Aimeé
Kids these days are so hard to communicate with. Instead of language, they use memes to convey complex ideas and emotions. So I’ve heard, I barely ever talk to kids. But a teacher has to talk to them all day long, confiscating phones and trying to distract them from the apps. It sounds exhausting and like a losing battle.
That’s why this teacher decided to stop trying to fight the tide and just surf it. Ainee Fatima is a 27-year-old English and Media Studies teacher from Illinois who went viral on Twitter with her special meme grading practices that are guaranteed to grab her students’ attention.
On Twitter, Fatima showed a clip of her applying a sticker to a paper as she grades, with an arrow pointing at the paragraph she’s questioning. You know she’s questioning it because the meme is of a Confused Nick Young, which is a popular gif used in response to weird statements that make no sense or are contradictory.
It shows him looking to camera with a baffled smile, and then a bunch of question marks appear. You’d know it if you saw it, like you will right now:
I love grading with my new stickers! pic.twitter.com/4K66qQblSJ
— aineef (@axfxq) October 17, 2018
Lots of people loved this idea and started DMing Fatima to ask for the sticker layout she used to print their own. Some were critical of the practice, saying she would just confuse her students as much as Nick Young.
She says that these stickers were only used amongst her high school seniors, not younger kids, and that a number of them actually came up to her to discuss their grades and improvements they could make on their next exam or paper, so it really worked!
**just a lil info about my class, i teach a "media studies" english class, we literally study/analyze the media & write! Social media, trends, news, politics, music, film…the meme stickers were deff appropriate for my class.
— aineef (@axfxq) October 18, 2018
Update: these were really well received by my kids. Students who normally wouldn’t care actually asked if they could correct their tests for a better grade & had a good laugh esp bc they always show me memes.
— axneef (@axfxq) October 18, 2018
Also, her stickers weren’t all negative. Fatima made others meme stickers that are more encouraging, like this one of Chef Gordon Ramsey being positive for once:
Don’t worry, I did positive memes too! 😂 pic.twitter.com/rTfHCGKQwJ
— axneef (@axfxq) October 18, 2018
Her post got so popular that Nick Young actually saw it, which is a wonderful full circle for this meme:
YO! NICK YOUNG SAW MY STICKERS!!! 😭😭😩😩 @NickSwagyPYoung @HoHighlights pic.twitter.com/9ZRxjGKXdA
— axneef (@axfxq) November 16, 2018
Though there is still the question of what parents will think of her meme grading system:
When the kids gotta explain to their parents what a meme is cuz they got an F pic.twitter.com/9SkDSUf6io
— X (@XLNB) October 18, 2018
She’s bringing kids and their parents together at home, too. Teacher of the year!
