10 Slang Terms Teens Use That Adults Should Know

Last fall, ESPN ran a very funny piece on how NCAA football coaches did not understand the slang terms of their players. From Nick Saban to Tom Allen, coaches admitted that the terminology their youth athletes used to communicate was a little like a foreign language to them. Sometimes they said it felt like they needed a translator to explain what both sides were saying.  You may just feel the same way.

Why Do Students Invent and Use Different Terms?

 

So, why do students feel like they need to use different vocabulary than adults do? To be honest, it was true in my generation back in the 1970s too. Adolescents feel they must invent terms to distinguish themselves from other generations. Kansas State University English professor Mary Kohn says, “Language is a lot like fashion. Teens coin words and slang partly because using their parent’s jargon would be a lot like wearing mom’s jeans. They would come across as old-fashioned and out of touch.”  Still another reason (at least in the past) has been to keep parents in the dark about what’s really happening in their social life. Do you remember when cell phones first became popular? Teens came up with acronyms for text messages like:

• POTS………Parent Over The Shoulder
• TAW………Teachers Are Watching
• LMIRL…….Let’s Meet In Real Life
• 53X…………Sex
• CD9…………Code 9 (Parents are around)

These were literally text message code words. Insider language for a generation. They were diminishing for a while, until today.  Now that students have smart phones, they have a whole new way to keep adults in the dark. They worry less about using “codes.” Why? Teens are using social media apps that parents know nothing about or assume their kid would never use. Teens now employ disappearing Snapchat messages and “Finsta”(fake Instagram) accounts without parents stumbling upon them. They have their real identity, and then their fake identity. Often several of them.

Like every emerging generation, today’s students find the need to create their own identity; to acclimate with particular social groups and to differentiate themselves from adults. We did it too—but it had to be “in person” at a party, through the car we drove or within a club or team on campus. Michigan associate professor Scott Campbell focuses on the impact of mobile communication and social networking on media and society. He says, “It boils down to identity. It’s a way of making insiders from outsiders, and certainly if you’re grown up, you’re an outsider.”

In other words, it’s not weird what teens are doing today—they just have a far more complex mechanism and virtual method than we did back in the day.

So What Are Some Terms We Ought to Know?

 

Truth be told, parents, teachers, coaches, employers usually don’t need to worry about these terms that students use. They’re having fun the way we used to have fun—discovering who we were and what we were about.  I saw this with one caveat.  Some terms can have double meanings.

For instance, teens might send a message and use the term “addy.” Often times, it’s just a simple abbreviated term for “address.” In other cases, however, it’s slang for “Adderall.” This is a drug misused by many high school and college students. It’s prescribed for those who have ADHD, but students frequently get it illegally to help them focus for a test. Over-doses are quite common.  So, what do we need to know to understand students?

A List You Should Know:

 

When you see your own kid, or a student or an athlete using terms you don’t understand, before you ask them about it, check out the list below, offered by USA Today journalist Jennifer Jolly:

• Beef = a disagreement or hostility
• F2F = face to face, meeting in person
• Juice = credibility, respect, yet also means booze or drugs (check the context)
• Slide in the DMs = direct messaging someone privately, usually to hook up
• KMS/KYS = kill myself, kill yourself (often used sarcastically but can be real)
• Smash = to hook up, have sex
• Tea = gossip about someone
• Thirsty = wants attention, and usually from a specific person
• Throw shade = talking negatively about a person or thing
• Tweaking = getting high, usually on amphetamines

Obviously, social media is not going away. I believe we owe it to students to equip them to navigate an unlimited world of connections in a healthy way.

By Tim Elmore originally posted on his Growing Leaders blog 8/30/18

7th Grade IOWA Testing

Beginning Thursday and continuing into next week 7th grade students will be participating in Iowa testing.  The Iowa Tests meet most state’s requirements for an annual, nationally normed standardized test and offer educators a diagnostic look at how their students are progressing in key academic areas. 

The IOWA Evaluates

Language Skills

·       Vocabulary

·       Reading

·       Language

·       Word Analysis (Grades K-3 only)

·       Listening (Grades K-3 only)

·       Spelling

Mathematics

·       Math Concepts

·       Math Computation

·       Math Problem Solving

Science, Social Studies, and Study Skills

·       Social Studies   

·       Science Materials

·       Sources of Information

CoGat Testing for 7th Grade on Wednesday

Wednesday seventh grade students will be taking the COGAT test.  According to the test publisher, “The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) measures students’ learned reasoning abilities in the three areas most linked to academic success in school: Verbal, Quantitative and Nonverbal. Although its primary goal is to assess students’ reasoning abilities, CogAT can also provide predicted achievement scores when administered with The Iowa Tests.

“While CogAT is well-suited to help educators make important student placement decisions, such as selecting students for Gifted and Talented programs, exclusive features such as the Ability Profile Score can be used to expand the educational opportunities of all students.

 “Reasoning abilities have substantial correlations with learning and problem solving, both in and out of school. CogAT’s measurement of three different content domains ensures that educators receive a balanced view of the child. Each level of CogAT offers three test batteries:

Verbal

Quantitative

Nonverbal

“CogAT is constructed with overlapping sets of items throughout the series. The overlap of items from level to level provides the user with a continuous, ascending scale of difficulty, which is the foundation of CogAT's superior score scale from Kindergarten through grade 12.”

Information taken from http://www.riverpub.com/products/cogAt/details.html

PSAT 8/9 Testing Oct 17th - Save the Date

Eighth grade students will be taking the PSAT 8/9 on Wednesday, October 17th.  Visit psat.org/8-9 for tips on how to prepare your student for the assessment.

Five Paradoxes On Teens From The Eighth Grade

By Tim Elmore

I just saw the movie, “Eighth Grade,” and for the entire 94 minutes, felt like I got to climb into the brain of a young teen coming of age.

It’s the story of Kayla Day during her last week of eighth grade—detailing her feelings about her body, her virtual friends, her popularity, her wishful love life and her anxiety about them all. It is raw and real, not overproduced or sensationalized like so many movies today full of computer graphics and special effects. You actually feel as though you’ve stepped into her shoes, experiencing every panic attack, each anxious encounter, and the flood of emotions both wonderful and awful that come with graduation, infatuation and teenage frustrations.  

A Life of Paradox

Here is why I enjoyed the movie. It portrays a dad, often appearing quirky, even awkward because he’s unsure how to parent Kayla well. And it portrays the paradox this generation of kids experience today. Let me offer a few examples:

1. Teens today have it so good, yet have it so difficult.

Middle class students today have never enjoyed so many amenities, such as smart devices, convenient options and solutions for their problems at every turn. At the same time, social media makes life more complex and even more depressing because students can see all that’s happening in the lives of their classmates. It’s also difficult due to the pressure they put on themselves to look perfect, act perfect and be perfect. Kayla feels these pressures and wonders about her value.

2. They’re both never alone yet always alone.

In the movie, we see Kayla spending lots of time alone and feeling alone most of the time, even among other people—yet always connected with her phone to people she knows or wants to know better. This is one of the most significant shifts teens today feel compared to when we were teens. They feel lonely even when connected. Due to the constant connection (thanks to FOMO) they’re not sure how to enjoy time in solitude and silence. They crave the dopamine spikes that come with phone pings.

3. There are virtually no dramatic moments yet they feel lots of drama.

Like middle school students in any generation, life is relatively nondramatic, yet students feel so much drama during their day. Each interaction with a peer they don’t like, with a love interest they like or with an adult they don’t understand brings drama that far outweighs the reality in front of them. Parents don’t understand why they make such a big deal of everything, which leads to emotional interactions.

4. Teens want to be grown up yet not grow up at the same time.

Kayla endures an emotional swing set back and forth from wanting the rights of adulthood, (and the trust that comes with it), but yet not the demands of adulthood, like responsibility and commitment. This has likely been true for every generation of adolescents. They’re in an in-between life station—and the movie portrays this tension vividly, as we watch Kayla sitting on her bed wishing for both and neither.

5. Their life is both authentic and artificial.

I have said for years that teens today experience a lifestyle not unlike a “reality TV” show. It contains real people and real situations but so often feels scripted. Adults prescribe so many of their activities, preventing most real tragedies or catastrophes. As I mentioned earlier, “Eighth Grade” is a real and raw look at the life of a thirteen year-old female who uploads YouTube videos filled with her wisdom for peers, yet has an excruciating time following that wisdom herself: be yourself, don’t be nervous, stop being cynical and learn to be confident by acting confident.

My Recommendation 

Kayla is a perfect, imperfect young teen with acne, crooked teeth and an insecurity about her weight. Which is why I recommend the movie to any parent, teacher, coach or leader of teens. The film is written and directed by former stand-up comedian Bo Burnham, who follows her as she experiences a precarious week before graduation. One critic called it “a true slice-of-life movie.” It’s rated R, but there aren’t any far-fetched or heightened stakes scenes; it’s just Kayla navigating parties and assemblies and class clowns. The film will enable you to lead your students with both empathy and insight.

·       Copied from Tim Elmore’s Growing Leaders Blog 8/22/18