On being hip with the kids

Whenever I hear someone say that we need to engage student interest by “meeting” students where they are, this is what I see:

Now, don’t get me wrong–actual student interest is awesome, and there’s almost no limit to what can be achieved in the classroom if it is tapped–I just don’t think we’re doing ourselves, or our students, any favors by focusing on what *we* think they would find “fun.”

Let’s face it, a lot of teachers are at a vast remove from what is “hip” and cool anyway, and a number of our own preferences are nostalgic ossifications of what we enjoyed when we were young, so we should heed the sage warning of Abe Simpson:

So I’d like to propose that we all proudly tie an onion to our belts as we work to establish a shared interest in what we are teaching our students.

Now, admittedly, my Simpsons reference is dated, and probably speaks more to someone of my generation than my students. None of that obviates the fact that it works in this context, and that my students can understand it just as well as my peers.

And isn’t that really the goal? A common understanding–and something that can start a conversation, even if it is somewhat “cringe” (like me using the word “cringe” this way in this sentence–feels wrong even to type it).

Chasing the “hip” or the “cool” is a fool’s errand, not just because teachers can’t know what all their students may enjoy, but also because the difficulty of learning (and it is often difficult) has never been “cool.” Teachers should, by all means, introduce play and encourage fun, but the fun we’re really trying to instill is a shared appreciation of what we already love–the subject matter we’re teaching. Given this, we’re actually better off referencing what we ourselves enjoy, because that enthusiasm (no matter how dorky or dated) can pique a certain interest in our chosen subject.

This was all brought home to me, not that long ago, by my very own social media guru (SMG for short). SMG informed me that I, like her middle school teacher, was overly fond of dated memes. Now I was unaware of the time stamp on memes, but, then again, I had also never heard of “deep fried memes,” and I couldn’t concretely tell you what, exactly, Discord is.

My ignorance has been rectified.

Will I ever fully appreciate a “deep fried meme”? Probably not. And, if I’m ever on Discord, somebody better call the cops, because I will have been abducted and forced to enter that online area under duress. That said, I’m now familiar with a new meme format, and I understand the purpose of a chat fora not really designed for the likes of me–just as SMG now knows why the intellectual “fit” of a meme is more important to a teacher than its novelty (or temporal currency).

And, most importantly, in the midst of this conversation, we collectively discovered that somethings can be so old that they are new again:

Never giving up on what you love is soooooo much better than trying to be hip with the kids. . .