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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Hello, Transform Your Teaching listeners. It's Jared. Whether you are new to the podcast or have been around since day one, we want to hear from you. Please take a minute and fill out our quick survey and help us make the podcast even better. Click the link in our description.
Jared:We'd be very grateful if you did. And for participating, you'll be put into a drawing for a handcrafted transform your teaching mug. And we're doing a drawing in the month of October, November, and December. So be sure to participate and help us out. We'd be grateful if you did.
Jared:And as always, thanks for listening.
Nancy:I think a bigger thing that adults can maybe just do better is listen. Just listen. It's different than you were growing up, Mom. It's different, Dad. You don't understand.
Nancy:And we didn't have the technology pressure.
Narrator:This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Jared:Welcome back to the Transform Your Teaching Podcast here on the campus of Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. My name is Jared Pyles. With me is Dr. Rob McDole.
Rob:Good afternoon.
Jared:We are continuing our series on understanding the new college students. We've been talking with some experts in the field to try to paint a picture of what it looks like for the upcoming class of students coming into higher education so that we can be prepared to meet their needs. Yes. In our last episode, we talked with Dr. John Wood from our university here.
Jared:And now we're esteemed to bring on another one of my friends that, again, I've said before, this podcast is just let's bring on Jared's friends, which you are, of course. I'm not saying you're not a friend. Wow. You're the cohost, but you're also a friend.
Rob:This is great.
Jared:My good friend from my old stomping grounds, the senior director of school counseling at Grove City Christian High School, home of the Eagles in Grove City, Ohio, Nancy Gillespie. Hello, Mrs. G.
Rob:Wow.
Nancy:Hey.
Rob:Welcome.
Nancy:It's just fun to be here.
Jared:So good to see you. It's just so great. Big fan.
Rob:So in our last episode, Nancy, we were talking with Dr. Wood, and and he was giving us a bird's eye view, if you will, of what they're actually facing in terms of student services. And he was just letting us know where he has come and his team and staff have come in terms of the students that we have now here on campus. And it's been about what he said it was about a two year process for him to really come to grips with with this reality. And one of the things that he said to us was that the 18 year old is the new 14.
Jared:That's correct.
Rob:Yeah. And so, you know, we want to bring you in because you work predominantly with the K through 12 area based on what Jared has been telling me. And we just want to understand what are you seeing? What are we going to be facing here in higher education with what you're seeing in the K through 12 secondtor?
Nancy:So, gosh, when it comes to mental health, I think kids are just absolutely, it's different. It's so transformational. You know, Jared, it's been a while since you've been in a high school. And I'll just say it's drastically different. It's drastically different.
Nancy:There's no mistake. I mean, now, both the Surgeon General and the CDC have kind of claimed, wow, we're in a mental health crisis for adolescents. And as someone who's in the field directly with adolescents, that's 100% the word, it's a crisis. Anxiety is just at an all time high. Kids are filtering from my office to the nurse's office, and whether that's with stomachaches or headaches or just they shut down, they're not able to participate in schoolwork.
Nancy:Depression is through the roof. I'm constantly in contact with outside counselors, even our local children's hospital, working with their professional team of whether I have students that have to have a stay in there or whatnot. There's just there's a different undercurrent, I would say, and mental health is it's pretty key. And and we're seeing it. We're seeing the effects of that in in the high school level.
Jared:What do you think is this is probably the million dollar question that if I think we could answer it, we'd be millionaires. But what do you think is the primary cause of this spike?
Nancy:So interestingly enough and and and, Jared, this this might have even occurred while you were still here. But there was one year, it was probably around, I don't know, 2012, 2013. I was just like, what in the world's going on? So I actually called our local children's hospital, and just kind of a crapshoot. Right?
Nancy:And I was like, hey. I don't know what I'm seeing, and maybe I'm the only one, but things are just a lot right now with with students. And the person I spoke with was just like, you know what? You're not alone. Let me put you through to our director of behavioral health.
Nancy:And I was like, oh, okay. Like, this guy wants to talk to me. Well, he got on the phone, and we ended up forging this great friendship and relationship. We ended up presenting together at conferences, and and he was like, the data all shows, and he oversees their suicide prevention area. And you could see a giant spike in those kind of that 2010, 2012, 2013.
Nancy:And he's like, what we don't know yet is the why.
Nancy:So, I'm gonna make a big leap, but I've got some interesting little facts for you.
Rob:Oh, we love facts.
Nancy:So the iPhone came around 2007.
Rob:Mhmm.
Nancy:Android, 2008. The like button, 2009. Mhmm. Instagram, 2010. Snapchat, 2011.
Nancy:TikTok didn't come around till 2016. But our young people are spending 87% of their social media time on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. And since 2010, depression has become more than two and a half times more prevalent with an increase of over a hundred and fifty percent from 2010 to 2020.
Narrator:Oh my word.
Nancy:Those statistics came from the book, The Anxious Generation. I don't know if you've had a chance to read that, but it's a fantastic book. And, you know, and a lot of other studies will point to these same time things. So I think social media has exacerbated some of this in a lot of ways.
Rob:So eighty six percent, how much do you know how much time they are spending on these devices?
Nancy:I do. So on average, it's about four point eight hours a day. Thirty seven percent of adolescents, it's five plus hours.
Rob:My goodness. My gosh.
Nancy:So five hours a week, that's, you know, what, seven days a week, thirty five hours a week.
Jared:It's like a job.
Nancy:And that's that it is a job. And so what is it doing? It's taking them away from then their other responsibilities. So less time in school, less time at work, less time in sports, less time socializing in person. So it's a lot of time.
Nancy:Right? That's average time on social media, not screen time. So that doesn't include homework, watching a movie, texting, all that. That that that's just those are social media time. So, Jared, when you ask that question, like, what do you see?
Nancy:I think phones are a big part of it. Ohio has done a lot. Governor DeWine has asked for phones really to be reduced in school. We now have a no phone policy in the high school. Interestingly enough, I've not heard one complaint
Jared:Oh, wow.
Nancy:From students. I mean, a couple of them have gotten caught, but it's it's not... I think they just see it. We allow them to have it at lunch so they can text their boss or get, you know, say hi to mom or whatever they need to do. But we just have to, we need to start engaging again and doing in person relationships. We're missing that.
Jared:Did the pandemic, did it have an effect on that too? Because you talk about isolation and not socializing. Do you see that it's ramifications now in school as well?
Nancy:I do. And we have more students that when they are so struck with anxiety, or just that lack of motivation, they, if they're gonna transfer out, they're going to an online school. They're like, I just need to do this by myself. And despite, you know, some of our best efforts to talk about isolation isn't healthy, and that's not a great way. Maybe you'll do fine academically, but you're gonna miss out on something.
Nancy:Sometimes the socialization's too much. And so I definitely see that, you know, COVID impacted a lot of things. It even impacted the way students study and their ability to even do well in school, to just do school well. And and Jared, you know the expectations here. I mean, while we're a tough school, I don't know that we're, you know, this elite.
Nancy:There's a lot of grace. There's a lot of, you know, we love students. We want to see them succeed. But I track a lot of data, and since COVID, just the rate of failing grades has increased seven hundred percent.
Jared:Wow.
Nancy:Seven hundred percent. So where it was a handful of students that I would have in my office to talk about, hey, you know, your interim grade, you're, you know, below that sixty percent threshold. Now it's easily 60, 70, 80 kids at the quarter or at the interim that we're having to have conversations with.
Rob:Goodness.
Nancy:You know, that COVID gap, I think, is very real mentally, emotionally, and academically for sure.
Rob:Things that she's saying right now are at a Christian school, and that makes me wonder. I mean, I know this from from, you know, stories that I hear from my wife because my wife teaches at a public school. You know, she's been having these conversations with me as we're in the car from time to time. And I'm just like, well, it's a public school. I mean, not to, you know, be dismissive, but there was that sense in which I would expect Christian schools to to do better, to fare better.
Rob:But what she's telling me and what I'm hearing, at least what I think I'm hearing, and Nancy, please correct me if I'm wrong, but you're telling me that there's really not a difference and that this this mental health issue with our students in the K through 12 area is real and it's across the board, it seems.
Nancy:A 100%. And I think perhaps the way we can talk about it is different in a Christian perspective. I mean, we can talk about faith, which is a huge protective factor. We can really engage with families, and that's a huge protective factor. You know, students are all involved in a small group, and they have chapel.
Nancy:So there there are built in things that I think are helpful, and that is certainly different in a Christian school. But the problem itself, it's the same. I mean, everybody lives in the same world. They're seeing the same images on social media. They're watching the adults in their world go a little nuts, like, with politics.
Nancy:Like, everyone just speaks like we're on a giant X, you know, kinda thing, and we can just say whatever we want without any afterthought of that and how that might hurt someone. I think kids see the prices of things. They see grocery bills. They hear parents talking. So there's this underlying fear, I think, that is also pervasive.
Nancy:And regardless of where you go to school, we don't hide those things. Right? School shootings, how many have already happened this year? Right? And so, yeah, I think the mental health crisis, and I think crisis is the right word for it.
Nancy:Like we have to intervene, we have to do something. Otherwise we're just gonna, it will just continue. We're just gonna watch these things continue on with our students.
Jared:So Nancy, me about academic resilience. And we've talked about this with Doctor. Wood. I'm part of a different generation, but at least it seemed like I could go a bit further without feeling stressed out. What are you seeing as far as the resilience level of students right now?
Nancy:I think for our top achieving students that maybe fared through the pandemic pretty well, you know, they maybe weren't hit as much with things at home or family life still maintain, it looked fairly normal for them, and they were high achievers beforehand, they're doing fine. Right? I think they're doing okay. Where COVID maybe hit some families harder, parents had to take multiple jobs, students were left to either work or help care for siblings, that kind of thing. It just it was a shift, like all of a sudden they had to grow up really fast, or they were faced with this hard circumstances or even losing a parent or grandparent.
Nancy:And so I think that just shifted that, which definitely impacts their academics, right, because then they're looking at priorities. And the priority we had one student during during the pandemic that for a while, like, wasn't turning in anything remotely. And I remember contacting him, was like, "hey, buddy, like, are you okay? You haven't shown up on your Zoom classes, whatever." And he's like, "look, I I need to work.
Nancy:I'm working forty hours at Kroger right now because I need to help my family." And so priorities shifted.
Jared:Mhmm.
Nancy:While maybe that student, you know, wouldn't have had to work the rest of their time through high school, I think for many that priority still shifted. Where they began to see maybe the things that they could contribute to were different than school. Why does school matter? Why do I need this? So that conversation is shifted a little bit as priorities shifted.
Nancy:That academic resiliency, I think some have just lost that ability, that executive functioning skills seem to be obsolete or waning in a lot of ways. Part of that is, and I, you know, I always talk to our seniors about this. Don't just click on every link you see, but we want instant gratification. I don't wanna read it. I just wanna click it and it take me to where I need to go.
Rob:Yep.
Nancy:And so it you know, even filling out a college application, students are like, "I didn't I didn't know they wanted this information." And I'm like, okay. It literally says step one, step two, step three. But we're not, you know, we're just we're all like professional. We just scan and click.
Nancy:And so I think that changes then what they're doing in academics. The big thing too, I mean AI certainly has impacted that, because why do I need to put all this effort into it when I just craft a really, really good question in a chat GPT, and I can have the answer instantly. So we're combating, I think, a lot of different things for that academic resiliency. And not necessarily that those things are bad, but I think education certainly has to rise to that level to be able to meet kids where they are. How do we use those tools effectively?
Nancy:Because it's hard. It's hard. But we are all-- I'm a professional clicker. I mean, I just, you know, get where I want to go eventually.
Jared:Right. Yeah.
Rob:It seems like based on what I'm hearing from Nancy and and conversations that you and I have had, conversations with others, that the why seems to be the thing that these students are asking whether they realize it or not based on, you know, why should I do this given I need food in my house? Yeah. So job, it's not a difficult conversation, especially if we don't have a good why for them in the first place.
Jared:Right.
Rob:I'm not saying we don't. I'm just saying you have to be ready for that in the same fashion which they are accustomed to receiving things, which is literally one right after the other. And if they don't like it, they swipe. Right?
Jared:They call it doom scrolling, where you end up scrolling and you lose hours.
Rob:Wow.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:So that leads us to a good question, Nancy. How do we fix this thing?
Jared:Yeah. Nancy, you have all the answers. Right?
Nancy:All of them. All of them. But just all of
Jared:I knew it!
Rob:Alls of thems.
Nancy:Feel like so many things could be cliche to just say, you know, oh, just do this because it's it's definitely more than one thing. And it certainly impacts students in different ways. Some students really aren't on their phones a lot, and they could have cared less that all of a sudden, like, I don't have it except for lunch. And, you know, so their solution would look a little different. I think if we look more systemically, big picture, I mean, the world's just a little bit of a mess right now, and it's scary.
Nancy:So how do we engage in critical and crucial conversations with students and help them to think for themselves and to be able to formulate thoughts? And I don't know that we do that enough. I don't know that they get that enough just from the world because they just Google it, and there's the answer. But how do we engage in conversations? And I think both in a K- 12 level and higher ed, we have such a neat platform to be able to engage.
Nancy:You know, while they're on their phones thirty five hours a week, they're in our building thirty five hours a week. So, okay, we got some time. How do we craft conversations? How do we pour into students in a way that will give them those life skills that they need to go on to college and be successful, go to a job and know how to have a formidable conversation. So I think that's part of it is engaging in that.
Nancy:And I think a bigger thing that adults can maybe just do better is listen. I just think we need to listen. Sometimes they feel misheard or misunderstood. And I would say every generation feels that way. Like when we were all probably growing up, we're like, why can't you just listen to me?
Nancy:And I think this generation is shouting the same mantra, like, just listen, it's different than you were growing up, mom. It's different, dad. You don't understand. And we don't. We didn't have the technology pressure.
Nancy:Bullying looked different. When I was bullied, when I was a little kid, you know, they did whatever they did. And then I got on the bus, went home, played with my neighborhood friends, and I forgot about it. But now it's incessant, and it stays with them on the phone.
Jared:Yeah.
Nancy:And there's a there's a constancy to some of this, some of the hard stuff. And so I think parents need to listen. I think that's a good thing. And not just parents, adults, and adults that are trying to capture that next generation and be effective in K-twelve or higher ed. We we gotta be good listeners.
Jared:It's funny. It came up when we interviewed Doctor. Wood, but teaching the whole student, just your academic area, focusing on the entire student is more important than ever. Yeah. It seems.
Rob:Oh, yeah. Most certainly, I don't disagree because without a foundation, one that is a solid foundation, which, you know, I contend is Christ and the gospel and what we see there and what he teaches, we don't I mean, it's shifting sand. And when these things, these hard things come, things are gonna be destroyed in terms of things we put trust in. And I think that's what's going on for these kids, is that the things that they took for granted they realize are not. And I think that's what the pandemic not just did for children, but I think it did it for lots of adults as well.
Nancy:And I'm glad you said that because I think that's really key too, is a lot of adults didn't fare well for the last five years. And so a student is struggling, mom and or dad are struggling. And now you add in the political unrest, you add in the economic unrest, you add in all these external factors. And so it just, it creates a cycle of dysfunction, right? That's really hard to get out of.
Nancy:And I think a lot of adults are struggling, right? There's a lot. Life can be heavy, you know, and even sometimes in Christian circles, maybe we dismiss that. And we don't want to admit that we fare the same on some of these things, That life can be really hard and we love Jesus, but we don't have all the answers that are just seem tangible and are gonna take away that pain right away. And so struggling parents, I think that's part of the equation as well.
Nancy:That they're hurting.
Rob:Mhmm.
Nancy:And it's teaching the whole student maybe at the higher ed level. And I would say for us in the k- 12 level, it's really engaging with the whole family and that parent and family engagement. It's that's critical and something we talk about often for sure.
Jared:Wow. This is really good. I could ask you 6,000,000 more questions.
Nancy:6,000,000? I need more water.
Rob:Okay.
Jared:Nancy, again, thanks so much for coming on. Let me, ask you one more question, kind of put on your future goggles and tell me, how do you think the mental health needs of students as they approach college, let's say high school students as they approach college? Do you see a change in it or do you see this anxiety and lack of resilience intensifying or just forecast for us?
Nancy:So one thing I think that's gonna be positive is that it's getting more and more okay to not be okay, and to seek help. Help seeking behavior, that stigma, we're getting better. We're not there yet. I mean, for a lot of people, there's it's still private, it's still quiet. We still don't want to admit that maybe we're really struggling with some hard things.
Nancy:I credit this generation with that. They're trying to open that door. And there's a lot of like social justice warriors in this generation and mental health is one of their fights. Right? And so I think that's a good thing that they're really trying to kind of give themselves or their friends or their people kind of agency to to just say, I'm not okay.
Nancy:Kind of wave the white flag and get the help they need. So I think that will be good. I think we are gonna see the pendulum swing in in a good direction once we kinda get phones under control a little bit. I heard this analogy. I thought this was brilliant.
Nancy:I would love to tell you I made this up, but I did not. But if it's similar to, let's say, smoking. So smoking in the seventies. Right? There were smoking sections in schools.
Nancy:There were ashtrays in hospitals. Right? It it was just part of what we did because we didn't know what we didn't know.
Rob:Mhmm.
Nancy:With phones, I think it's very similar. We didn't know what we didn't know. And now that we're finding these things out, and hopefully making some changes, and whether that's big technology platforms kind of changing some of their algorithms, or whether that's parents putting some stipulations, or phone companies having some more safeguards. Whatever that looks like, hopefully, things can can be helpful in in turning kind of this around. So we're just not losing sense of time, not losing sense of self, and we're learning and being reminded of how to engage in person.
Nancy:Right? So I think that's that's important. And I was giving a talk to some of our students, and this analogy just kinda hit me once, and I was like, you know, I think God and his infinite wisdom kinda knew that maybe one day this would be very poignant. And what do I mean that by? Genesis talks about, you know, the one thing that God told us not to do was to eat from the tree of knowledge.
Nancy:Right? And what did we do? We gave every high school kid in America, almost every high school kid, it's well, I think into the 90% of students in America that have a smartphone. And we said, here you go. Here's unlimited knowledge, but there's no filter of wisdom.
Nancy:We need to change that. We need to start again engaging in crucial, critical conversations. How do they think? How do they begin to discern what is good for me? What is not good for me?
Nancy:How do I do that? I think those are all good things. I'm hopeful that I'm a I'm an optimist. You know that about me, Jared. You know, I don't know if that's good or bad, but that's why I believe there is hope.
Nancy:I believe in the next generation. I believe that we're going to see some great things emerge and some really good leaders are going to come from this group of kids that are now kids, but they're emerging into adulthood. I think we're going to see some good things.
Jared:Once again, Nancy Gillespie, senior director of school counseling at Grove City Christian School in Grove City, Ohio. Thank you so much for coming on with us today. So that's gonna do it for us on this episode of the Transform Your Teaching podcast. Be sure to email us at CTLpodcast@Cedarville.edu. Check out our blog at cedarville.edu forward slash focusblog and connect with us on LinkedIn info on how to do that.
Jared:It's in the description. Thanks for listening.