This week's #steemiteducation homework: What modern student trends do you have a hard time understanding or keeping up with and why? As times change, kids get into new trends and new types of toys, music, clothes, etc. become popular. Which new trends have you found confusing or hard to keep up with?

This happens to me all the time. In my case, I run into gaps that sometimes prove insurmountable: cultural, language, gender, and age. Most of the time, I can deal with one gap, but occasionally something will come up that hits two or even all three and I get completely lost with regard to whatever it is the kids are doing.

Here is an example that came up recently:

About a year ago, at one of the elementary schools I work at, little boys suddenly began doing a kind of dance move and yelling "justice" whenever they got an answer right or won a game or whatever. I had absolutely no idea where this was coming from. Once I asked them about it, I found that it originated with a Japanese comedian who had been using the dance-move-justice-shout as part of his signature joke on a wide array of popular evening variety shows.

I found a clip on YouTube. I watched it. I still didn't understand it. I mean, I knew the words, I got the joke, it just wasn't funny enough to warrant it's popularity with my students. Not to me, anyway. And that's the point - kids find the weirdest things funny. They're not sophisticated and they're not disingenuous, but the comedian made a funny physical gesture combined with an easy catchphrase and a certain set of boys realized that if they emulated that, then they would get laughter and attention from their peers.

Which puts this example firmly in age-gap territory. I'm old enough that this particular comedian's schtick is a little trite; I remember when another comedian was doing a very similar thing a few years prior. And yet a different comedian doing something not too different a few years before that. But the boys have no idea about that. To them it's fresh and new and something they've never seen before. Also, like I said, it gets them attention.

In the year or so since then, the comedian has moved on to a new routine, but the boys have not. To them, "justice" has become slang meaning "got it" or "nailed it" instead of, well, justice. I've told them what justice actually means and they don't care. They'd rather keep using it just as they have been, especially because chances are good that I'm the only person in their life who speaks English fluently and is bothered by the incongruity. Every one else - their teachers, parents, and neighbors - just thinks it's a funny thing that a comedian used to say.

At first it was something that I thought was amusing. Then my amusement changed to mild irritation as the trend grew, and finally, I ended up being slightly bored by the whole thing. I don't react to it any longer, I just wait for the celebration to end and for the kids to be ready for the next part of the day's activites. In other words, I don't get it, but nobody, including me, cares. It's just something the boys do, just like all the other weird things they do.

So, is it a culture gap? A language gap? Something else? I think it's a combination of culture and age. Maybe if I was a fluent Japanese speaker, I would find the joke funnier. Maybe if I was not a fluent English speaker I would like it more. Maybe if I was 10 years old, I would think it was the best joke in the world. But, for whatever reason, for whichever gap, it is something that my students love that I just don't get. And for once, I'm okay with that.

Thanks for reading!