Student Slang for Teachers

I’m sitting minding my own business when my son comes in the door from the school bus and says, “Get wrecked.”  I immediately thought he meant that the bus had gotten into a collision with something else and panicked.

Turns out “get wrecked” just means a cooler way of saying ‘oh snap’ about someone or something.  So now it’s his favorite term in the world.

I suddenly realized that I am out of the running for the coolest mom in the world.  I’m starting to hear lots of words and phrases I am not able to place.  I figured if I am feeling that way, perhaps others are too and maybe teachers need to be schooled as well.

Why is it important to know student slang terms?

I used to be hip and in-the-know.  But my now 22-year-old daughter is far removed from high school and college since graduating a couple years ago, which means she’s not really in the loop as much either.

Once in a while if I ask her what something means, she’s there to give me a clue, but mostly she’s more concerned with finding an entry level job in the same field she earned her college diploma (anyone looking for a responsible communications major?  lol).

Speaking of communications, if we don’t know what students are saying to each other in this foreign to us language, we won’t know whether they are being appropriate or not when using vocabulary.

It’s up to the educators to train ourselves on the current lingo so we are able to successfully communicate with our students – and not to mention take an interest in their world too.

For all things slang, check out the Urban Dictionary.  You might find out way more than you bargained for.  Case in point:

But it is a great reference if you hear a word or phrase that is new to you.

As if learning American English wasn’t hard enough for non-native English speakers, learning slang on top of it really takes the cake.  And each region of the world has it’s own dialect and slang terms as well.  Hopefully using the online ever-changing slang dictionary will at least help translate some of those terms as needed.

Could be an interesting high school project to look up and share a word or phrase of the day.

Use student interests to spark a new learning lesson.

List of common slang words presented by teachers

Since I have no current point of reference for where to hear these slang words (I still use “hip” and “janky”), I headed for the one place I knew adults would hear current slang words all the time:  classroom teachers.

I asked our newsletter subscribers and Facebook fans some terms – and definitions – they are currently hearing in the classrooms across the country.  They didn’t disappoint.

Perhaps you will learn a few new ones yourself!  A big thank you to all our contributors!

Of course, in a year’s time, most of these will be replaced with something else, but for the time begin it’s fun to maybe be on the down low (see what I did there?) with the recent trends anyway.

• “Feelin’ some type of way”= upset
• “Salty”= annoyed, bothered
• “woke” = which means cool
• “Pie is SMACK” = really good
• “Legit” = cool or awesome
• VSCO Girl = Wears oversized t-shirts or sweatshirt with Nike shorts. Has Vans, Crocs, Birks, and wears a shell necklace. She also wears tube tops and Jean shorts. She always has a hydroflask. She can’t leave home without a scrunchie and her favorite car is a jeep.
• “Turn Right Here!” = Welcome back from left field.  Popular in my class when someone wasn’t paying attention and said something already said or off topic.
• “Ended your career” = put someone in their place with a good comeback
• “roasting” = say a mean insult to someone else
• That’s the “T” = T meaning information
• “Cringe!” = Something is alarmingly awkward to hear about
• “sksksk” = use to express how unfunny they thought your joke was but still want to be nice and pretend to laugh
• “spill the tea” = share good gossip with someone else
• “Lowkey” = legit
• “That’s anything” = that’s not a big deal
• “Triggered” = Worked up/upset/mad
• “Capping/no cap” =  lying/no lie
• “Bet” = challenge accepted
• “I oop” = I’m out of power
• “broh” = greeting to a friend
• “HMU” = hit me up/text or call me later

Do you know any others that you can add to our ever-growing list?  Please feel free to share them in the comments below.

~Charity