Are the Kids Alright?

I had an interesting discussion with coworkers earlier this month. We were talking about the different cohorts that have walked through our halls. The niceness of the current freshmen was noted, while the sophomores seemed to have more problems on their academic journey than other cohorts. One teacher remarked that hopefully, the sophomores mark the end of the Covid Cohorts. I personally don’t think it does, but it got me thinking about the pandemic and how it messed with kids and teens in ways we might not fully understand.

Main Story: Covid Kiddies

If you’re not online often, or in certain spheres online, you may have missed a viral trend on TikTok months back: Teacher complaining about how students affected by the pandemic are failing. And failing hard. Not just students who got sick, but anyone alive and experiencing the lockdown, online learning, and a severely interrupted educational experience.

It leaked into the mainstream a bit: The Daily Mail and Katie Couric both talked about it on their respective outlets. There are numerous Reddit threads covering this topic, and there is even an entire section on TikTok dedicated to discovering teachers complaining about students (129.9 million posts?!).

The main thrust is that students, essentially, lost a year or two of education, not only because the disruption has been equated to experiencing a massive natural disaster, but also because students don’t seem to be able to make up the losses. They’re kind of stuck and the assembly-line, factory-like systems of education are straining trying to meet standards while addressing this pretty devastating setback.

In Japan, I haven’t had too much difficulty, or haven’t been seeing such massive disruptions because I work in higher ed and I tend to work with lower level language learners anyway, so students behind where they should be are normal for me. I have noticed a few of the students in my classes who seem particularly helpless in the face of it all, however. They seem really overwhelmed and unable to cope with the challenges of university life. Some of them are purely academic: They struggle with reading comprehension (which makes following directions nearly impossible), what is expected of them in regards to plagiarism, and how to manage their time. I’m lucky in that I can recommend they visit our learning advisors, who can help them with academic skills, but not everyone has that luxury.

I can’t even say concretely that these are caused by the pandemic, either. Life seems pretty intense everywhere for everyone nowadays. If you’re online too much, you could easily get overwhelmed by all the terrible news, paralyzed with a sense of helplessness. This can all be a lot for kids to take in and it’s easier than ever for them to find it.

I think about how we frame childhood and how we, as a society or larger community, frame our children’s well-being. Every generation seems to have some sort of traumatic events that the older generations worry about the younger generation coping with: 9/11 set into motion chaos in the Middle East that still has intense repercussions today, the fall of Communism and the Berlin Wall literally reshaped the maps and had many countries scrambling to adjust to the new geopolitical climate, and the Vietnam War saw a draft, anti-war protests, and the National Guard killing students on American soil. All of that’s a lot to process and work through.

As I get older, I find myself more concerned about the general well-being of all young people, not just the students in my direct care and tutelage. They’re getting screwed in many ways that previous generations weren’t. Or is that just bias I’m experiencing because it’s so fresh and real? It’s a lot to think about, and I can’t help but feel the specter of Coronavirus lingers in the lives of all my students. I just hope I’m able to give them what they need from me in a way that lets them forget about the weight of that event for a little bit.

Good Thing: Online Shopping

I’m not a big shopper, but with so many new things out there, and the fact that Halee and I have been getting braver with using Japanese apps and services, we’ve made some pretty choice discoveries.

I’ve been very happy with Playstation’s summer sale - I’ve been able to pick up some games I’ve really wanted to play for significantly lower than I would have otherwise. It feels good and doesn’t make me feel guilty about dropping $40 for a game I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy.

But the real masterstroke was discovered by Halee: Uber Eats, in Japan, allows you to buy groceries from Costco with no Coscto membership. If you have a membership, you get a 15% discount. So, needless to say, Halee went full sicko mode and got us a cooked chicken, raviollis, cookies, fruits, drinks; the whole works! I am very blessed to have this woman as my wife.

Miscellaneous Media

Yes, I have the Elden Ring expansion. Yes, I have been playing. I’ve also been very busy with the end of the semester, and I have just been farting around, exploring the map: My favorite thing to do in the game. I was a bit worried about playing, to be honest. Not because of the crushing difficulty (mother-loving Forbes had an article about it, goddamn), but because the game has changed forever. Sure, I could uninstall the expansion, but the base game experience is a thing of the past. I was super worried about how it would change the lore, the story, the gameplay - things I loved messing around with for hours on end for two years. Would the DLC capture the same magic and keep me around another two years?

It’s still too early to tell, but it’s been OK so far. Still getting used to the new items, the new feel, the new music. I will say I don’t like the starting area’s music, but everywhere else has had the tone right. Difficulty hasn’t slapped me around unfairly yet - I feel that after the balance update last week, my experience has been very smooth. Was it really that different prior to the update? I may never know…

I’ve also posted a lot on my blog: The Design Festa got its own post, finally, and I realized I had a full post written and just needing pictures from my NZ/AUS trip a few years ago. The crowning achievement of a while, however, is the Obon post. Let’s just say there are silly vegetable crafts that I unironically laugh at nearly every time I see them.

There’s also this lovely post from an Australian tech worker entitled “I Will Fucking Piledrive You if You Mention AI Again.” It’s a long read, and some references I don’t get/had to look up, but it’s worth hearing this perspective. I feel there are a lot of people blindly jumping into AI, like so many blindly jumped into Blockchain and Crypto. Lots of charlatans abound, unfortunately.

The summers have been brutal here… already. The hottest months tend to be in August and September, but we’re already breaking into the low to mid 90’s in late June/early July. Pray for us.

I hope everyone is doing well! Don’t be strangers - please reach out and say hello or leave comments here if you’re feeling particularly bold. I hope you’re all staying cool and I’ll write again soon!