Often said to be as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, students today, according to a study done by Moritz Breit, are less intelligent. At Hayfield this decreased concentration and intelligence is evident in the drop of attendance, with strict enforcements such as tardy sweeps trying to keep kids in class where they’ll hopefully gain back some of what was lost during the pandemic. To see what teachers think about their students attention levels and intelligence, an anonymous survey was conducted on various Hayfield educators. Here is what the results said.

“Have you been teaching high school since before COVID?”

“Do you notice that students have less knowledge of basic foundations such as math and English than they did before COVID/whenever you started teaching? “

“Do you notice that students have a short attention span when completing assignments?”

“Do your students often cheat on assignments/tests?”

“On average, what grades do your students get in your class?”

Clearly, students today struggle with concentration and being true to the honor code during class time. However, teachers say that despite this their students maintain good grades. Whether this is because intelligence in schools hasn’t noticeably decreased, or because of the use of AI and cheating, it’s hard to say. The student body at Hayfield has a long way to go to rebuild their learning skills, but this can start to be done by the awareness that most students today struggle with concentration during class time. Students at Hayfield also believe attention spans and intelligence to be lower than previously.

“I definitely don’t think underclassmen have established focus like upperclassmen do,” said Senior Neia Anne Javier-Dizon.

“I think because [underclassmen] missed out on the study skills they were supposed to learn during 5th and 6th grade, there’s no connect between learning and putting learning skills to use, which could also make them turn to AI,” Javier-Dizon also added.