Why would my students pay attention to my views on Brexit when I can’t even get them to stop using the word relatable? Teaching is an uncertain affair, full of humility-inducing failures and miscues. Students have their own ideas about what is worth knowing and retaining, not because they are a tribe apart, but because each of them is an adult – unbiddable, unpredictable and indecipherable. My students aren’t relatable, and neither am I.