It doesn’t seem fair that students are always coming up with new slang that leaves parents and teachers dumbfounded. But it’s been this way for decades. Every generation seems to come up with continuously evolving slang that is hip, so the grownups won’t know what they’re talking about. But James Callahan, a teacher at Lowell High School, has decided to outsmart his students by creating all those salty and savage terms kids use these days into a Gen Z dictionary of sorts.James Callahan of Lowell High School in Massachusetts has heard teens using unique terms that make no sense to grownups. “I often overhear students in the hallways or my classrooms using words (or) slang terms in their personal conversations,” Callahan told USA Today.
Callahan figured that in order to connect with his students on a more personal level, he would simply ask them what certain slang terms meant in order to understand teenagers at the high school a little better. But there was no way of keeping track.
Twitter user @Mewtailv2 uploaded a photo of Callahan’s four-page spreadsheet. It turns out that the sociology teacher had titled the document “Callahan’s Generation Z Dictionary” and it was very insightful.
The column on the right was colored yellow and defined what the terms meant. For example, “High key” means “very obvious.” “Rashing” means “to make fun of someone.” The list was undoubtedly quite thorough.
Although Callahan isn’t a college professor, @Mewtailv2 told USA Today that they called him a professor in their tweet because “the word teacher didn’t seem dignified enough to describe him.” Plus, students earned college credit for taking his introduction to sociology course.
@Mewtailv2 decided to keep their true name anonymous, but in doing so, the teen gained over 500 followers after tweeting the photo of Callahan’s Generation Z dictionary spreadsheet. But @Mewtailv2 doesn’t want the credit.
“I’m just the catalyst. He’s the cool one. He should be on Ellen,” @MawtailV2 stated. But what does Callahan have to say about his dictionary going viral? He tweeted that he was “excited, yet terrified.”
He wanted to give the students the chance to get involved with the dictionary as well because every generation comes up with their own terms and he doesn’t want credit for that. Callahan stated: “The students created it. I am sort of just the archivist!”
