In a blistering TikTok rant that has captivated more than a million viewers, a 26-year-old high school English teacher has delivered a raw and unfiltered farewell to the classroom – and to a generation she says has been consumed and crippled by technology.

‘I’m actually leaving the profession. I am quitting. Friday is my last day,’ said Hannah Maria, a 10th-grade teacher who claims she simply couldn’t take it anymore.

In a nine-and-a-half minute spiel recorded during her planning period, Hannah tells the camera that her desks are no longer filled with minds eager to learn but with students scrolling TikTok, playing games, and copying assignments through AI tools like ChatGPT.

‘I really, really, really want to talk about… how technology is ruining education,’ she declares, her voice full of frustration and resignation.

Hannah, who has 2,600 followers, teaches in a district where every student from sixth to twelfth grade is issued an iPad.

Far from helping students, she believes the device has become a weight that is dragging down the standards of education in America.

‘These kids don’t know how to read,’ she says flatly. ‘Because they’ve had things read to them, or they can just click a button and have something read out loud. Their attention spans are waning. Everything is high stimulation. They can scroll in less than a minute.’

Hannah continues to paint a grim picture of the modern classroom: Teenagers who refuse to write even a paragraph, who throw tantrums when asked to handwrite an assignment, who beg to ‘just type it’ – not to save time or effort but to copy and paste answers from the internet or use AI to do the thinking for them.

Harrah Maria, a 26-year-old high school English teacher has delivered a raw and unfiltered farewell to the classroom – and to a generation of students she says has been consumed and crippled by technology

Hannah teaches in a district where every student from sixth to twelfth grade is issued an iPad . She believes the device has become a weight dragging down standards of education (file pic)

‘They want to use [technology] for entertainment. They don’t want to use it for education,’ she says.

She believes the behavior of her high schoolers is only part of the problem. What worries her is the sense that this generation, raised on screens, simply doesn’t care about anything whether it be learning, literacy or even the basics of society.

‘They don’t care about making a difference in the world. They don’t care how to write a resume or a cover letter. They just have these devices in their hands that they think will get them through the rest of their life.

‘I don’t have a lot of faith in some of these kids that I teach,’ Hannah admits, before clarifying that she has taught ‘several’ bright students across her classes.

But for many others she says, ‘older generations have failed them’ by devaluing the basics – reading, writing, arithmetic – and replacing them with high-tech distractions masquerading as innovation.

‘When I was their age, movie days were a treat,’ she reflects. ‘But now, when they say they want a movie, they mean they want something playing in the background while they scroll on their phones and talk to their friends.’

She says she can ‘count on one hand’ the number of students who actually pay attention during lessons in which films are shown.

Her solution is a drastic one – ban technology from schools.

‘I think we need to cut off technology from these kids probably until they go to college,’ she says. ‘Call me old-fashioned, but I just want you to look at the test scores. Look at the literacy rates. Look at the statistics. From when students didn’t use technology… to now.

‘If you can’t read and you don’t care to read… you’re never going to have real opinions. You’ll never understand why laws and government matter. You’ll never know why you have the right to vote.’

She pleads with decision-makers – school boards, superintendents – to look at the data that includes plunging test scores, the national literacy decline, the growing dependence on technology, before making her case for all things analog.

‘There’s nothing wrong with using your budget on textbooks and workbooks and paper copies of things,’ she says.

‘It might be a 20-year plan, but you’ve got to start reintegrating this. You’ve got to start getting rid of the technology and bringing back the things that worked.’

Hannah explains how she didn’t always want to be a teacher but decided to enter the profession three years ago, inspired by her own family who were educators.

She notes how she found the school calendar appealing together with the chance to work with teens.

Hannah even taught digital arts and computer skills before transitioning into teaching English class, even embracing the very technology she now blames for breaking the system.

But between the pay, the behavior, and the disillusionment, she says the system has broken her too.

‘My main motivator for leaving was the pay,’ she admits. ‘But if the experience overall had been better, I could’ve toughed it out.’

Between the pay, the behavior of students, and disillusionment with education, Hannah says the system has broken her too

In the end, she says, the job became unbearable.

‘This generation is really tough,’ she says. ‘And I will admit that I’m just not cut out for it. Anyone who starts now… I commend you. God bless. I wish I was stronger.’

Those commenting on the video appeared to have sympathy with Hannah’s point of view.

‘Bring back computer labs where they learn computer skills and leave the Chromebooks out of the classroom,’ wrote one agreeing with her anti-tech stance.

‘GenZ here, even just being in college online for Covid has made me feel like I’ve declined educationally. My attention span sucks, I don’t know how to study anymore and have lost so many skills,’ posted another.

‘My students won’t even Google now that AI is around. Google means looking at a few websites while AI just tells them. Wild,’ explained a fellow teacher.

‘Just graduated college and started using AI within the last year… I can’t even imagine having access to it in high school – I never would’ve learned, at all,’ a fourth wrote.

In a follow-up video posted after her original take went viral, Hannah clarified she has a lot of respect for the faculty and staff at the school where she works, but maintained she ‘made my bed and now I have to lie in it’ amid a surge of attention over her viewpoint.