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Filed Under Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, SOS for Teachers, The Way I See It
It seems almost everyday at school I hear students using words in ways that confuse me. To my adult ears, it sounds as if the kids are being disrespectful, but they’re not. I’ve learned to check what my students mean to say before I go beserk and give my “That’s so disrespectful speech. I will not blah blah, blah “. It seems I’m not the only one who misunderstands teen talk.
This article made that clear.
Student sent to principal’s office insists it was not a homophobic putdown
SANTA ROSA, Calif. – When a few classmates razzed Rebekah Rice about her Mormon upbringing with questions such as, “Do you have 10 moms?” she shot back: “That’s so gay.”
Those three words landed the high school freshman in the principal’s office and resulted in a lawsuit that raises this question: When do playground insults used every day all over America cross the line into hate speech that must be stamped out?
After Rice got a warning and a notation in her file, her parents sued, claiming officials at Santa Rosa’s Maria Carillo High violated their daughter’s First Amendment rights when they disciplined her for uttering a phrase “which enjoys widespread currency in youth culture,” according to court documents.
Testifying last week about the 2002 incident, Rice, now 18, said that when she uttered those words, she was not referring to anyone’s sexual orientation. She said the phrase meant: “That’s so stupid, that’s so silly, that’s so dumb.”
I’ve heard kids saying “That’s so gay” when what they really mean is “That’s so dumb”. I was very confused the first time I heard that expression. To be honest, I can’t keep up. A word that is in one day is out the next. I’m surprised that it’s still cool to say “cool”- I keep checking just to be sure. I guess some things are just a classic.
I’ve always thought that teen talk was a just another way kids choose to rebel. I’m no expert but Jean Harsch, a crisis counselor at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek, is, and in “Peep This: Teen Talk” she’s quoted saying this about teen talk
… slang is simply another tool they use to separate from their parents.
“Part of it is a cultural thing that they use to understand each other, but mostly, it’s to keep adults out,” says Harsch… Proof of that is in how quickly teenagers drop any expression picked up by adults, such as the expression “24/7.” “I heard a colleague say that the other day at a conference,” she says, “and you hardly ever hear kids say that anymore.”
I’m thinking about asking my students to create a dictionary of teen talk for our school that they can publish. Maybe we’ll publish it on line, or in the yearbook so kids can get nostalgic years from now about the slang they used while they were teenagers. I’ll check it out. Maybe it could be a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gift. (hint, hint) That would be cool. Actually, I could use an internet slang dictionary, but one that is a hard copy so I could browse thumb through it out of curiosity.
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