A mom says her son wants to learn, but his teacher keeps handing him an app instead of an answer

A parent posting in Reddit’s r/AskTeachers community sparked a debate by questioning whether teachers are becoming less available, leaving students who want to learn without the support they need. As first highlighted by Daily Dot, her post quickly racked up hundreds of comments.

The parent started by acknowledging a common theme she had seen on social media, which is that teaching has become tough because parents aren’t doing their part to raise their kids well. She pushed back on that idea. “Maybe my husband and I are the unicorns of parenting, but I just doubt it,” she wrote.

She explained that whenever her child faced academic or social struggles, she and her husband tried to hold him accountable or reach out to his teachers for help. The problem, she claimed, was that they often got no response. To her, teaching seemed to be slowly replaced by apps, making teachers less available to students, though she clarified that she wasn’t lumping all teachers into this category.

The pattern shows up in the classes where he needs help the most

“Our child has had wonderful teachers that do not fit the above description, but it never fails when it’s a class he’s struggling in, the teacher is always unavailable,” she wrote. She questioned whether it’s really just parents creating “disrespectful kids who don’t pay attention and simultaneously blame the school for everything.”

She suggested it might instead be like many other jobs where “people/teachers are slowly burning out and consequently going on autopilot.” She worried this was impacting kids, especially “the ones who actually want to learn even more.”

The parent said she had seen this shift over the past two years, with many of her son’s classes moving to self-paced apps instead of teacher-led lessons. When her child struggled with a particular concept, she claimed the teacher was “unwilling to answer his questions.”

She acknowledged this could be due to staffing shortages or new teachers. “I’m not denying any of the many factors that influence the current educational environment, but this practice of using an online app to facilitate the entire learning environment is not effective,” she wrote.

Similar concerns about screen-based instruction were raised in a recent filing by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which included testimony from parents, educators, students, and child development experts. The filing highlighted the growing reliance on screen-based instruction in K-12 schools and examined the role of the federal E-Rate program, which helps schools get internet connectivity. It comes amid wider scrutiny of classroom screens and cognitive decline.

The filing followed a listening session where more than 280 participants, including 33 speakers, shared their experiences with school-issued devices, educational technology, and exposure to inappropriate online content. Parents also described the hurdles they faced when trying to opt their children out of digital learning.

“As a mom of six, I know how important it is for parents to have a say in how technology is used in their children’s education,” said Arielle Roth, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator. She added that they heard from parents and teachers who believe “the widespread use of screens in classrooms is undermining children’s learning and development, often without meaningful parental consent.”

Roth said federal rulemakings are often “dominated by companies, consultants, attorneys, and lobbyists with the most at stake financially,” while parents and teachers struggle to be heard. “Federal subsidies should support children’s education, not undermine parents’ ability to make decisions about what’s best for their children,” she stated.

Speakers at the session worried that the adoption of one-to-one devices and EdTech products has moved faster than the evidence supporting their educational effectiveness. They also felt schools weren’t able to provide meaningful oversight, and parents couldn’t exercise proper consent.

A recurring theme was that E-Rate subsidies might be facilitating routine screen-based instruction without enough accountability. Many urged the FCC to consider making E-Rate support dependent on schools offering parental opt-out rights and alternatives to mandatory digital instruction.

Parents also detailed the limitations of school internet filtering, including instances where children accessed inappropriate content despite safeguards, and raised concerns about the influence of EdTech vendors on school procurement decisions. The effort is part of the Trump Administration’s broader push to prioritize parents and children when it comes to screen use in K-12 education.

Back on Reddit, other users weighed in on the original post. “Yes, it’s partially parents. It’s also schools not having real consequences,” one commenter wrote.

The commenter suggested bringing back detention and in-school suspension in elementary school, without corporal punishment, using ideas like “cleaning blackboards, writing an apology letter,” instead of “a sticker chart for good behavior.” They added, “Disrespect needs to be socially reprehensible and corrected at the time and place it occurs no waiting til the parent/teacher conference next month.”

The original poster concluded by praising the teachers who are doing a fantastic job, making it clear her post wasn’t meant to criticize them universally. She expressed her love for education and teachers but said she disliked seeing children “left behind or ignored when they wanted to learn.”