Teacher shares bizarre slang from his primary school students (2024)

A primary school teacher has shared a baffling list of slang used by 10-year-old children that even Gen Z can't seem to understand.

Kit Brown, 25, a year five teacher at Peartree Spring Primary School in Stevenage,Hertfordshire, took to TikTok to share a bizarre list of slang used by his students that he can't wrap his head around.

Kit is a popular TikTok user who showcases the life of a school teacher and has amassed a whopping 1.9 million followers on the app.

In a new video, the Gen Z teacher shared a list of bizarre phrases used by Gen Alpha children in his class - all of which seem hard to understand.

Filming himself from inside of a class room, the young teacher explained that the first phrase to go straight over his head is'skibidi toilet'.

'What on earth is a skibidi toilet why can anyone not go 30 seconds without saying it?!' he asked.

According to Mashable, skibidi toilet originates from an animated video series created by Georgian animator Alexey Gerasimov.

The videos follow a storyline wheremobile toilets with human heads are fighting with 'humanoids'.

The series is a treasured love of Gen Alphas, hence it's popularity as a phrase and now the wordskibidi apparently means'bad' or 'cool' depending on context.

Second on the strange list was, 'what the sigma', a phrase that Kit said he has asked multiple people to explain, but has been met only with blank faces.

Sigma - which is the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet - is a variation on alpha or beta and means 'cool dude', according to Today.

'I've asked around but no one can tell me what 'what the sigma' means,' said the teacher. The third and arguably the most strange, is 'skibidi ohio rizz.'

Baffled, Kit said: 'It's obviously a variation of skibidi toilet. I know what rizz is but skibidi ohio rizz? That's gone way over my head.'

The bizarre terminology refers to one's ability to flirt or 'rizz' someone. In this context, Ohio apparently refers to something cringe-worthy while the skibidi is thought to be bad, hence the 'bad flirting' meaning.

Lastly, he asked, what 'mewing' is, apparently another on the list of peculiar sayings of Generation Alpha.

Mewing is apparently a new trend where young people press their tongue to the roof of the mouth to make their jawline look tighter and slimmer.

Viewers of the video, including parents and Gen Zers, fled to the comment section to give their theories on the curious new lingo of Kit's year five students.

One frustrated parent clearly recognised some of the phrases of the young, writing: 'My son says 'what the sigma' and I can't stand it!!!'

A second attempted to clear up the confusion by suggesting some definitions for the slang. They said: 'Skibidi toilet means cool, sigma means alpha/ leader and I think mewing means good jawline/ fit and skibidi ohio rizz, I have no clue..'

Another user couldn't believe they know longer understood the most modern slang, writing: 'I refuse to believe the younger generation are old enough to use slang I don't understand.'

Teacher Kit has made a name for himself as a popular social media star who shares his life as a teacher; his content includes overcoming classroom challenges, new teaching styles, and 'day in the life' videos.

The year five teacher has previously been praised for adopting TikTok into his children's curriculum, using music from the app to help children remember their times tables.

He does this by replacing the lyrics of popular songs, such as Taylor Swift's, with maths terminologyand often uses well-known phrases or songs to get the attention of his class, reported the BBC.

The 25-year-oldwas previously a football player for Luton Town, but much to his despair, was let go aged 16.

Not knowing what he wanted to do, Kit headed touniversity where he gained a degree in teaching and has been pursuing the career for the last few years.

The youngster is also a presented on CBBC Bitesize Daily and involved with Premier League Primary Stars outreach team.

Some of the slang used by Kit's students, carries some similarities with that used by Gen Z - for example, 'rizz' (good at chatting up or flirting), which was recently declared Word of the Year by Oxford University Press.

In fact, the influence of slang in schools is so strong that a survey found foreign students who are members of Generation Z and learning English, are desperately trying to get to grips with the popular phrases.

The Trinity College London study shows that 71 per cent of overseas students learning English are asking teachers and lecturers to explain slang terms they have seen on social media, TV or elsewhere.

Teachers have even turned to recommending shows such as Friends, Stranger Things and Sherlock to their students to help them learn English.

The most queried slang terms are 'beef' (an argument), NPC (short for non-playable character and meaning a boring person) and 'pop-off' (go crazy), the survey of academics found.

Fam (meaning a friend or family member) and peng (something good or someone who is attractive) also feature.

The survey found 80 per cent of foreign students arrive knowing multicultural English (MCE) slang terms - having picked them up through social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram - but do not always know their meaning.

International students are also picking up their English from gritty British TV series' such as Top Boy.