It's taken me nearly two months to grasp the language that is used by seventh graders. You could call it English, but that would be like calling Chef Boyardee's canned ravioli real food. It may pose as digestible, but one needs practice to hold down the contents of those cans of cancer.
Similarly, one must train their ear to comprehend the word vomits and slang of students. Their frantic, oftentimes false, unwittingly rash, and frequently barbaric exclamations combine to make up an entirely different way of communicating that I'm just now becoming accustomed to.
The following list will come in handy in the unlikely but not impossible event that you become a middle-school soccer referee, get stuck chaperoning for a little cousin's field trip because you're unemployed and her mom has to work all day, or if you find yourself hopelessly lost deep within the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese's.
If those or another situation puts you in the company of little people, equip yourself with these translations. Otherwise, you may suffer one or more incoherent exchanges.
Similarly, one must train their ear to comprehend the word vomits and slang of students. Their frantic, oftentimes false, unwittingly rash, and frequently barbaric exclamations combine to make up an entirely different way of communicating that I'm just now becoming accustomed to.
The following list will come in handy in the unlikely but not impossible event that you become a middle-school soccer referee, get stuck chaperoning for a little cousin's field trip because you're unemployed and her mom has to work all day, or if you find yourself hopelessly lost deep within the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese's.
If those or another situation puts you in the company of little people, equip yourself with these translations. Otherwise, you may suffer one or more incoherent exchanges.
1. Yo, this teacher's wahlin man. You see this?! Taquan, hey, man, this guy's wahlin, ya know!
Gabe, pick up your book and start reading.
No! Don't talk to me, you wahlin! Heh heh! You wahlin.
(Spelling confirmed by Urban Dictionary.)
Student means that the teacher is acting crazy or unfair. Student will usually say this in response to being given a consequence, which he or she has earned by distracting other students, whether in a verbal, physical, or emotional context. Thus, the dark irony of this oft-uttered word is that the only person wahlin is the one making the wahlin accusations.
2. I don't even careeeee. Okayyyy? Call my parents if you want to. Gahhhddd.
This is another common reaction to being given a consequence. What the student means is that he or she does care. He or she really, really cares quite a lot. In the middle of saying the above, he or she may even be terrified that you're going to call Mom or Dad, which will likely result in the loss of video game and/or TV privileges, and this is an utterly unspeakable tragedy to the young, naive mind.
3. I'm not sitting at that ratchet-ass table. (See also: This school mad ratchet.)
I was familiar with this one prior to teaching thanks to an ex-coxswain and dear friend. The word implies a state of disarray or shittiness to the knuckleheads.
4. Can I go to the bathroom?
You know it's school policy that nobody can leave the room with less than ten minutes left in class. Sorry.
Pleaseeeee! I reallyyyy have to go. It's an ahmuuurgencyyyy! I can't hold it for another second.
Actually, students can hold it for another second, and probably even a thousand more seconds, because they don't even have to use the bathroom at all. They're just bored.
5. Mister, can I call my parents? On your phone? In the middle of class? Even though I know that's a completely ridiculous request? Pleaseeee?
I may have added a couple extra sentences to the above, but although students may not say all of that, you know they're thinking it. Thus their shocked and dismayed faces when I tell them "No, you can't use my phone in the middle of class," always surprise me.
6. You are the meanest teacher! Gahhhhddd.
If you hear this, you're winning. I hear it rarely, and even when I do I typically don't deserve it. Not yet at least.
7. I'm not the only one talkingggg. Are you serious right now? Look at all of them. They're talking! Why do you always hear me and not anybody else?!
Student enjoys attention and is trying to monopolize yours for as long as possible. Thus these petty attempts at deflecting attention are actually being made to keep it.
8. You're twenty-nine, mister. Shouldn't you be having some fun and not forcing us to read every day?
Student is desperate to get out of reading. Aside from the fact that student believes you're six years older than you actually are–a deceptive feat that you take pride in pulling off–this is funny because your favorite things to do are read and write, and if you were to attempt to plan something more fun to do, you wouldn't really know where to start.
9. Hey mister, nice bike.
I get this one a lot. In the beginning, I thought they were complimenting me on the fact that I chose clean transportation that doubles as exercise. But now I realize they're just teasing me because I don't have a car, which to them can only mean that I can't pick up dates and I don't have any money.
10. I could take him easy, man, easy. I would cross him so hard, doe, and then bust him right in his eye.
Student is declaring that he can use a crossover dribble to create space and then make a shot over me. This was a student who was suspended for ten days, so he was absent when I started playing basketball with the knuckleheads at lunch. Considering that this particular student is about 4' 8" and that I've played the game for more years than he's been alive, I had to really concentrate to keep a straight face when he said this. Luckily, at least three other students had my back:
No you can't!
Mr. Londberg would torch you!
He's got handles, L, han-dulls (see #11).
11. You've got plain nasty handles, mister.
Student is complimenting my ability to dribble a basketball.
12. Get off me, young blood!
Again we're on the basketball court. Student is telling another that he can't be guarded. The term "young blood" derives from a spectacular (and spectacularly short-lived) marketing campaign by Pepsi. It is used to describe a young basketballer who does not commit to working on the "fundamentals" of the game.
13. Mister, mister, can I go to your crew class today? Pleaseeee? I really want to go with youuu.
Despite my initial hope that she wanted to come to my class because she enjoyed my teaching, I found out that she only said this because she likes a boy in her own crew class. And her friends had told him. So she wanted to avoid him.
I made her go to her crew class, but not before telling her to wink at her crush every time he looked at her. I told her that would win him over even faster than buying him a new video game. I may have been out-of-bounds by saying that to her, but what the heck. It was fun to watch horror creep onto her face as she deliberated such a scandalous proposition.
14. Heyyy. Uh huh. I see you. Yep, uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeaaaa. You and Ms. P, huh? Uh huh. (Student said this with a set of bushy eyebrows hopping up and down like a miniature hairy horizontal pogo stick.)
(For more bad similes, click here.)
Student's hormones are raging. This was said after I exchanged words with a colleague who happens to be of the opposite sex and of a similar age. Thus, to the student, we were clearly macking (see #15).
15. You were straight mackin', huh? Nah, I see you. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeaaaa.
Student means I was flirting. (And there go those eyebrows again as student tries to convince me for the umpteenth time that I dig Ms. P.)
16. I'm straight.
Student is not referring to his or her sexuality but simply wishing to convey that everything is okay at the moment in his or her opinion.
Gabe, pick up your book and start reading.
No! Don't talk to me, you wahlin! Heh heh! You wahlin.
(Spelling confirmed by Urban Dictionary.)
Student means that the teacher is acting crazy or unfair. Student will usually say this in response to being given a consequence, which he or she has earned by distracting other students, whether in a verbal, physical, or emotional context. Thus, the dark irony of this oft-uttered word is that the only person wahlin is the one making the wahlin accusations.
2. I don't even careeeee. Okayyyy? Call my parents if you want to. Gahhhddd.
This is another common reaction to being given a consequence. What the student means is that he or she does care. He or she really, really cares quite a lot. In the middle of saying the above, he or she may even be terrified that you're going to call Mom or Dad, which will likely result in the loss of video game and/or TV privileges, and this is an utterly unspeakable tragedy to the young, naive mind.
3. I'm not sitting at that ratchet-ass table. (See also: This school mad ratchet.)
I was familiar with this one prior to teaching thanks to an ex-coxswain and dear friend. The word implies a state of disarray or shittiness to the knuckleheads.
4. Can I go to the bathroom?
You know it's school policy that nobody can leave the room with less than ten minutes left in class. Sorry.
Pleaseeeee! I reallyyyy have to go. It's an ahmuuurgencyyyy! I can't hold it for another second.
Actually, students can hold it for another second, and probably even a thousand more seconds, because they don't even have to use the bathroom at all. They're just bored.
5. Mister, can I call my parents? On your phone? In the middle of class? Even though I know that's a completely ridiculous request? Pleaseeee?
I may have added a couple extra sentences to the above, but although students may not say all of that, you know they're thinking it. Thus their shocked and dismayed faces when I tell them "No, you can't use my phone in the middle of class," always surprise me.
6. You are the meanest teacher! Gahhhhddd.
If you hear this, you're winning. I hear it rarely, and even when I do I typically don't deserve it. Not yet at least.
7. I'm not the only one talkingggg. Are you serious right now? Look at all of them. They're talking! Why do you always hear me and not anybody else?!
Student enjoys attention and is trying to monopolize yours for as long as possible. Thus these petty attempts at deflecting attention are actually being made to keep it.
8. You're twenty-nine, mister. Shouldn't you be having some fun and not forcing us to read every day?
Student is desperate to get out of reading. Aside from the fact that student believes you're six years older than you actually are–a deceptive feat that you take pride in pulling off–this is funny because your favorite things to do are read and write, and if you were to attempt to plan something more fun to do, you wouldn't really know where to start.
9. Hey mister, nice bike.
I get this one a lot. In the beginning, I thought they were complimenting me on the fact that I chose clean transportation that doubles as exercise. But now I realize they're just teasing me because I don't have a car, which to them can only mean that I can't pick up dates and I don't have any money.
10. I could take him easy, man, easy. I would cross him so hard, doe, and then bust him right in his eye.
Student is declaring that he can use a crossover dribble to create space and then make a shot over me. This was a student who was suspended for ten days, so he was absent when I started playing basketball with the knuckleheads at lunch. Considering that this particular student is about 4' 8" and that I've played the game for more years than he's been alive, I had to really concentrate to keep a straight face when he said this. Luckily, at least three other students had my back:
No you can't!
Mr. Londberg would torch you!
He's got handles, L, han-dulls (see #11).
11. You've got plain nasty handles, mister.
Student is complimenting my ability to dribble a basketball.
12. Get off me, young blood!
Again we're on the basketball court. Student is telling another that he can't be guarded. The term "young blood" derives from a spectacular (and spectacularly short-lived) marketing campaign by Pepsi. It is used to describe a young basketballer who does not commit to working on the "fundamentals" of the game.
13. Mister, mister, can I go to your crew class today? Pleaseeee? I really want to go with youuu.
Despite my initial hope that she wanted to come to my class because she enjoyed my teaching, I found out that she only said this because she likes a boy in her own crew class. And her friends had told him. So she wanted to avoid him.
I made her go to her crew class, but not before telling her to wink at her crush every time he looked at her. I told her that would win him over even faster than buying him a new video game. I may have been out-of-bounds by saying that to her, but what the heck. It was fun to watch horror creep onto her face as she deliberated such a scandalous proposition.
14. Heyyy. Uh huh. I see you. Yep, uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeaaaa. You and Ms. P, huh? Uh huh. (Student said this with a set of bushy eyebrows hopping up and down like a miniature hairy horizontal pogo stick.)
(For more bad similes, click here.)
Student's hormones are raging. This was said after I exchanged words with a colleague who happens to be of the opposite sex and of a similar age. Thus, to the student, we were clearly macking (see #15).
15. You were straight mackin', huh? Nah, I see you. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeaaaa.
Student means I was flirting. (And there go those eyebrows again as student tries to convince me for the umpteenth time that I dig Ms. P.)
16. I'm straight.
Student is not referring to his or her sexuality but simply wishing to convey that everything is okay at the moment in his or her opinion.
If you're dying to add something funny that you've heard the knuckleheads say, don't be shy, do so in a comment.