(for 3 Quarks Daily)
Preparing a worksheet with negative-number calculations where all the digits are sixes and sevens. Telling myself it’s meant to take the fun out of it for them – like a sex ed teacher having their students say ‘penis’ one hundred times before starting the unit. Definitely not the whole story, but plausible: as a middle school math teacher I am more than justified in trying to tame the phenomenon. In fact, I have drawn a firm line; just seeing a 6 anywhere in an exercise is decidedly not an appropriate reason for doing the meme. Really, we need to get on with the lesson now; I will count to five.
The ‘six-seven’ thing is one of those trends that remind adults they have lost connection with what it is like to be a teenager. For me, it is actually a far less baffling one than the draining ‘skibidi’ and ‘what the sigma’ cycles – I quite understand that it is fun to say. No, more than that; it has made something about Generation Alpha positively click into place for me. Let me enlighten you.
Continue reading “Generation 6-7”