Teachers are banning the slang “67” — and disciplining students who breach the rule.
“I’ve been teaching for 20 years and I’ve dealt with all sorts of slang — nothing has driven me crazier than this one,” Adria Laplander, a sixth-grade language arts teacher in Michigan, tells TODAY.com.
Laplander is now imposing consequences for students who say it, along with its accompanying “juggling” hand gesture.
What is “67?”
“Six seven (or 67 or 6 7, etc.) is a nonsensical expression used especially by teens and tweens that is connected to a rap song and also to a 6’ 7” tall basketball player,” according to Merriam-Webster.
Written as the number “67” but pronounced as “6-7,” kids say it as a response, a space filler or whenever the words “six” and “seven” are logically, or even spontaneously, paired together. “67” is always an alliance —if one person shouts “6,” the group chants “7!”
Teachers are brainstorming how to stop the slang.
As one teacher warned colleagues on TikTok, “Do not count out loud in class … I was taking attendance and I said, ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven” adding that his class then erupted into “67!”
A frustrated math teacher told students in a TikTok video that anyone who says “67” will have 67 digital points (which are awarded for good behavior) subtracted from their total.
“My goal with this, is that you build some self-control,” she told her class in the video, adding, “It’s getting a little ridiculous.”
Laplander’s new classroom rule:
“We are not saying the words, ‘67’ anymore — if you do, you have to write a 67-word essay about … what the word ‘67’ means,” Laplander said in a TikTok video. “If you do it again, another 67-word essay. After five times, if you’re still saying, ‘67’ in this classroom, your essay is going to bop up to 670 words.”
Laplander tells TODAY.com that essay writing is a light repercussion and how she re-establishes order in her classroom. Still, the ban hasn’t stopped students from standing in the hallway outside her classroom and yelling “67,” according to Laplander.
“They want to push buttons,” she says.
Slang can be used to connect with kids, explains Laplander, but not if it causes widespread distraction.
“We don’t have the right to disrupt other people’s learning,” says Laplander.
Monica Choflet, a fourth-grade teacher in New Jersey, tells TODAY.com that “67” is so prevalent in her classroom, that any number containing “6” or “7” is fair game for her students.
“I could say, ‘It’s 1:16 p.m., time for class and someone says, ‘67!’” says Choflet.
The teacher has two answers to the slang “fiasco” at school.
“I told my students that if they yell out ‘67’ during main academic time and it interrupts the class, then for homework, they have to write, ‘I will not say, ‘67’ in class,’” six to seven times,” Choflet said on TikTok, clarifying that first offenders write six lines and second offenders write seven lines.
“If they do it a third time, they have to write it 67 times,” she added.
She also uses “67” as a “call and response” — to command her students’ attention, she says: “6!” and the kids respond, “7!”
Choflet says the prompt — the idea of which came from a student — gets “67” out of her students’ systems and encourages community responsibility.
According to Choflet, two students have written lines for ignoring the ban. “They thought I was kidding but once I made them write it for homework, they said, ‘Whoa, you were serious!’” she says.
Choflet appreciates “67” as an inside joke between students — and teachers.
“A co-worker and I went to a Bingo fundraiser and they called out ‘G-67,’” says Choflet. “We looked at each other and said, ‘67.’”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
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