Teacher turns 6­7 `brain rot’ into `brain thought’ in his­tory les­son

Sadeen Mohsen – Toronto Star Staff Reporter

Just before the bell rang to end the school day, an eighth­grader turned to teacher Michael Grand­soult to ask one last cru­cial ques­tion: “Do you know any Gen­Z slang?”

This was the day Grand­soult, who’s been a teacher for 18 years, learned about “6­7” — an inter­net meme that spread widely on Ins­tagram and Tik­Tok to the point of being seem­ingly every­where. It’s believed to be con­nec­ted to rap­per Skrilla’s song “Doot Doot (6 7),” from last year, likely ref­er­en­cing a police radio code or 67th Street in Phil­adelphia.

Now, Grand­soult is using the trend to teach his stu­dents at St. Maria Gor­etti Cath­olic School in Scar­bor­ough about import­ant his­tor­ical les­sons, spe­cific­ally in the years 1867 and 1967, through hiphop verses.

As part of Hip Hop Hea­du­cat­orz, a group of edu­cat­ors using hip­hop in the classroom, Grand­soult said he wanted to cre­ate a more enjoy­able, relat­able learn­ing exper­i­ence out of “noth­ing.” This group of 12 teach­ers, spread around the Greater Toronto Area, Sar­nia and Hal­i­fax, formed after get­ting together to craft an edu­ca­tional song for World Teach­ers Day in 2019.

While it may seem an unlikely way to make a con­nec­tion, Grand­soult’s stu­dents seem to be enjoy­ing the trend’s appear­ance in their brightly lit classroom and some turn to each other to laugh every time those num­bers are men­tioned, some­times from across the room.

“Mak­ing a les­son with their lingo, what they’re into, it builds that mutual respect,” he said. “We’re meet­ing them where they’re at.”

Some of the verses of the group’s “6ix7” song, focused on the year 1967, include ref­er­ences to cel­eb­rat­ing 100 years of Con­fed­er­a­tion, the Jungle Book and Toronto’s first Caribana parade. It also men­tions the Leafs’ most recent cham­pi­on­ship.

“Raise hands up if fan of Maple Leaf fam­ily,” the song reads. “Last year that the Budds clutched the cup of Stan­ley.”

He said he wanted to give mean­ing to a mean­ing­less trend. “What’s sup­posed to be a dis­trac­tion meme, noise, brain rot, we’re try­ing to turn it into brain thought.”

This week, stu­dents are being asked to cre­ate their “review rap” using new vocab­u­lary in pre­par­a­tion for a quiz. “Instead of just mak­ing a tra­di­tional vocab­u­lary list, they have to try to put those words into rhyme in a way that shows they under­stand the mean­ing of it.” Review raps are struc­tured like poems with a rhyme scheme to engage stu­dents cre­at­ively and help with mem­or­iz­a­tion.

Sarah Acquaviva, 13, says using the rhyme of a pop­u­lar meme helps her piece together the inform­a­tion. For other stu­dents in the classroom, Acquaviva said it can be hard for them to “just sit there and do tra­di­tional learn­ing.”

“It can be a bit weird because it’s like, `Oh, well, my teacher’s using our lingo,’ ” she said. “It’s really funny to listen to and it’s cool to listen to and rap about this new meme.”

Acquaviva, who is also a his­tory fan, says her par­ents find the les­son vastly dif­fer­ent from their exper­i­ences, but inter­est­ing. Her dad keeps telling her how he used to “write lines on the board.”

“You can have fun with your learn­ing instead of just sit­ting there bored,” she said.

Moments after speak­ing with the Star, Acquaviva walked over to her friend — who had six and seven fig­ur­ines — and began wav­ing her hands up and down in oppos­ite dir­ec­tions, which is how the trend’s moves are per­formed.

Kim Wilson, a dir­ector at the Chil­dren’s Media Lab at Toronto Met­ro­pol­itan Uni­versity, said Gen­er­a­tion Alpha, those born between 2010 and 2024, have lost “incred­ibly import­ant” parts of child­hood devel­op­ment such as social con­nec­tion due to the COVID­19 pan­demic.

This can lead to higher rates of anxi­ety, loneli­ness and a lack of aca­demic con­fid­ence, in addi­tion to fears of another pan­demic. A 2024 report by the Centre for Addic­tion and Men­tal Health showed 38 per cent of stu­dents rated their men­tal health as “fair or poor” and 37 per cent repor­ted high stress levels in Ontario.

So when social trends like “6­7” come along, Wilson says it alle­vi­ates some of the stress they struggle with and “gives them a break.”

“It can mean noth­ing but just that empower­ment that age group has in doing it and feel­ing like it’s their spe­cial thing.”

Here is a link to the original newspaper story – https://torontostarreplica.pressreader.com/article/281487872633849

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