Rudeness on the Rise
Students are less civil in the classroom now than pre-Covid.
Canadian teachers say kids are getting ruder. There has been a noticeable spike in classroom incivility since the Covid-19 pandemic, with more students texting in class, speaking over the teacher, interrupting others, yelling at each other, and struggling to pay attention throughout a whole lesson. As one teacher put it, “Manners have gone out the door.”
There is evidence to back it up. A new study from Brock University confirms that disruptive behaviours spiked in Ontario classrooms after the unprecedented period of online learning. Researchers conducted two surveys, one in 2019 and another in 2022. These gathered information from 308 kids, aged nine to 14, and from 101 educators teaching grades 1 to 3.
They found that, in March 2020, only 6% of teachers reported daily incidents of classroom incivility, whereas 42% cited them happening during the 2021-22 school year. Before Covid-19, only 32% said incivility was “moderate” or “very serious”, but that surged to 68% in 2021-22. From a press release, “Nearly all teachers—95%—reported students’ socio-emotional skills were ‘lower’ or ‘much ‘lower’ than past cohorts.”
Lead researcher Natalie Spadafora told The Brock News, “Teachers expressed there was a general lack of respect, with students also not following instructions or caring about the consequences of their behaviour in the classroom. Many students were lacking the basic elements underlining classroom civility.”
This is partly attributed to the fact that, after 135 days of online learning, children either forgot or failed to learn basic rules about how to behave in a classroom setting. Solitary, muted, possibly with video turned off, they were able to act however they wanted without being held to any behavioural standard. They lacked regular routine, teacher direction and feedback, and accountability to their classmates. The result is a glaring lack of social skills and self-regulation.
This is deeply unfortunate. It is yet another tragic loss inflicted on millions of students whose academic educations were already greatly harmed by Ontario’s prolonged school shutdowns, which were longer than anywhere else in Canada and extended past the point that non-essential businesses were allowed to open. These school closures have since been described as a “colossal failure” and are consistently linked to learning loss and negative impact on mental health, including increased depression and anxiety. Now, on top of that, the kids don’t know even know how to act.
We can’t blame everything on Covid-19, of course. There is abundant evidence to show that young people have been struggling with social skills for a while. Dr. Jean Twenge, author of Generations, posted on X recently about employers’ complaints about recent college graduates. During job interviews, 53% struggled with eye contact, 47% dressed inappropriately, 27% used inappropriate language. These are shockingly high percentages, not exactly aberrations from the norm.
But this new research should be a wakeup call to parents who may not realize what a big gap has lingered post-pandemic when it comes to kids’ awareness of social and behavioural norms. Kids desperately need to be taught basic etiquette. It will help propel them further in life because adults like polite kids—and dislike rude ones. Getting them off phones and expecting them to engage with the real world is a good place to start.
Spadafora wants parents to spend more time talking to their kids about how to behave civilly. I agree with her. While teachers could tighten up the rules in class (and Ontario schools could deal with the texting issue by implementing real phone bans, instead of the laughably feeble “ban” that is in place and still lets teens keep phones on their bodies), parents have an obligation to send pleasant, courteous kids into the world.
Social etiquette is not learned overnight; it must be revisited over and over again, and that’s hard work. But the payoff is profound, with kids who are cooperative, trustworthy, respectful, attentive, and just nice to be around. And as Spadafora says, that training has to start from a young age. “Civil children means civil adults, and that’s what we all want.”
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It's not just in schools that these children are misbehaving. It's anywhere. Speaks to basic parenting disintegrating. Schools deserve a lot of the blame, but if the child was at home during COVID, who was not teaching them manners? Parents. Schools deserve a lot of flack, but you can't blame them for kids being disrespectful.
It’s the phones!!!!!!!!!