What Are Teenagers In To These Days?

[ms spock]

So I am going be on prac in a couple of weeks as a teacher, and I need to know what Year 7-10 Students are into these days? So from about ages 11-12 until 16 years old?

Do you have teenagers? What do they like? What do they do?

What Popular Culture do they watch?

Any pointers?

What have your teenagers made you watch in movies lately?

 

[anthony]

OMG... I read that and thought, WOW... shock horror. My question would be... do teenagers know what teenagers are into these days? I don't think they know themselves.

Honestly... I would let them teach you what they're into. That's even solid time there getting to know from them what they're into.

 

[ms spock]

I do plan to do the getting to know them thing when I do my first lesson @anthony. It will take time to get to know them and I am only on prac for 6 weeks, so I thought any heads up could help.

Even if it doesn't relate to the teenagers that I end up teaching. I just wanted to know what types of things - that people are noticing that their teenagers being into. I know some stuff but not a lot.

I have to set up expectations and work on class guidelines with the students.

If any teenagers here want to give me insight, as well, that would be good. I know one is into learning Latin. And others have other hobbies, and things that they do.

Getting any information is useful at this stage.

I had a lot of pressures as a teenager in looking after and protecting my siblings. I had a lot of responsibility - so I wasn't ever really a teenager - I was an adult really young. I can't expect other young people to be like I was at that age. I was planning when to run away and how to run away to stop my father from carrying out his threats to kill us all and then himself. My time was very stressful. I was planning how to stop my father from sexually abusing and physically abusing us a lot of the time. I stayed up at nights to stop him from sexually abusing my siblings. There will be kids that are being sexually and physically abused - 1 in 3 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes in Australia. But I don't want to connect with teenagers that way. It is not my role.

As I am experiencing severe anxiety for periods of time my psychiatrist has suggested I overprepare to manage that.

 

[anthony]

I had a lot of responsibility - so I wasn't ever really a teenager

Pretty sure nothing has changed. You will find teens from diverse backgrounds and maturity. Josh is 24 now, and let me tell you... nightmare during those final teen years. Trying to find who he was... was probably the most challenging. He had been working on that since 16 through to 22 before he really knew what he even wanted to do in life. He was going to school, working part-time for cash, then had his social life, participated in local AFL and dating his gf at the time. From the parental side... it was interesting, stressful, rewarding, all at the same time.

Good luck with this one... will be interesting to read.

 

[mary1979]

Youtube.
Anime.
Tv series depicting end of days type scenarios.
Dr Who.
More youtube.
More anime.

Mine just turned 18.

 

[digger]

In my experience of teenagers, one of the things they're generally not into is adults who pretend to understand what they're into. Even having been a teenager yourself (back in the Stone Age) rarely apparently qualifies you for possibly ever being able to know what it's like to be a teenager ;)

Go with what Anthony suggested - ask them - use it as an opportunity to get to know them and what their world is made of from their perspective. If you go in dropping key words and movie titles without really knowing what they are they will smell it a mile off!

Don't try too hard to 'know' them before you meet them. Let them show you who they are :)

 

[anthony]

I'm gonna need popcorn for this thread. :coffee:

 

[ladee]

Half the stuff my boys were into as teens, I didn't find out about until they were grown... Thank the Universe !!!!

 

[Sammyiam]

Cell phones, utube, and more internet, any gadgets that cost lots of money, ie Apple iPhones, iPads etc.
I wouldn't even start to say what music they are into
Beer would be starting to creep into the older students and RTD's (Ready to drinks )
Skipping school, parties, not telling their partners what they are doing !
@ladee mine were the same and now I'm onto grandchildren so here goes another round :p
Good luck Spock !!!!

 

[Sammyiam]

Sammy pulls up a chair to watch with her popcorn as well :p
Maybe it might help with the grandkids :p

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Around here it's lots of sports and video games (MineCraft, Halo, etc) though quite a few younger ones are into those. We just had 2 teens staying with us for 4 days and mostly they were into reading, music, photochat/texting, playing games on their phones, exploring the woods (which they don't have much of where they live, and one liked to color (you know in the books made for grown-ups, not the little kid coloring kind). I really do think you'll get a variety of information from the kids as to what they like...provided they'll actually answer. Depending on where you live, you could check out the local teen stores (ask the clerks what kids like these days because you want to buy a present or such) or listen to radio to get a gist of their overall kind of music. Best of luck to you!

 

[anthony]

Even their music will be diverse. I use spotify, and I love the diversity of channels on it. I listen to most them too, from classic to pop, rock, indie, party, electronic and so forth. You will find kids will have their niche in music... many don't tend to pay much attention to the top 40 charts though... according to some youngsters I engage with, "the charts of full of paid nonsense they're trying to sell versus what is actually being listened to."

I don't disagree with that either.