The “six-seven” shrug—or, more frequently, collective shout—still tops teachers’ list of annoying kid slang, but slurs and online crudity are also percolating in some classrooms, to the worry of teachers, according to new survey data.
The EdWeek Research Center surveyed more than 1,000 educators, including nearly 770 teachers, online from April through June. Teachers have happily predicted the demise of “six-seven,” the meme dubbed the 2025 Word of the Year by Dictionary.com, but that seems to have been wishful thinking: It still hasn’t run out of steam in many classrooms, accounting for more than 40% of the reported slang teachers said when asked, “What (if any) student slang is driving [them] crazy right now?”
So-called “brainrot” pulled from online communities, such as “skibidi” as a synonym for strange or “aura” and “rizz” for status and charisma, have also moved into common classroom rotation.
The nonsensical and shifting definitions that drive adults up the wall can help children and teens gain a sense of privacy and identity apart from adults, according to Anna Beresin, a folklorist and author of Recess Battles: Playing, Fighting, and Storytelling, a study of how child culture has evolved in schools.
Viral trends like TikTok dances and memes are “mostly harmless,” teachers said, but sheer repetition can make any phrase get under teachers’ skin: “It’s not that it’s offensive,” one noted, “it’s when 130 kids are hyperactive, distracting, and repeating the same trends verbatim for weeks at a time.”
Fewer than 1 in 10 responding teachers reported hearing actual terms associated with bullying—racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs, or “manosphere” slang associated with sexual aggression or self-harm. But “the extremist language is more troubling than the slang,” one teacher said.
Teachers who hear slurs or slang associated with online toxicity should “carve time to have frank discussions with the children and keep their ears attuned to [the students’] feelings as well as language,” Beresin said.
“Even the mildest of words can be used to bully, like ‘cute,’ or ‘normal,’ or ‘different,’” she said. “This is about school culture as a safe place, rather than slang.”
More than a quarter of teachers, meanwhile, said student slang doesn’t bother them, In fact, they use it.
“Every generation has its slang terms that become part of its culture,” noted one veteran teacher who responded to the survey, “and I’ve accepted that as long as it doesn’t interfere with my teaching too much.”
