Professor Documents The Slang His Student’s Use In A Hilarious List

Pop culture is filled with cool teachers who found unique fun ways to relate to their students, well move over Jack Black – because teacher James Callahan’s slang class is in session. The Massachusetts educator at Lowell High School went viral online after one of his students posted a photo to Twitter of a four-page word document that he had created, with slang terms that he had learned from the students.

The detailed slang dictionary is filled with all the Generation Z that you may or may not be familiar with but one thing is for sure, the internet can’t get enough.

A student just shared her teacher’s “Generation Z Dictionary” and it’s gone viral

Image credits: mewtailv2

His student, Twitter user @Mewtailv2, was the one to share his creative document with the online community, which he titled “Callahan’s Generation Z Dictionary.” The photo shows the dictionary organized alphabetically with green and yellow color-coded columns, with the slang term on one side and his definition on the other.

Within 24 hours, the tweet received over 300,000 likes and 93,000 Retweets and @MewtailV2 said she gained over 500 new followers, but said he’s the real star, “I’m just the catalyst. He’s the cool one. He should be on Ellen. Periodt, sis, take the L, this aint it, slay the game, were definitions given by my class.”

In an interview with USA Today, the teacher explained the purpose behind his dictionary. “I often overhear students in the hallways or my classrooms using words (or) slang terms in their personal conversations, in order to understand them better, (and) make a connection with them on a personal level, I started asking them what certain words meant.”

In response to the tweet’s popularity, Callahan decided to share the entire document with the internet along with a message

“Hello, internet! I hope this comes in handy! I’m happy to offer this to the world for free, but if you’re feeling philanthropic today, please consider two options that would greatly help the students of Lowell, Massachusetts. The Lowell String Project, and Mrs. Bauer’s Donors Choose page, stay up, Mr. Callahan.”

“The typical teacher-student dynamic involves a rigid power structure, but in my experience, I’ve found that students are more engaged and perform better if I am able to reach them where they are,” Callahan told the outlet.

In the end, the educator made sure to give props to his students, “Language is so fluid, and every generation creates their own vocabulary bank of slang, the students created it, I am sort of just the archivist!”