The Kids Are Alright: Teachers Share Heartwarming Stories About Students
People like to talk a lot of smack about the younger generations today. They call them naïve, unaccepting, and intolerant, to name just a few things. But these accusations seem to be far from the truth.
If you don’t buy it, take it from the mouths of the teachers themselves. The stories below come from teachers who came together on Reddit to share the most positive student stories that give them hope for the future.
If reading these doesn’t bring a smile to your face, nothing will. Here are 50 student trends that inspire hope.
1. Waffle Time
They will go out of the way for each other in ways that I never saw growing up. For example, I had a student crying at lunch today because her home lunch was moldy.
As she was telling me this, four others (who I thought were from different cliques) started offering up whole waffles (one of just two served with hot lunch), all of their sausage links, and even half of a seemingly-gourmet, homemade sandwich.
Also, the majority of the kids I work with will stick up for their classmates who are being bullied, regardless of the audience. Elementary and middle school-aged young people seem to be thought of self-absorbed and social media-obsessed.
However, every single day I am genuinely astounded by their insight and resilience, despite their upbringing in a political and social climate which is considerably less stable than the generations preceding them.
2. LGBT Friendly
The vast majority of my kiddos are way more accepting of things like LGBTQ issues, other cultures and religions, etc. They’re not perfect and we still have teasing, but it’s more inner-friend group stuff than it is anything else.
There are a few “out” kids at my school and no one cares (in a good way). Last year a trans kid came out and everyone started calling him by his preferred name and pronoun.
Pretty cool.
3. Teaching With Memes
Sense of humor. I know memes and Vines have made a lot of students lose interest in school but if you can find a way to bring it into the classroom and teach with it, they love learning and can be hilarious to spend the day with.
4. Let Me Be Your DD, Bro
My girlfriend is a teacher and she is amazed at how uncool drinking and driving is. Kids are like "that's stupid you will kill someone..." They literally make fun of kids who do it. In my day EVERYONE drove drunk. Very positive change.
