kids today: dense or clever?

So today in my class with the first years (freshmen-ish high school age) I was getting a bit frustrated. We were doing simple exercises in which they had to look at a picture and later recall details about the drawing or ask their partner what objects were depicted, etc. My English instructions (though always complete with charade-like gestures) are often lost on them, but even when the professor would explain in Spanish, we were met with blank looks, questions, and poorly executed worksheets and nothing learned, I'm sure. * sigh * These were simple things, really! Then the last exercise: cut each line (a sentence). Then cut each sentence on the lines seperating each word. Later they would have to arrange the words to form the sentence correctly. This took AGES. Partly becuase only about half had brought their scissors along. But partly because they just didn't know where to cut. THERE ARE DOTTED LINES! The cutting process took so long that we didn't have time to do the exercise so the professor told them to guard them until the next day. But they'll get all mixed up! Well, put each pile in a different page of a book or something, he says.
After a few minutes I noticed that most pairs were doing something pretty creative in order to keep the little piles of words seperate, but store them safely. One group was color coding their slips with markers. Another group was making mini-envelopes for each pile. Others were following the advice of the professor. (Still others had yet to cut each strip and thus were spared the problem to begin with...) They each seemed rather proud of their solutions.
It was a good ending to the class. I no longer felt that they were lost causes, all. They may be a bit thickheaded from time to time, but they've not lost their capacity to think. [p.s. do not tell me that they were feigning stupidity in order to avoid work... they really didn't get it. And besides, that would just depress me again, and you don't want to do that, do you?]