CGS teachers and slang

By Elise Kim ‘25

Teacher slang
Courtesy of Angie Nguyen ‘24

CGS students aren’t the only ones who will use slang to color their everyday speech at school. Certain teachers, on occasion, will use it too.

“I don’t know if these are slang terms or phrases, but I will obviously say to a student like, ‘bruh, dude, awk,” said Social Studies teacher Mickey Del Castillo. He also will say phrases like, “that’s sus”, “oh, taking the L”, and “LOL with the gesture”.

CGS teacher Mickey Del Castillo displaying the LOL gesture.
Photo by Elise Kim ‘25

Another frequent slang user is English teacher Brett Mathes who “picks it up directly from his students.”

Mathes stated that he’s been hearing students use “lit and spicy” and talk about “what is fire”, “which song is a banger” and “which singer has bars.”

“I’ve heard some very bizarre and hyper-specific ones,” said Mathes. “I have a senior who I guess plays lacrosse and he uses lacrosse slang, which I didn’t even know existed.”

While Mathes is interested in expanding his lexicon, he stated that he approaches it with a certain degree of caution.

“I am aware that I’m listening to contemporary slang and it’s their words and phrases, all of the connotations of which I might not fully understand,” said Mathes. “It’s something I get a little bit nervous about because I certainly don’t want to be saying that is off-kilter or unkind.”

He tries to understand the significance of the terms by asking his students questions such as, “What does this mean? Is this appropriate? Would I be right to use it this way?”

Questions like Mathes’ often lead to the teacher-student role being reversed as students give a Slang 101 class to their teachers.

For instance, the students in sophomore Katie Jin’s Modern World History class taught Helena Gougeon the slang word "yap" which means “to talk excessively with little substance.”

Additionally, sophomore Levi Whalen-Stewart and another student have occasionally taught CGS math teacher Kathy Sloane slang with disappointing results. They taught Sloane the words “fire”, “fuego”, and “lock in” which, to the dismay of both students, were quickly forgotten.

Student opinions on teachers using slang at CGS varied. Some of the students I interviewed argued that teachers use slang to appear more relatable or to make a good first impression on their students.

This is certainly the case for Mathes. Most of the time Mathes said students will laugh when he uses slang. “I am aware that having a 45 or 46-year-old now, using slang terms is just kind of silly, right?” stated Mathes.

He utilizes slang as a form of self-deprecating humor when teaching his classes to make himself more “approachable”. “For me, I feel like that’s just an element of building rapport with students,” said Mathes. “It’s just a way of being silly and showing students that I don’t take myself too seriously.”

For some students, teachers’ use of slang wasn’t an issue for them. Junior Leon Liu stated, “Last year during Helena’s class, she used the phrase ‘that’s fire’ pretty frequently and I think she used that pretty well.”

Whalen Stewart observed that most teachers use slang ironically which he described as “hit or miss”. He described how when teachers use slang repeatedly, he and another student “just kind of look at each other, wondering how much longer is left in the class.”

Senior Owen Jones elaborated on this thought by stating that teachers’ use of slang can be “awkward especially when a teacher uses terminology they don’t understand and is sometimes inappropriate.”

Another student (who wanted to remain anonymous) raised the concern about the possibility of teachers getting tricked into saying “bad things” when the teachers don’t know any better.

Jones stated that he personally does not believe that slang is beneficial to a classroom environment. “The goal of school is to get more educated and challenge your vocabulary, not make up words,” said Jones. “Teachers shouldn’t encourage it.”

According to junior Lily Wang, it feels “wrong” for older people, meaning non-Gen Zers, to use slang. “They had slang that they probably used…it’s like they’re trying too hard to fit into our generation,” said Wang. “They’ve had their turn and they should let us Gen Zers have ours.”

Teachers like Del Castillo have taken notice of sentiments similar to Wang’s.

“...students I’m sure look at their teachers as being very disconnected from how they think or talk about things within their social settings even though students are continually talking out loud forgetting a ton of adults are walking by them, listening to what they’re saying,” said Del Castillo.

Moreover, Mathes admitted to being interested in slang from an intellectual standpoint. In particular, he is intrigued by “how language changes”, and “how things that are slang in one generation become enfranchised and then old news”.

Even more fascinating to Mathes is that “a term that is used by a more disenfranchised group to build solidarity and to communicate in an activist way can then become a term that effectively everybody uses.”

“There’s kind of some interesting things with power and language there that I do like to learn about in part by being in dialogue with my students,” Mathes finally stated.

Del Castillo said that despite his use of slang landing, more often than not, as a “cringe comment”, he referenced “the old meme” simply saying, “I am cringe, but I am free.”

Are you a CGS teacher who wants to be in the know about student slang? Click here.