explaining why she quit profession for good
While the life of a teacher might seem glamorous considering the shorter hours and long holidays, the reality is often far worse.
Days spent arguing with teenagers, evenings spent marking papers and unless you're lucky enough to work in a private school, the pay is probably not great either.
We're living in a technological age where kids who use iPads in school are forgetting how to write with a pen, don't know how to tell the time on an analogue clock and seemingly use ChatGPT for every essay they're set, so it's easy to see why some teachers are losing patience with some of the children.
One teacher has clearly had enough, and she shared a now private video on TikTok sharing exactly why she's quitting education for good.
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Hannah Maria, a 26-year-old from the US, went viral last week after sharing her post with over 2,000 followers.
In her video, she discussed how technology was 'ruining education', as she continued to say: "These kids don't know how to read. Because they've had things read to them, or they can just click a button and have something read out loud.
"Their attention spans are waning. Everything is high stimulation. They can scroll in less than a minute. They want to use [technology] for entertainment. They don't want to use it for education."
It's clear that Hannah believes this shift in technology is one of the key reasons why some kids are leaving school unprepared, and she argues that a radical change in approach might be necessary to make a positive long-lasting change.
She added: "I think we need to cut off technology from these kids probably until they go to college. Call me old-fashioned, but I just want you to look at the test scores. Look at the literacy rates. Look at the statistics. From when students didn't use technology… to now.
"If you can't read and you don't care to read… you're never going to have real opinions. You'll never understand why laws and government matter. You'll never know why you have the right to vote."
Since then, Hannah made her video private and issued a response, making it clear that it was technology she had an issue with - not the children she'd taught.
"I would appreciate if the main message that was taken out of it was mostly on how the technology has affected the kids." she said. "I understand that I said what I said, I can't take it back and it's on the internet forever. But it is not that this generation inherently sucks.
"I should have never said I don't have faith in the kids. I think that this kids are capable of anything, they just need proper guidance and tools to do that. That was my message."
She apologised to 'any student that she may have taught' who might have seen the video, adding that she said in her original video that a lot of her students 'really did try' and were 'very bright kids'.
Hannah concluded in the video caption: "I hope that I am clear in saying that it is the technology and AI that is enabling their behaviour and lack of motivation."
Topics: Education, Technology, TikTok, Gen Z
James Moorhouse