High School Teacher Shares His Students' Reaction To Writing A Paragraph With 5 Complete Sentences
As one TikTok commenter put it, "We're cooked."
Drazen Zigic | Shutterstock Reading and writing were always my favorite subjects when I was in school, and I can still remember when I was taught that a proper paragraph had five sentences in it. It was probably around fourth grade, when we were still writing five-paragraph essays and considering them our most intense work.
Fast forward to high school, and I was more than prepared to go beyond the five-paragraph limit. Perhaps I was unique, and it was a sign of my future career, but I really don’t remember anyone complaining about writing paragraphs with five sentences in them. One high school teacher has had a very different experience.
A sophomore history teacher shared his class's concerning reaction to having to write a paragraph with five whole sentences.
The teacher, Eli Carbullido, shared his students’ real feelings about writing a single paragraph on TikTok. He filmed a video with two separate parts. “In a paragraph…” he said in the first, beginning to give his class instructions for their next assignment. Before he could continue, the room filled with groans. “Oh my gosh!” he responded.
The next part of the video showed Carbullido on a different day. “You know what a complete sentence is?” he asked. “Five sentences?” a student called out, clarifying what he was looking for. “Yeah, five sentences,” he said. Suddenly, the room erupted into shocked echoes of the word “five.” He seemed amused as he said, “Could you imagine that? Having to write five complete sentences?” One student called out in dismay, “That’s like a test on its own!”
People who saw the video were understandably worried about these students.
A five-sentence paragraph really isn’t that big of an ask, and TikTok commenters knew it. “This is genuinely scary,” one said. Another pointed out, “They’d have died growing up in the 90’s. We had to write rough drafts AND final drafts.” A third person said, “Y’all, that’s not even half a text to my bestie after a breakup.”
Carbullido’s video was reposted on Reddit’s r/TikTokCringe forum, where it caught the attention of some fellow teachers who confirmed it really is this bad out there. “Recently retired from university teaching,” one commenter said. “The situation is dire. It’s not just an inability to write; it’s the inability to read content with any nuance or pick up on metaphors. Good kids, but completely different than students 15 years ago.”
Another added, “I teach at the community college level, and it is the same issue. It’s painful. And my students elect to be there … Basic critical thinking skills are completely lacking as well as any sort of responsibility or concern over grades.”
Experts offered several reasons why kids might be so unmotivated these days.
Writing for the Child Mind Institute, Danielle Cohen explained that as students get older, social pressure becomes more intense. Often, kids who are academically inclined don’t have strong social lives, so they may hide their skills to fit in better. Neuropsychologist Dr. Laura Fuhrman, PsyD, said, “In middle school, kids don’t want to be different, and they might try to develop an identity that reduces their experience of shame and humiliation in front of their peers.”
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Cohen shared that a student who is struggling with motivation and their academic performance may be facing a learning obstacle that teachers and parents aren’t aware of yet. According to Dr. Fuhrman, “We call it a learned helplessness. When they find they’re not meeting the level of success, kids have a tendency to give up, because whatever they’re doing just isn’t working.”
Then again, some students aren’t experiencing any learning difficulties. There’s really no explanation for their protestations regarding school work other than the fact that they don’t want to do it. Younger generations have learned to rely on technology and have been coddled in such a way that they don’t think they should have to do anything remotely hard on their own. This definitely won’t help them as they get older.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
