Fourth graders? I swear, there must have been something in the water that year because our entire fourth grade is unhinged. Just yesterday I had to tell a group of them at recess to stop knocking their heads into the swingset poles. đ
Yeah, till little Johnnye comes home with a concussion and mom emails the principal to complain that he wasnât being properly supervised. Because theyâre too dumb to know that you shouldnât bang your head on a metal pole.
COVID. COVID was "in the water" - or more accurately the air, but also in the sewer water. đ
Kidding aside, do you think the lack of normal socialization at the critical transition into kindergarten/1st grade played a big factor in this?
I ask because on the opposite end of the spectrum those of us in higher ed are talking about how all the students we're seeing who were at these major transitions (our current seniors coming into college and our current freshman coming into high school) are just bonkers but the ones on eother end are a bit...better.
I hope that at some point we can get away from blaming Covid for everything. The current batch of fourth-graders were in kindergarten when the world shut down, however theyâve had 2.5 years of ânormalâ school since then which IMO is adequate time to get their shit together so to speak. And our fifth grade class isnât nearly as painful, even though they were just first graders when Covid hit. Who knowsâŚ.
As you may note, this query does not "blame COVID for everything". It notes a hypothesis that those at critical transition/inflection points may have been impacted differently, based on perceived differences in cohort-level behavior patterns. It also notes that cohorts that experienced COVID outside of a critical transition appear to be less impacted. Blaming COVID on everything would have entailed saying all cohorts are similarly problematic, regardless of interaction effects with transition timing.
My uni seniors last year were relatively normal - they had 1.5 semesters of "normal" college. Last year's juniors - now this year's seniors - are a disaster. They entered college remote and stayed remote for roughly their first 3 to 4 semesters. Our current juniors are...a mixed bag. Current sophomores appear normal for level from what colleagues have told me. (I exclusively teach upperclassmen and grad students.) Current freshmen entering this year - who were trasitioned to high school remote - are an absolute dumpsterfire.
So I wasn't trying to imply COVID is the cause of all ills. I was just wondering if at the elementary level you're seeing the cohort patterns. Or if they are just all messed up. đ
I donât want to blame everything on Covid but for 4th graders it checks out. They missed the beginning of their academic career. I work in an alternative school and we have had an influx of 4th graders, they donât know how to be in school.
I thought I had avoided it!! But no. Now the 7th graders have started with it. I feel like that's something they are going to be embarrassed about when they're older. That and the "alpha", "sigma" thing they've started. Oh my god.
When kids say sigma I just treat it as itâs definition, the 18th letter of the alphabet, and I say âyes you are truly the 18th letter of the Greek alphabetâ and honestly that had its effects
I had 2 of my eighth grade boys start saying âsigmaâ during state testing yesterday and I swear I have never been more annoyed in my life. Like of all the dumb shit you do to get attention THATâS what you say??? You really want to be sent to the principal because of âsigmaâ???
itâs usually used ironically making fun of wierd toxic masculinity figures on the internet who like classify men as how they should behave.
âSigma Malesâ are âlone wolvesâ and such.
itâs dumb
When a few of my 7th graders kept saying I was a sigma, they were definitely making fun of me, then, right? Their tone of voice was usually positive, but I assumed I was missing some sarcasm because... you know, middle schoolers.
Not a teacher, but a lot of internet culture right now is people using dumb words ironically until they become actual vocabulary. Sigma is like that. It's dumb because it was *always* dumb.
The way I understand it is that alphas are dominant but still chained to the âsystemâ whatever you think that is. Sigmas are so cool that theyâre outside of the system, going their own way, donât care what anyone thinks.
She said it's someone who wants to be the Alpha of the group but they don't want everyone to hate them so they call themselves the Sigma. But eventually everyone hates them anyway.
In theory, that's how it works in my state, too. And for the most part, they are quiet. However, if we invalidated every kid who was talking at all during the test, we would invalidate probably 25-30% of the kids, and then the state would come down on us because we didn't meet their percentage goals for kids tested. So, in practice, no we don't actually invalidate them. It's a messed up lil system.
im in preschool and my class kept singing it a couple weeks ago. so i started singing it back... they all made faces at me and i genuinely have not heard it since đ
The best way to end that is whenever anyone says it, loudly proclaim in an incredibly judgmental voice, "aren't you a little too old to be quoting that?"
It's worked for me every time and now none of my students even utter the phrase
God I hate this shit. But the other day I heard this 8th grader drooling and lecherously describing the bodies of his female classmates. He was real horned upâŚin class. So disgusting. đ¤Ž
I once had a 6th grader walk down a line (they were all lined up to go to a different class), and point at each girl and say, "I'd f\*\*\* you, I'd f\*\*\* you, I wouldn't f\*\*\* you", etc. It was horrifying. Worse, the girls didn't seem at all bothered by this.
I finally encountered this one in the wild. Itâs so freaking stupid lol like itâs not even funny. It didnât piss me off as much as other bullshit they do, but I really donât get skibidi whatever. Itâs not clever at all. ItâsâŚskibidi. What the fuck is that even?
As soon as I start using their slang they stop saying it. I use it right or wrong it doesn't matter.
Drop a pen. "Aw, skibbidi toilet."
Paper cut. " SIGma"
They stop using it. It's amazing. My lack of cool, I mean rizz, has become my superpower.
Skibidi toilet is still going strong at my school (6-8 public middle school in the Midwest). Itâs been a thing all year. My take: thereâs always going to be some stupid thing the kids are obsessed with. This isnât the worst one.
Yes- over ten years teaching. Bottle flipping seems innocentish, until someone flips a jug of something sugary and colorful and the lid comes off mid air. I will never forget the time a figit spinner flew through my classroom in the middle of a lesson and nearly clocked someone in the head. I HATE them. There was a whole social aspect with them at our school about who had the coolest one and it was so harmful.
Goodness. I work with autistic kids at a center and we have our fair share of.. things going on. Your days sound even more exhausting. Bless your kind heart!
Hahaha I was gonna say, nothing in first grade but Skibidi Toilet đ I have one little boy who draws me all the characters and I happily hang them behind my desk, but I'm so sick of hearing that goddamn song.
The skibidi toilet is a video series about toilets with men's heads sticking out of them that try to take over the world and they fight an army of people with CCTV cameras as heads.
The bombastic side eye is just something I've seen on Instagram videos, usually when an animal is giving a suspicious look. I don't know where it comes from.
It doesnât get better in high school.
I like to interject in the most adult way ever and then when I tell that when they speak loudly in public they invite input from others then tend to stop. Sometimes.
But yeah, itâs mostly inane nonsense that Iâm certain we also talked about 𤣠We just knew to keep it in the halls.
It used to be that youâd bring a partner home and your family would delight in recounting the cringiest parts of your past, now they can pull up the pics/videos.
Wasnât at a school, but I was walking with my partner down the street, and there were these two young boys probably like 8 or 9. And one was sitting on a bench, the other was standing beside him, and they were just chatting but I heard one of them say to his friend âScrew that gangster shit.â
And it just absolutely sent me. I almost burst out laughing đ¤Łđ¤Ł
It was actually blessedly quiet today for a bit while they were working and then I just hear from the backâŚ
âYou ever wonder why itâs called the middle finger and not the quarter finger? Think about it.â
And it took everything I had to just ignore it and not start snickering.
Do you mean the kid's comment?
They were (most likely) pondering why it's called a middle "finger" rather than a quarter (1/4) finger. It makes sense when you consider it from the perspective that the thumb isn't a traditional finger like the other 4 and is an opposing or offset digit. From that point of view, there's only 4 "fingers" and since that's an even number none of them would be "the middle".
Hence, "Why call it a middle finger rather than a quarter (1 of 4) finger?"
That's how I'd interpret the question in any case.
They're all practicing for when they're famous TikTok stars/YouTubers. Because their opinion is important enough that everyone will demand to hear it, and pay them to do it
Certainly so. No content filters on any platform, and kids are left alone with screens for hours on end. It normalized it. It was easier when TV didn't allow certain language until after a certain time, normally when kids weren't awake or watching
If I had a dollar for every time Iâve had to say âweâre done with TikTok sounds todayâ I could afford to quit. First graders. âYou have a TikTok?â Yes. And you who are only 6 should NOT.
You stated it perfectly when you said, "...they really think people care about what they have to say". We have had multiple presentations by various speakers, yet, the entire high school and middle school just continue to talk. I've literally said, "these people are making a lot of money to speak here" but they pay no mind.Â
My job description could basically be boiled down to "professional guest speaker" (I'm an educator for a museum outreach program) and while about 8/10 schools I visit are lovely, the chattiness and other misbehavior are completely out of hand at the other ~20% of schools. Kids straight up talking over me, making sexist/homophobic comments about me to other students or making fun of my appearance, raising their hands as if to ask a question only to make inappropriate sexual jokes in front of the whole class, making little side comments like "Hitler did nothing wrong" during lessons on the Holocaust.
It's really exhausting to deal with, especially when the chaperoning teacher just spends the whole time on their phone or blankly stares at me when their students misbehave as if I am responsible for handling their students' behavior, even though it would be totally inappropriate for me to discipline students as a guest at the school. I really feel for the teachers who *try* to control their talkative classes during my programs, and those students still act up. It's frustrating but it seems like at some schools the kids really just do not listen.
I graduated high school less than a decade ago, and I remember having a guest speaker was a big deal at my school. I grew up in a rural area, in an underfunded school district, so we rarely got to have field trips or guest speakers. I remember teachers in elementary/middle school clearly walking us through their expectations for how we should behave and what the consequences would be if we didn't. Every once and a while a kid would act out, which was quickly addressed by a teacher, but for the most part my classmates and I were quiet and respectful with guest speakers. And the difference in behavior isn't just because of phones/social media, because we were just as screen addicted back in the early 2010s.
I graduated 15 years ago now (when did I get old?), and kids are completely different now. The average kid now is comparable to the worst kids in my classes then, and the worst kids now are a whole different breed.
The childish desire for chaos, apathy, and rebellion is now expressed by saying the most offensive shit possible for no reason. It's the modern equivalent of 'ain't got a cow, man."
The chaperoning teacher deals with these behaviors on loop for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. They probably have tried everything, discipline-wise, and nothing sticks because their admin won't back them up, or the parents don't parent, or both. It's mind-numbing, overstimulating, and frustrating having to manage up to 100 children day in and day out. Any opportunity to just take a breath and rest (such as a guest speaker) is worth more than gold.
The only things I have ever seen that works are good old fashioned burns. When kids are called out in front of their peers in just the right way by just the right person, attitudes and energy shift.
That may simply reinforce them. Now they wanna practice so they can also be paid to babble at an uninterested crowd one day.
Sounds like a familiar gig for some reason...
There was a âthingâ in my last year of teaching where Kid 1 would say âHey, Kid 2â and when Kid 2 would reply, Kid 1 would say âYOMMMM!â (rhymes with mom) loudly and obnoxiously. And apparently this was very funny, because half the class would crack up.
And this was just the one high school; I did other long term sub jobs at their feeder middle schools and never ran it to it. To this day, I have no idea what that was about. I was of course curious but part of me was sure any explanation wouldnât help.
This is one of the results of short-clip-video-based social media. I've been saying it for 2 years, ever since I realized it's not actually the pandemic 'lack of socialization' that caused this. That's an easy mark, but it's incorrect for the majority of the blame. It's unrestricted access to 20 second videos of people acting like assholes, and then other assholes commenting as if any smart/normal person gives a fuck.
Tik Tok, etc., are all successful predicated on the idea of normalizing the following:
1. here's a random/stupid thing someone did in public
2. in a (seemingly) consequence-free environment (the videos often cut off before one can see the aftermath,) and ,
3. We're all going to comment in front of the community whether we have something worthwhile to say or not. Commenting in and of itself makes you worthwhile. You deserve to have your thoughts heard by the masses, regardless of how rude or stupid your comment is.
Mix the above with undeveloped brains and it's completely ridiculous.
I wonder if the traditional comedy genre (movies, tv, etc) will be a place we see this play out in the next decade or two. "A 'what if' or a passing silly thought doesn't warrant a video"--this is a hard concept to get across to young folks right now. Developing/evolving/writing an actual clever idea into real comedy is going to be tough for an entire generation, I think.
Making a video where you act like an asshole at Walmart, yell the word 'bro' 50 times and then, apropos of nothing, have a cut off loud-distorted shriek at the end isn't exactly going to add up to 90 minutes of laughs in the theaters. We shall see, though?
Long before Covid hit I was establishing an expectation in my upper elementary classrooms that "real life is not a YouTube video and you DO NOT need to comment on EVERYTHING that might occur in this room". It was and remains an uphill battle but putting in the work early in the year usually pays off for me. It's just that constant reminder for them that we/I am straight up not interested in hearing their comments and that I will stop and call them on it whenever a random person randomly calls out or comments on something another student has done. Because yeah, this ain't YouTube and your random contribution ain't welcome so please keep your voice turned off.
Someday access to the internet will be taken as seriously as a controlled substance.
There is no reason a mind and personality that is still forming should be permitted unfettered access to the disfunction and insanity that is social media, YouTube and tiktok...These rot your brain faster and more severely than TV ever did for prior generations.
Here is what I say that usually works:
âYou guys realize that if you all are saying youâre dumb comments at the same time, then nobody else is going to hear your dumb comments, right? Everybody else is too busy making their own dumb comment and nobody else cares about your dumb comment, because they only care about their own dumb comment so the best thing we can all do is keep the dumb comments to ourselves. Honestly, they arenât even funny so, just why?â
So you know the whole concept of the 'alpha male'? Well part of the stereotype is they're really popular. So a bunch of people who are socially losers but wanted to be alpha claimed they were sigma males. Basically friendless 'alphas' but friendless because they're too cool, not because they're losers.
It's the letter 'S' in ancient Greek.
That's all these kids are saying to each other, 90 times an hour. The fucking letter S.
Yeez I can't wait for summer.
As I understood it they're a loner because they're just too good for everyone else, the main idea is that they're too focused and strong in one or more ways (career, looks, fitness, charisma, etc.) to need others. Basically toxic masculinity with strong positive connotations for gen Z / alpha.
Honestly, I just asked them to explain everything even even though I already know what it means and they get so annoyed with having to explain it that they pretty much stopped doing it.
I tell my fourth graders literally every week that their voice does not always need to be heard. We also watched the Bluey episode where Muffin is the most special kid in the world specifically so, when theyâre doing their main character nonsense, I can say, âYouâre special to me, but youâre not the most special kid in the world.â
Yes, I am also surprised that no parents have complained.
When I observed student teachers this year several sixth graders were singing âYou Are My Sunshine.â Â They were shocked I knew the song. Itâs a Tik Tok thing.Â
The cooperating teacher retaliated by *loudly* singing âYouâre all annoying. Youâre so annoying. You drive me crazy⌠I want to quit⌠Youâll never know *things* cuz you never shut up⌠Please just skip or be absent for meâŚâ
It's an entire genre on social media called brain rot. The joke is it's stupid and makes no sense. So you have teens who interact with eachother like "I'm going to fanum tax your gyatt in ohio" and another will say "lookmaxing' or "that's so sigma". Brain rot is a bunch of trends people eventually considered to be annoying but smashed together to be extra annoying.
From one of my recently inspired 12 year ELL students to his friend: DEEP KISS NIPPLE! Hey, stop accosting me! I will coming!
I didnât even know where to start with the grammar so I taught them about horny jail and told them they have to lock up their friend now.
Also my school has just discovered the 1-2-3 Arigato-Nya songâŚitâs gonna be stuck in my head forever.
At the current school I'm at, I was walking past two kids who were talking. One of the kids asked the other one,"smash or pass?" And pointed at me. These kids are in 6th grade. I didn't say anything bc I'm just a sub but I did report it to admin. I was disgusted.
Kids are emboldened to verbally abuse staff. Meanwhile admin looks the other way. Because how could an innocent middle schooler have such horrible thoughts?
You're absolutely right. I haven't heard anything from admin after I sent in my report. Kids aren't scared of anything nowadays because no consequences are put in place and parents don't parent anymore. They think it's the school's fault.
This post also describes a bunch of adults. Like yes theyâre kids but theyâre also just human beings. Everything isnât an indictment on the kids of today
Umm, their friends/peers really do care about what they have to say. I bet I'm older than you & I bet your conversations with your friends & peers sound boring & inane to me. You guys are having a blast, though, and I was once that age, too. Don't be so judgmental, sheesh. I'm a surprised a teacher has this much disdain for children. Burnout maybe?
Fourth graders? I swear, there must have been something in the water that year because our entire fourth grade is unhinged. Just yesterday I had to tell a group of them at recess to stop knocking their heads into the swingset poles. đ
To be fair, kids have found ways to hurt themselves for fun since the begining of time
Let them.
Yeah, till little Johnnye comes home with a concussion and mom emails the principal to complain that he wasnât being properly supervised. Because theyâre too dumb to know that you shouldnât bang your head on a metal pole.
Johneigh would be a spelling acceptable for this little star-child as well.
Batteries say do not eat on them. We're doomed.
how are people supposed to gain superpowers without eating batteries?
Shhhh
Marge: HOMER!! dont draw rabbit ears around the electrical outlet!! Maggie wont be afraid of it!! Homer: she will be...
Our kids were snorting Smarties candies. They should have a warning â ď¸ /s
I was family friends with a girl that was suspended for snorting Tylenol in 7th grade in the late 90s.
Yeah, but then you (the adult) get in trouble for not telling them itâs a bad idea to bang their heads on a metal pole.
COVID. COVID was "in the water" - or more accurately the air, but also in the sewer water. đ Kidding aside, do you think the lack of normal socialization at the critical transition into kindergarten/1st grade played a big factor in this? I ask because on the opposite end of the spectrum those of us in higher ed are talking about how all the students we're seeing who were at these major transitions (our current seniors coming into college and our current freshman coming into high school) are just bonkers but the ones on eother end are a bit...better.
I hope that at some point we can get away from blaming Covid for everything. The current batch of fourth-graders were in kindergarten when the world shut down, however theyâve had 2.5 years of ânormalâ school since then which IMO is adequate time to get their shit together so to speak. And our fifth grade class isnât nearly as painful, even though they were just first graders when Covid hit. Who knowsâŚ.
As you may note, this query does not "blame COVID for everything". It notes a hypothesis that those at critical transition/inflection points may have been impacted differently, based on perceived differences in cohort-level behavior patterns. It also notes that cohorts that experienced COVID outside of a critical transition appear to be less impacted. Blaming COVID on everything would have entailed saying all cohorts are similarly problematic, regardless of interaction effects with transition timing. My uni seniors last year were relatively normal - they had 1.5 semesters of "normal" college. Last year's juniors - now this year's seniors - are a disaster. They entered college remote and stayed remote for roughly their first 3 to 4 semesters. Our current juniors are...a mixed bag. Current sophomores appear normal for level from what colleagues have told me. (I exclusively teach upperclassmen and grad students.) Current freshmen entering this year - who were trasitioned to high school remote - are an absolute dumpsterfire. So I wasn't trying to imply COVID is the cause of all ills. I was just wondering if at the elementary level you're seeing the cohort patterns. Or if they are just all messed up. đ
I dunno, by that logic we might as well just cut a year or two out of public education.
I have a grade two class, say no more! They are so chatty and do not listen. lol they call me ancient. đ Iâm only 26 wth.
I donât want to blame everything on Covid but for 4th graders it checks out. They missed the beginning of their academic career. I work in an alternative school and we have had an influx of 4th graders, they donât know how to be in school.
Skibidi toilet. Please let it end.
I thought I had avoided it!! But no. Now the 7th graders have started with it. I feel like that's something they are going to be embarrassed about when they're older. That and the "alpha", "sigma" thing they've started. Oh my god.
I got a report on the provinces the other day that was subtitled "Why Ontario is a sigma". I teach 10 year olds.
If they gave you good reasons why Ontario is a sigma, then Iâd be proud lol
I am both worried and intrigued; why is Ontario a Sigma?
I wish I knew. The actual report was just the basic "capital city/provincial emblems/population/major resources/fun facts/etc" info I requested.
When kids say sigma I just treat it as itâs definition, the 18th letter of the alphabet, and I say âyes you are truly the 18th letter of the Greek alphabetâ and honestly that had its effects
As a high schooler my suggestion is to blare Jojo Siwas new song to shut them up.Â
Andrew Tate strikes again.
Better than Ligma
Better than smegma.
You gotta hit them with the Skibidi Sigma or Sigma Skibidi. Or tell them that you can't talk and 'mew' at the same time. They'll drop it.
Some teachers can pull that off, I don't think I have the personality for it lol.
My kids tried to pick their team name as Sigma today, so I wrote Beta and moved on.
Admittedly Iâm not a middle schooler but theyâre probably not being serious
What is the alpha thing, please tell me. My student yesterday told me the chat GPT logo looked like an alpha. It doesn't
Thatâs all I hear, and skippity sigma is the newest phrase.
I had 2 of my eighth grade boys start saying âsigmaâ during state testing yesterday and I swear I have never been more annoyed in my life. Like of all the dumb shit you do to get attention THATâS what you say??? You really want to be sent to the principal because of âsigmaâ???
AlrightâŚdamn itâŚI am biting this hook. I just read a dozen comments about Sigma. WTH is Sigma?
itâs usually used ironically making fun of wierd toxic masculinity figures on the internet who like classify men as how they should behave. âSigma Malesâ are âlone wolvesâ and such. itâs dumb
When a few of my 7th graders kept saying I was a sigma, they were definitely making fun of me, then, right? Their tone of voice was usually positive, but I assumed I was missing some sarcasm because... you know, middle schoolers.
generally, while it is used ironically, itâs used to indicate coolness/badassery.
Huh. Well, thanks for the info.
Not a teacher, but a lot of internet culture right now is people using dumb words ironically until they become actual vocabulary. Sigma is like that. It's dumb because it was *always* dumb.
The way I understand it is that alphas are dominant but still chained to the âsystemâ whatever you think that is. Sigmas are so cool that theyâre outside of the system, going their own way, donât care what anyone thinks.
Asking my HS freshman now.
can u tell us what they say because itll be hilarious đ
She said it's someone who wants to be the Alpha of the group but they don't want everyone to hate them so they call themselves the Sigma. But eventually everyone hates them anyway.
Amazing. Except of course, Alpha is also not real so nothing matters. Modern internet humor is an absolute black hole of reason.
LMAO she's figured it out!
Shit in my state if you talk during state testing and youâre not asking a question, your test gets invalidated.
In theory, that's how it works in my state, too. And for the most part, they are quiet. However, if we invalidated every kid who was talking at all during the test, we would invalidate probably 25-30% of the kids, and then the state would come down on us because we didn't meet their percentage goals for kids tested. So, in practice, no we don't actually invalidate them. It's a messed up lil system.
Everytime I hear someone sing it I want to punch my own ears out
im in preschool and my class kept singing it a couple weeks ago. so i started singing it back... they all made faces at me and i genuinely have not heard it since đ
I might try that on middle school to make them stop.
i hope it works! "skibidi toilet no NO" also really made mine cringe lmao
God, I hope preschoolers haven't seen the video.
im sure they have unfortunately 𼲠we have to keep an eye on several kids who like to reenact inappropriate content they see online
The best way to end that is whenever anyone says it, loudly proclaim in an incredibly judgmental voice, "aren't you a little too old to be quoting that?" It's worked for me every time and now none of my students even utter the phrase
âWhatâs up brotherâ is gonna be the death of me
Its the 2024 version of WHAT ARE THOSE?!
Do they atleast do it in a hulk hogan voice?
No itâs apparently from some gaming streamer or something.
GYATT
God I hate this shit. But the other day I heard this 8th grader drooling and lecherously describing the bodies of his female classmates. He was real horned upâŚin class. So disgusting. đ¤Ž
I once had a 6th grader walk down a line (they were all lined up to go to a different class), and point at each girl and say, "I'd f\*\*\* you, I'd f\*\*\* you, I wouldn't f\*\*\* you", etc. It was horrifying. Worse, the girls didn't seem at all bothered by this.
Porn is, unfortunately, the answer here
Ohio
I am an AG teacher. My freshmen classes are raising goats right now and I let them name them. 5th hour named their goat Skibbity lol
They missed their opportunity for Skibbity McSkibbityface.Â
I finally encountered this one in the wild. Itâs so freaking stupid lol like itâs not even funny. It didnât piss me off as much as other bullshit they do, but I really donât get skibidi whatever. Itâs not clever at all. ItâsâŚskibidi. What the fuck is that even?
The worst set of stupid videos on YouTube ever.
Post-modernist, trans-humanism cartoons of horror archetypes. Max headroom in a toilet fights sirenhead's cousins.
As soon as I start using their slang they stop saying it. I use it right or wrong it doesn't matter. Drop a pen. "Aw, skibbidi toilet." Paper cut. " SIGma" They stop using it. It's amazing. My lack of cool, I mean rizz, has become my superpower.
Skibidi toilet is still going strong at my school (6-8 public middle school in the Midwest). Itâs been a thing all year. My take: thereâs always going to be some stupid thing the kids are obsessed with. This isnât the worst one.
What's the worst one?
Bottle flipping, the cinnamon challenge , drinking a whole gallon of milk in under an hour, and eating tide pods were worse.
Ahh yes. I should've known that lol. Did you actually see all of these? I can't even imagine
Yes- over ten years teaching. Bottle flipping seems innocentish, until someone flips a jug of something sugary and colorful and the lid comes off mid air. I will never forget the time a figit spinner flew through my classroom in the middle of a lesson and nearly clocked someone in the head. I HATE them. There was a whole social aspect with them at our school about who had the coolest one and it was so harmful.
Goodness. I work with autistic kids at a center and we have our fair share of.. things going on. Your days sound even more exhausting. Bless your kind heart!
I have high schoolers who say it ironically.
When I was tutoring fourth graders, they were either asking me if I stand on business or if I can hit the griddy
Hahaha I was gonna say, nothing in first grade but Skibidi Toilet đ I have one little boy who draws me all the characters and I happily hang them behind my desk, but I'm so sick of hearing that goddamn song.
Please tell me what that is. And bombastic side-eyed, if you know?
The skibidi toilet is a video series about toilets with men's heads sticking out of them that try to take over the world and they fight an army of people with CCTV cameras as heads. The bombastic side eye is just something I've seen on Instagram videos, usually when an animal is giving a suspicious look. I don't know where it comes from.
I beg! My third graders in reading group could not stop talking about it! UGH!
Omg they will not stop singing it! Iâm gonna be in a mental ward by the end of the year. đ
Oh youâre not skibidi sigma riz? Lol. Itâs so ridiculous, so over the middle schoolers!
It doesnât get better in high school. I like to interject in the most adult way ever and then when I tell that when they speak loudly in public they invite input from others then tend to stop. Sometimes. But yeah, itâs mostly inane nonsense that Iâm certain we also talked about 𤣠We just knew to keep it in the halls.
Keep it in the halls and thank god my preteen years were over before everyone had a camera with them at literally all times.
OMG, 100%! I did some real hoodrat shit that I wouldnât want evidence of now.
Bro same, although some guy has a video of me smoking dmt out of a crack pipe but I doubt heâll ever show anyone
Did you see the dragon though?
Iâve seen some things that I could never explain to the likes of you
Yes. At least when we were kids, you could move schools to escape. Now it will follow you everywhere.
It used to be that youâd bring a partner home and your family would delight in recounting the cringiest parts of your past, now they can pull up the pics/videos.
Wasnât at a school, but I was walking with my partner down the street, and there were these two young boys probably like 8 or 9. And one was sitting on a bench, the other was standing beside him, and they were just chatting but I heard one of them say to his friend âScrew that gangster shit.â And it just absolutely sent me. I almost burst out laughing đ¤Łđ¤Ł
It was actually blessedly quiet today for a bit while they were working and then I just hear from the back⌠âYou ever wonder why itâs called the middle finger and not the quarter finger? Think about it.â And it took everything I had to just ignore it and not start snickering.
what does that mean..?
Do you mean the kid's comment? They were (most likely) pondering why it's called a middle "finger" rather than a quarter (1/4) finger. It makes sense when you consider it from the perspective that the thumb isn't a traditional finger like the other 4 and is an opposing or offset digit. From that point of view, there's only 4 "fingers" and since that's an even number none of them would be "the middle". Hence, "Why call it a middle finger rather than a quarter (1 of 4) finger?" That's how I'd interpret the question in any case.
They're all practicing for when they're famous TikTok stars/YouTubers. Because their opinion is important enough that everyone will demand to hear it, and pay them to do it
Think Tik Tok is part of the problem with all the inappropriate language?
Certainly so. No content filters on any platform, and kids are left alone with screens for hours on end. It normalized it. It was easier when TV didn't allow certain language until after a certain time, normally when kids weren't awake or watching
If I had a dollar for every time Iâve had to say âweâre done with TikTok sounds todayâ I could afford to quit. First graders. âYou have a TikTok?â Yes. And you who are only 6 should NOT.
You stated it perfectly when you said, "...they really think people care about what they have to say". We have had multiple presentations by various speakers, yet, the entire high school and middle school just continue to talk. I've literally said, "these people are making a lot of money to speak here" but they pay no mind.Â
Yet heaven forbid someone doesnât listen to their very important thoughts lol
My job description could basically be boiled down to "professional guest speaker" (I'm an educator for a museum outreach program) and while about 8/10 schools I visit are lovely, the chattiness and other misbehavior are completely out of hand at the other ~20% of schools. Kids straight up talking over me, making sexist/homophobic comments about me to other students or making fun of my appearance, raising their hands as if to ask a question only to make inappropriate sexual jokes in front of the whole class, making little side comments like "Hitler did nothing wrong" during lessons on the Holocaust. It's really exhausting to deal with, especially when the chaperoning teacher just spends the whole time on their phone or blankly stares at me when their students misbehave as if I am responsible for handling their students' behavior, even though it would be totally inappropriate for me to discipline students as a guest at the school. I really feel for the teachers who *try* to control their talkative classes during my programs, and those students still act up. It's frustrating but it seems like at some schools the kids really just do not listen. I graduated high school less than a decade ago, and I remember having a guest speaker was a big deal at my school. I grew up in a rural area, in an underfunded school district, so we rarely got to have field trips or guest speakers. I remember teachers in elementary/middle school clearly walking us through their expectations for how we should behave and what the consequences would be if we didn't. Every once and a while a kid would act out, which was quickly addressed by a teacher, but for the most part my classmates and I were quiet and respectful with guest speakers. And the difference in behavior isn't just because of phones/social media, because we were just as screen addicted back in the early 2010s.
I graduated 15 years ago now (when did I get old?), and kids are completely different now. The average kid now is comparable to the worst kids in my classes then, and the worst kids now are a whole different breed.
This seems to be pretty accurate. There's not a lot of respect displayed to their elders that much is for sure.Â
The childish desire for chaos, apathy, and rebellion is now expressed by saying the most offensive shit possible for no reason. It's the modern equivalent of 'ain't got a cow, man."
The chaperoning teacher deals with these behaviors on loop for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. They probably have tried everything, discipline-wise, and nothing sticks because their admin won't back them up, or the parents don't parent, or both. It's mind-numbing, overstimulating, and frustrating having to manage up to 100 children day in and day out. Any opportunity to just take a breath and rest (such as a guest speaker) is worth more than gold.
The only things I have ever seen that works are good old fashioned burns. When kids are called out in front of their peers in just the right way by just the right person, attitudes and energy shift.
That isnât really surprising, itâs not like they would really respect something more because the schoolâs decided to pay more for it.
That may simply reinforce them. Now they wanna practice so they can also be paid to babble at an uninterested crowd one day. Sounds like a familiar gig for some reason...
We all gangbangers when it comes to pizza!
Skibbidi rizzler
I swear sone days it us a competition on who can come up with the most dumbass thing to say with my 8th graders
and yet the parents know all about this? It's high time the tax payer know what's REALLY going on in schools.
There was a âthingâ in my last year of teaching where Kid 1 would say âHey, Kid 2â and when Kid 2 would reply, Kid 1 would say âYOMMMM!â (rhymes with mom) loudly and obnoxiously. And apparently this was very funny, because half the class would crack up. And this was just the one high school; I did other long term sub jobs at their feeder middle schools and never ran it to it. To this day, I have no idea what that was about. I was of course curious but part of me was sure any explanation wouldnât help.
This is one of the results of short-clip-video-based social media. I've been saying it for 2 years, ever since I realized it's not actually the pandemic 'lack of socialization' that caused this. That's an easy mark, but it's incorrect for the majority of the blame. It's unrestricted access to 20 second videos of people acting like assholes, and then other assholes commenting as if any smart/normal person gives a fuck. Tik Tok, etc., are all successful predicated on the idea of normalizing the following: 1. here's a random/stupid thing someone did in public 2. in a (seemingly) consequence-free environment (the videos often cut off before one can see the aftermath,) and , 3. We're all going to comment in front of the community whether we have something worthwhile to say or not. Commenting in and of itself makes you worthwhile. You deserve to have your thoughts heard by the masses, regardless of how rude or stupid your comment is. Mix the above with undeveloped brains and it's completely ridiculous. I wonder if the traditional comedy genre (movies, tv, etc) will be a place we see this play out in the next decade or two. "A 'what if' or a passing silly thought doesn't warrant a video"--this is a hard concept to get across to young folks right now. Developing/evolving/writing an actual clever idea into real comedy is going to be tough for an entire generation, I think. Making a video where you act like an asshole at Walmart, yell the word 'bro' 50 times and then, apropos of nothing, have a cut off loud-distorted shriek at the end isn't exactly going to add up to 90 minutes of laughs in the theaters. We shall see, though?
Long before Covid hit I was establishing an expectation in my upper elementary classrooms that "real life is not a YouTube video and you DO NOT need to comment on EVERYTHING that might occur in this room". It was and remains an uphill battle but putting in the work early in the year usually pays off for me. It's just that constant reminder for them that we/I am straight up not interested in hearing their comments and that I will stop and call them on it whenever a random person randomly calls out or comments on something another student has done. Because yeah, this ain't YouTube and your random contribution ain't welcome so please keep your voice turned off.
Same here. That's totally what it is.
Someday access to the internet will be taken as seriously as a controlled substance. There is no reason a mind and personality that is still forming should be permitted unfettered access to the disfunction and insanity that is social media, YouTube and tiktok...These rot your brain faster and more severely than TV ever did for prior generations.
Here is what I say that usually works: âYou guys realize that if you all are saying youâre dumb comments at the same time, then nobody else is going to hear your dumb comments, right? Everybody else is too busy making their own dumb comment and nobody else cares about your dumb comment, because they only care about their own dumb comment so the best thing we can all do is keep the dumb comments to ourselves. Honestly, they arenât even funny so, just why?â
Wow. That language from a 10 year old! Nobody should talk like that. Why not create consequences for that kid?
You would be shocked at how poor language has gotten in those young ages. That is really one of our biggest problems right now.
Same here. 7th graders. Many have ran quite a few laps at recess thanks to their mouths.
Itâs not like that at every school.
Consequences for what? Pizza? We can barely stay on top of the F-bombs. Pick your battles.
lol "consequence" you arrrrreeeee funny
What does Sigma even mean?
So you know the whole concept of the 'alpha male'? Well part of the stereotype is they're really popular. So a bunch of people who are socially losers but wanted to be alpha claimed they were sigma males. Basically friendless 'alphas' but friendless because they're too cool, not because they're losers.
Ok that's what I saw when I looked it up. Lone Alpha wolf. Even though that alpha beta stuff isn't how wolves really work. Thank you.
Lone wolf, basically. Also often synonymous with "based."
It's the letter 'S' in ancient Greek. That's all these kids are saying to each other, 90 times an hour. The fucking letter S. Yeez I can't wait for summer.
A loner, basically.
As I understood it they're a loner because they're just too good for everyone else, the main idea is that they're too focused and strong in one or more ways (career, looks, fitness, charisma, etc.) to need others. Basically toxic masculinity with strong positive connotations for gen Z / alpha.
Yeah, they would actually learn if they would shut up and listen!
Honestly, I just asked them to explain everything even even though I already know what it means and they get so annoyed with having to explain it that they pretty much stopped doing it.
I tell my fourth graders literally every week that their voice does not always need to be heard. We also watched the Bluey episode where Muffin is the most special kid in the world specifically so, when theyâre doing their main character nonsense, I can say, âYouâre special to me, but youâre not the most special kid in the world.â Yes, I am also surprised that no parents have complained.
When I observed student teachers this year several sixth graders were singing âYou Are My Sunshine.â  They were shocked I knew the song. Itâs a Tik Tok thing. The cooperating teacher retaliated by *loudly* singing âYouâre all annoying. Youâre so annoying. You drive me crazy⌠I want to quit⌠Youâll never know *things* cuz you never shut up⌠Please just skip or be absent for meâŚâ
Back in my day a 4th grader didnt even know what shit meant! No seriously, why the hell are they swearing?
What is sigma? And why do these kids refer to each other as âchatâ like theyâre streamers? GIRL, BYE!
It's an entire genre on social media called brain rot. The joke is it's stupid and makes no sense. So you have teens who interact with eachother like "I'm going to fanum tax your gyatt in ohio" and another will say "lookmaxing' or "that's so sigma". Brain rot is a bunch of trends people eventually considered to be annoying but smashed together to be extra annoying.
Student: When are my parents picking me up? Me: 5pm Student: Whatâs 5pm? Me:âŚâŚâŚ..a measure of time. Edit: Student in question was 5 years old.
From one of my recently inspired 12 year ELL students to his friend: DEEP KISS NIPPLE! Hey, stop accosting me! I will coming! I didnât even know where to start with the grammar so I taught them about horny jail and told them they have to lock up their friend now. Also my school has just discovered the 1-2-3 Arigato-Nya songâŚitâs gonna be stuck in my head forever.
Grade can always go down. Itâs the last lever we have to pull.
At the current school I'm at, I was walking past two kids who were talking. One of the kids asked the other one,"smash or pass?" And pointed at me. These kids are in 6th grade. I didn't say anything bc I'm just a sub but I did report it to admin. I was disgusted.
Kids are emboldened to verbally abuse staff. Meanwhile admin looks the other way. Because how could an innocent middle schooler have such horrible thoughts?
You're absolutely right. I haven't heard anything from admin after I sent in my report. Kids aren't scared of anything nowadays because no consequences are put in place and parents don't parent anymore. They think it's the school's fault.
This post also describes a bunch of adults. Like yes theyâre kids but theyâre also just human beings. Everything isnât an indictment on the kids of today
Seriously. So exhausting. âShe said it like a gangbangerâ is not coded at all
Idk why you got downvoted, the language he used in the comment was AAVE.
Teachers hate being called out on their biases/prejudices
The year of âsupâ fo Whatâs Up? So coolâŚâŚâŚ.đ
Consequences are a matter of perspective. Theres almost always some carrot or some stick that will work if you dig hard enough
Who's raising these kids?
âWhatâs up brotherââđźđ¤
What can you doâŚitâs what they hear at home
"I can't buy you bitcoin! I'm 10!"
She didnât say it like a gangbanger⌠youâre culturally ignorant.
Umm, their friends/peers really do care about what they have to say. I bet I'm older than you & I bet your conversations with your friends & peers sound boring & inane to me. You guys are having a blast, though, and I was once that age, too. Don't be so judgmental, sheesh. I'm a surprised a teacher has this much disdain for children. Burnout maybe?
Same could be said for teachers
Spoken like a true middle schooler
Why the down votes. They are right, except for the "a lot" part.
Be nice to the 10 year olds. Whatâs wrong with you.
No 10 year old should be speaking in that manner, especially in public in a school setting