Teachers encouraged to ‘be authentic’ and avoid Gen Z slang
Updated . First published
Being able to relate to your students may seem like a wise idea for educators, but teachers are being asked to stop using Gen Z slang in the classroom.
And education experts are warning that trying to speak like a teen can actually backfire on you and put you “in a social circle you definitely don’t want to be in”.
Adam Voigt said teachers should be authentic rather than use Gen Z slang in the classroom. Today
“I tried to use the word slay with a 14-year-old recently, and she looked at me in a way that my heart hasn’t recovered from yet,” former principal and Real Schools CEO, Adam Voigt told Today.
“And the truth is around trying to speak like the kids, it’s never worked.”
Whatever a teacher’s personal motivation behind speaking at a teen’s level, Adam said language is a big indicator of how you want to define the relationship you have with your students.
“The truth is, stopping as a teacher and thinking about what kind of relationship you want with these young people is actually really important,” he said.
“It’s not a friendship relationship where we’re on a level pegging, they’re looking for you to know more, to be more experienced, to be a mentor, so we want to make sure that we can speak in a relaxed, kind of authentic way and using our own words is a good way to do that.
“The best teachers we remember are always the ones who were authentic in themselves, who actually pushed us pretty hard as well, who used that little bit of authority and who were also the ones who kind of noticed us, who saw us, even the quiet kids who kind of saw us when we were having a tough day and leaned in with a quiet five-minute word at recess to give you a hand - they’re the ones you want to be.”
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