I am not sure that it means that kids are hard to teach. There is a dynamic of attention span. The attention span for listening to a lecture is certainly decreasing. This is due to age of media. It is not to be seen as a put down, it is more about the reality of our age.
Humans should be able to concentrate, focus on a subject or task for more than 10 minutes.
![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
It is only reality if we permit the general loss of skills like attention to detail.
What's the point of learning every last detail of a technology if the technology will be obsolete after 10,5,3 years anyhow? Transferrable skills, meta-skills, and flexibility, that''s what you need to survive in a double exponential growth, high tech economy.