“Slang” at Chelsea High School has become a language that students can call their own, but how do teachers feel about it? Some might say they enjoy it, but the old-school teachers don’t tend to favor it. 

Freshman English teacher Emma Yee is new to Chelsea as of last year, and many students love her laid back and fun teaching style. She, along with history teacher Tyler Santoro agreed their favorite word that students use is “rizz.” They feel that the word accurately demonstrates its meaning as it stems from charisma.

“I honestly don’t understand their slang as much as I would like, I feel older in the past year than I have before,” Yee said. “I used to never get caught up on slang, but now, since they use it so much, it’s hard not to. They’re very clever with it. I think all of the words are like memes within memes, and trying to figure out the origin of slang is buried within a lot of layers, and I find that impressive. You could say it’s a little bit ridiculous, but I think it’s smart.”

Over the years, slang has gotten more aggressive and widespread. Twenty years ago, you might hear these new sayings at school or from your friends, but recently slang has slowly become a part of everyone’s personal vocabulary due to social media. 

“People talking like texting is very frustrating,” Santoro said. “I’ve definitely noticed that there is a lot more slang than in the past, when I was in school. As the youngest teacher here, I feel like I understand it pretty well. Other teachers may not necessarily understand it as much.”

Gen-Z slang is overall entertaining to staff, but when it starts showing in schoolwork their emotions switch. The teachers that don’t know any of the slang are the ones who get the most annoyed.

Matt Pedlow, a history teacher who has been at Chelsea High School for 17 years finds it somewhat harder to understand the Gen-Z slang. 

“As long as it’s not harmful, I find it humorous,” Pedlow said. “We talked differently when we were kids, and then the next generation did as well, like every generation does. The thing that drives me insane is the word ‘like’. I will count how many times my students say ‘like’ in a sentence, and it is bizarre. Other than that, [Gen-Z] slang humors me.”

So even if Chelsea teachers aren’t WOKE enough to understand today’s slang, don’t be TRIPPIN if you don’t understand slang in a few years, FAM.