I asked my students three things in a recent anonymous survey. First, describe brainrot in their own words. Next, describe an instance of brainrot observed in their own life, and finally describe an instance of brainrot they observed happen to someone else.
A wordcloud of the responses looks like this…
It’s a flawed endeavor. Those who undergo brainrot are by nature unable to write about it in a coherent manner.
In any case, here is a sampling of responses:
Brainrot is:
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I experienced brainrot when I…
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I witnessed brainrot when I saw…
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The jokes about brainrot being caused by Mr. Scott’s class or by talking with Mr. Scott were hurtful and uncalled-for.
But perhaps true?
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I am now two-thirds of the way done with my grad cohort, six graduate-level classes to earn a certification to teach Dual Enrollment English. We have our little clique, our cohort, our gradfam, about ten of us across the county. We’ve still never gotten together in person as a group, although I saw many of them at the most recent countywide English teachers meeting. A few acknowledged me with a head nod and a quickening of their steps.
It is said that teachers make the worst students, and for the most part I haven’t observed that to be the case with our crew. I am consistently impressed by how on top of things my peers are every Thursday evening, ready to discuss the reading, always prepared on presentation days with beautiful Canva-facilitated experiences that make my meager monochrome Google Slides look drab and institutional.
This was my first semester of the cohort without my friend Aubrey, who took time off for maternity leave. It was horrible not being able to text her during the Zoom classes when the professor said something confusing or awkeward, not having someone to clarify information about projects or readings. Yes, I could reach out to other members of the cohort, or the professor, or just look at the syllabus. Who has the time?
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I had all my students writing the annual Letter to a Good Person essay – five paragraphs articulating to an adult in your life why you respect and value them. I ask for three body paragraphs, each body paragraph loaded with specific evidence. To show the value of this, I showed them a note. I have someone in my life who runs an Airbnb, and it was requested by a guest that this note be waiting in the Airbnb when he and his date arrived at the cabin:
The students instantly clocked it as AI-generated, and the value of specific evidence was made clear. The students then quickly moved on to speculating as to whether the whole backstory was a lie and I had in fact written this letter for my wife. Hurtful and uncalled-for.
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I have a student this year who has the ability to always be doing the most off task things and have an aggressively defensive attitude when he’s being redirected back to schoolwork.
The most memorable example happened a month ago, when I looked up from the book we were reading as a class and saw that he was holding his book in one hand and in the other he held a Q-tip, with which he was slowly and carefully digging in his ear.
“What?” he said, shrugging. “I’m cleaning my ears.”
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That’s the thing with freshmen. It’s a coin-flip whether they are messing with you or whether they’re being genuine.
An instance earlier this year when I was ruthlessly pranked by a freshman:
Student at the front of the class raises his hand as I’m taking attendance. What could he want? I wasn’t sure what to expect: this is the type of student that within the first week had already earned a spot at the front of the class.
I could not have predicted what he would say.
“Mr Scott,” he said. “Did you teach Sophia Roney? Did you know she’s my cousin.”
“I did,” I said. “It was five, six years ago. Wow, she’s you’re cousin?”
“Yeah, she’s my cousin,” he said. Sophia was blonde and this kid was blonde. It all seemed plausible enough.
A minute later he raised his hand again.
“Hey, did you teach Nithin Joseph? He was at my house this weekend.”
“Nithin? Why was Nithin at your house?”
“He was there to visit Sophie,” he replied, the world’s biggest smirk stretched across his face.
He then proceeded to list the names of several other people from Champe that he knew. They were unified by nothing more than the fact that they had gone to Champe and I had taught them. His laptop was closed, phone away. How the hell was he doing this?
As I packed up at the end of the day I realized the obvious answer: he’d been reading names written on my lectern:
A breathtakingly embarrassing prank, flawlessly executed, done for the sheer pleasure of being a pain. And they said I would regret teaching freshmen.
***
I told my wife a work story recently that almost made her puke.
The members of the cross country team had their annual “gilk challenge,” wherein they drink cups of gatorade cut with milk and run merrily around the track in the cold night.
If that made your stomach turn (it did for my wife) don’t read the rest of this section. In my classroom the next day was a student who had been there to witness (but not participate in) this fine event. She was wearing her fuzzy slippers, and someone in class observed that they were darkened on the ends with a wet, slightly shiny substance that refused to dry.
It was not gilk, she explained, but gilk puke, and it was not her gilk puke, but someone else’s.
I have been taking my oldest son to his elementary school’s running club, a precursor to middle school track and cross country. I’m now considering getting him an iPad and a Fortnite account.
***
Throughout the year I keep exemplary student art on display throughout my classroom. This year there I have been gifted a lot of student art, but it hasn’t been exactly exemplary. It barely meets the criteria of art.
Where four years ago I was receiving this…
These days students are bringing me this…
It’s like when the cat brings you a dead animal and leaves it at your front door expecting approval.
Part of this is a symptom of the no-phone policy, students finding new artistic outlets for their boredom. It’s nostalgic in that way.
I tried to even make it part of my class culture, changing the school’s picture for fourth block to this picture of tongue-waggling sponge bob a freshman left in my classroom.
All was well until someone in another class asked why I had “FreakBob” on our Schoology page. Freakbob? That can’t be wholesome. I changed it immediately back to a stock image.
Eventually, the amount of brainrot art in my classroom was getting out of hand. I asked my fifth block students to consolidate it to one area on the bulletin board, bordered with festive lights.
The students who helped organize it complained that the display looked too small.
“It will grow,” I said solemnly. “I have faith in the brainrot.”
So may we all.