"Dude, I spawned into an aircraft"

Last week I was riding in a van with ten eighth grade boys on our way to a zipline course. The trip would take about an hour, so I settled into my front seat and began a little informal data gathering: What do adolescent boys talk about in unstructured settings? Over the course of that hour, the boys discussed video games-- especially war-based games, movies-- war-based movies, horror films, and slapstick comedy, and TV shows-- South Park and Family Guy. The conversation was rapid fire: one boy introducing a topic, another offering a brief comment, a third jumping in with a new topic. No one topic lasted more than about a minute and a half. Some boys could never get a word in edgewise, while the same 2-3 dominated the conversation. Yet there was a sense of community and lots of laughter, quotes and shared memories.

I learned something by listening that day: Those boys are part of a culture that has its own vocabulary, rituals, and values. That culture is completely foreign to my culture; although I have heard of the games, movies, and TV shows they discussed, I have not participated nor viewed any of them. They used familiar words in new ways: "Dude, I spawned into an aircraft" (spawned?), and used terms I'd never heard of: "I used my MOAB to blow up the tank" (MOAB? When another boy asked, I learned it meant "Mother Of All Bombs"). They valued violence and competition, slapstick humor and special effects.

This is interesting to me because these are my students. They sit in my class every day and listen to me talk about the things I think are important. But what I am talking about has nothing to do with modern warfare weapons, gory violence, nor slapstick humor. I wonder if what I am saying is as foreign to them as their discussion was to me. I wonder how to bridge my middle-aged female academic culture with their adolescent male pop culture so that they can access the vocabulary and concepts in the curriculum. I wonder about the pace of the class, where one topic can last 20 or more minutes. Can they sustain their attention that long?

The boys in that van come from families like mine, have parents like me. Yet they have created a common culture that is foreign to me. Rather than assuming they are accessing all of the concepts presented in class, I must remember to find the bridge that helps them link my culture to theirs, just as I do with students from other foreign cultures.