Практика Shadowing: We Have To Talk About Teacher Influencers - Изучайте разговорный английский с YouTube

You may have noticed recently that lots of teachers are now moonlighting as influencers.

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You may have noticed recently that lots of teachers are now moonlighting as influencers.

All right, you guys, everybody say good morning, buddy.

Good morning, buddy.

Let's make sure our brains are thinking.

Our eyes are watching.

Our ears are listening.

Let's do our affirmations, ready?

I am kind.

I am smart.

I can do hard.

Good morning.

For those who do not know me,

my name is Mrs. Lopez.

I'm going to be your teacher this year.

It's easy to understand the appeal.

Teachers are chronically underpaid and the idea of supplementing a meager income by going viral on TikTok

or Instagram feels like a lifeline.

After all, teachers are human beings outside of school.

That's what comes to mind at first anyways.

But teachers aren't keeping their influencing to outside of work hours.

Classrooms are now pretty much filming sets.

And while some teachers are at least thoughtful enough to hide their students' faces, others are not.

And in one viral video,

an elementary school teacher played a game of identifying students by their voice,

all while filming each child's face and announcing their names to the internet.

I blurred their faces, but she did not.

That's Daniel.

Oh, that's Natalie.

Oh, that's Vivian.

A lot of these teachers have their school's logos and names visible in their content,

making it easily identifiable where these children are.

And these videos rack up millions of views and likes,

but at what cost?

Let's talk about why teachers clout chasing

and wanting to be influencers should never come before children's rights to privacy and a normal school experience.

This new trend of teachers wanting to be influencers and filming in their classroom is raising some serious ethical red flags.

For those of you who've worked in the school system,

I know I have.

We typically have to have media release forms that parents have to sign in order for schools to disseminate their likeness.

By the way, that's usually limited to being posted on like a school's website or on a flyer,

not to millions of strangers on social media.

But these influencer teachers are bypassing that altogether and filming these kids

and posting it on their personal social media accounts for likes,

for views, for attention.

I mean, let's be so for real.

They're essentially exploiting these kids for content.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act,

also known as FERPA, exists to protect student information from being publicly disseminated.

But these cloud chasing teachers are undermining these protections like never before.

The FERPA law was ran in the 1970s,

long before TikTok, first of all.

At this time, a teacher wanting to be an influencer

and recording their classroom and posting it for millions of people to consume was not even in the realm of possibility.

Important to note that FERPA also only applies to school districts that receive federal funding,

not to individual teachers.

That means if a teacher wants to post a TikTok with a student's face or voice,

the Department of Education is not going to swoop in to discipline them.

The enforcement is supposed to lie on the school or the district.

And a lot of these school districts either don't know or don't seem to care to enforce it.

And this is really sad because a classroom is supposed to be a safe space for kids.

A place that we ask questions and that we make mistakes and that you're learning and growing.

Some of these teacher influencers are going on TikTok

and are basically complaining about their students and berating them for millions of people on TikTok to see.

This is literally the only class all day who cannot identify shape.

I haven't asked y'all to pull out a calculator.

I haven't asked y'all to multiply.

I haven't asked y'all to add.

I haven't asked y'all to subtract.

I haven't asked y'all to do anything but identify shapes.

What shape is this when you cut it in half?

What shape is this when you cut this in half?

No, no, no, no, I'm just, just hush, just hush.

Listen, I understand how you as a teacher can be exasperated with your students,

but that should be handled offline.

It doesn't help the children to embarrass them publicly and make them feel even more insecure.

Are you basically telling your followers how dumb they are?

I mean, going to school is stressful enough.

I mean, when you think back to being in school,

you know that that does not bring about a lot of pleasant memories.

Now, just imagine if a teacher was shoving a camera in your face.

Your teacher is recording you and this is now content.

There's enough of a crisis of children being addicted to screens

and now the adults are modeling that same behavior for the kids.

You are learning that even your teacher will exploit your vulnerable moments

or just your everyday classroom moments for clout on social media.

And we've seen extreme examples lately of how inappropriate some of these teacher influencers can be.

One middle school teacher from Maryland by the name of Marquise White amassed over 775,000 TikTok followers by constantly filming his classroom.

In one live stream in particular that garnered over 7 million views,

he had his students taking his braids out during his class.

And the next day he posted another video of a student painting his nails in class.

And he tried to defend himself saying that he got a media release form signed by the parents of the child.

But nevertheless, he ended up being removed from the classroom,

thank God, pending an investigation.

And there was another case in Kansas City where a teacher joked

that he farts on his students in class when they annoy him.

He was subsequently fired because the district did in fact have a social media policy that he violated.

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Watching these antics, you have to stop and think to yourself,

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what happened to teaching as a calling?

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Not teaching for clout on social media,

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but teaching as a calling.

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Traditionally, we imagine teachers to be mentors or guides

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and people who want to nurture young minds and not exploit them for clout.

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And of course, let's be honest,

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teachers are far from being saints, okay?

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They've never been flawless.

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There's always been terrible teachers out there.

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If you think back, there was always

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that authoritarian teacher who did not know how to regulate their emotions and yelled at you for absolutely nothing.

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I mean, back in the day,

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the teachers would even whip kids with a paddle.

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And of course, the school system as a whole has been made to create this hierarchical relationship between the student and teacher.

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We've talked about this before.

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The school system, unfortunately, has largely served as this incubator to create the next workforce,

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the next worker bees.

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As Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire,

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who we've mentioned before in the past on this channel,

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we love this text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed on this channel.

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And in that book, he said,

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quote, there's no such thing as a neutral education.

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Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.

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And let's be honest, under capitalism,

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it's been a lot of the former.

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Even with that reality, though,

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there's also what teaching is supposed to be when it's done well.

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Think of those teachers who truly opened up your mind and encourage you to question.

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Education should be about empowerment

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and it should be about giving people the skills to think critically and engage with their communities as informed, self-determined individuals.

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Bell Hooks reminded us in her book,

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Teaching to Transgress, Education as the Practice of Freedom,

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that quote, there is an aspect of our vocation that is sacred.

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Our work is not merely to share information,

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but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students.

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But the teacher influencer trend seems so far from that.

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Teachers whose sole job is to cultivate the intellect of their children are instead focusing on cultivating their personal brand.

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Being a teacher is inherently an others centered profession.

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Influencer culture, on the other hand,

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is all about the self.

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It's all about endless self-promotion and carefully curating your image and often a dose of narcissism.

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Let's be honest.

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When teachers are trying to straddle these two roles,

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I'm sorry, it's a contradiction of what you're supposed to be doing.

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Like, are you your student's mentor or are you an influencer performing a caricature of teacher life?

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Like, which one is it?

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I think it's really hard to be those two at the same time because again,

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I think those two are in conflict with each other.

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Which brings me to my next teacher influencer,

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the woman who calls herself Teacher Bae.

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This teacher, whose name is apparently Miss Williams,

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went viral on TikTok for wearing,

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let's say, tight fitted dresses and strappy heels that you would wear maybe to go to the club or to the bar,

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but not to school.

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Her videos showcase her curvy body and she clearly has a BBL.

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As a girl with curves myself,

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albeit there is no BBL here,

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I'm never going to shave a woman for having curves.

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But when you're wearing these tight fitted outfits,

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it seems to me that you're trying to accentuate those curves,

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which is fine when you're going to the club, by the way.

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In the classroom though, I'm asking why would you want to accentuate your curves?

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Like when you're posing like this,

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you clearly are trying to accentuate something.

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Your curves are not just existing,

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you're exhibiting them on full display.

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Even calling yourself teacher bae,

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which has, I want to say romantic to say the least connotation, that's strange.

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That's problematic.

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I don't want to shame her in any way she is absolutely beautiful.

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And in any other setting she eats, she looks amazing.

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But I do feel like she is trying to purposely pose this way and look this way for attention on social media.

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And teacher based TikTok, she flaunts her designer bags,

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her Chanel, her Louis Vuitton,

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alongside with her day's lesson plan.

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The most important question I think that we need to be asking is,

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why is this teacher performing her wardrobe for TikTok in the first place?

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Now, I'm not talking about doing a little OOTD before you go to class.

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She's doing it in the school setting,

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which makes me feel like your primary goal is to garner attention,

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to get likes and followers.

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She's spending time posing for pictures and filming videos in her school,

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caressing school buses, angling for the perfect full body shot.

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And listen, by all means,

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teachers are not monks and they can dress fashionably.

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But when you're actively branding yourself as the sexy teacher and you're seeking all of this validation online,

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it feels antithetical to what you're supposed to be doing as a teacher,

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which is focusing on your students,

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teaching your students, not trying to prop yourself up for clout.

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Again, it would be one thing if you're a teacher and you're recording outside of school in your downtime.

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And it would be another thing entirely

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if you were just a teacher who was just getting on TikTok

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and sharing tips and struggles so that you

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and other teachers could like go back and forth and you can get advice from them.

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That's different.

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A lot of these teacher influencers are just clout chasing.

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The substance of teaching, which is largely unglamorous and it's often very, very hard work.

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It's giving way now to the spectacle of teaching,

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showing off your OOTDs, building this persona.

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Like that's not what teaching is supposed to be about.

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And in that spectacle, people turn into objects.

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The students are now the objects.

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They're now your props.

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They're now your means to an end.

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Their value to the teacher is how cute and adorable can you be on camera?

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Can you do something cute to get me some likes and some followers?

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You bet your bottom dollar these teachers are making bank off of this content.

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And I think it is so profoundly dehumanizing.

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We've seen the same dynamic in the ways in which these family vloggers exploit their children for views.

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They treat their children like round-the-clock reality stars.

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And what is the difference between that and this?

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I feel like this is even worse because these are not even your kids.

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Not that family vloggers are okay in any way, shape, or form.

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You're exploiting someone else's child.

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And I don't know if these parents are aware.

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You would have to be on TikTok and stumble across these videos to know.

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Students should not be actors to boost these teacher influencers engagement metrics.

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Like that is not okay.

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This casual disregard of the children's autonomy,

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it really shows how children are seen as second class citizens.

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I've always said this.

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Children are the most vulnerable group.

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They are the most marginalized group.

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Kids can't choose where to go or what rules to live under.

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Generally, they're taught to obey the adults in charge.

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And when the adults in charge want to film like it's a reality show,

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you don't have the autonomy to consent to say no. Like a teacher is supposed to protect their child's welfare.

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Like that's what you're supposed to do.

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But that's not what these teachers are doing.

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They are prioritizing their own clout over the children's dignity.

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And you know what?

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Even if the parents did sign off on it,

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the parents are bad too.

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You're sending a message to kids that their existence is for your teacher to monetize.

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You're telling kids that their privacy matters less than your popularity on TikTok.

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And if we don't think that children are going to internalize this,

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then we are mistaken.

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They're going to come to believe that being on camera is just a part of life.

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And you're also telling them that your experiences are not valid unless you post it on the internet.

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Like you're sending that message to them at a very young age.

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You're telling them everything that you do is fodder for a bunch of strangers online to consume.

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And this is already a problem,

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again, that children, that today's youth is faced with.

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And you're exacerbating it as an adult modeling this behavior.

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If a child feels uncomfortable,

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they can't tell their teacher no. Because the teacher is the authority figure.

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These teachers will probably be like,

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oh yeah, these kids are totally okay with it.

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They're smiling along.

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Do they look unhappy?

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Well, of course they're going to smile along.

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You're the adult.

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They have to comply.

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And what if one of these children embarrasses themselves in a video?

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Then their peers might just bully them for that.

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Let alone the strangers on the internet.

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These teachers are supposed to be the adults in the room.

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They're supposed to be protecting these kids from harm.

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Your job is not to be subjecting these kids to the whims of social media.

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Like, hello?

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There's also teachers who are doing these massive hauls,

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showing themselves buying all kinds of unnecessary school supplies.

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And I'm just like, why?

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They're participating in the same cycle of consumerism that's conditioning kids outside of school.

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And thanks to my patron Hannah,

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who suggested this video to me on Patreon and also pointed this out.

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These teachers are buying into this voracious kind of consumer capitalism.

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And we all are forced to participate to some degree, obviously.

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But they're doing it in excess they're becoming these mouthpieces for the very system

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that devalues their own labor

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when a teacher is filming an amazon hall of their teaching

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supplies they're participating in this global supply chain that's built on the backs of these underpaid workers

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delivery drivers who are pushed to exhaustion

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and paid pittance wages meanwhile these same teachers are overworked and underpaid and those exploitative conditions mirror their own exploitation as teachers.

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Like the job of an influencer is largely to sanitize corporations.

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It's to put a friendly face on exploitation for profit.

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It's to make you feel good about being a mindless sycophant for brands.

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They help to smooth over the violence of extraction.

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Should I go on?

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We've talked about this before.

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This might be your first time watching me,

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but this is what we talk about quite often on this channel.

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The environmental degradation that influencers are paid to conceal to just be these mouthpieces and just show you the aesthetic packaging.

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Once again, a teacher's job is supposed to be the opposite.

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The teacher is supposed to be teaching their students to think critically what influencers do not want you to do.

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They're teaching you to question things,

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to change things, to analyze the world.

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And that's why these teachers filming these massive hauls, it's so contradictory.

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They are effectively modeling compulsive consumption.

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Like when these teachers are over here trying to be influencers,

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they're trading in their responsibility.

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They're sending a message to their students to not question or want to change the system,

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but to participate in it to the nth degree at that.

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It's worth noting though that not all teachers on TikTok and Instagram are doing harm.

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Some of them have used their platforms to call attention to things like low pay and underfunded schools and other systemic problems.

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So it's not at all that all teachers being on social media is bad.

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Obviously teachers are human beings,

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they're going to be on social media.

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And even if they want to be content creators and have an online presence,

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It's okay if you're using your platform to discuss these very important issues.

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The issue though is how it's done and where the line is drawn.

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And for a lot of these teacher influencers, there is no line.

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When a teacher's online presence is starting to infringe on the students' rights

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and the students' privacy and their own primary responsibilities as a teacher,

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we have a problem.

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Like if your primary concern is filming content in the classroom,

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you need to reflect on why you became a teacher in the first place.

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The validation that you get from a viral post is fleeting,

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but the impact that you have on a student lasts so much longer.

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These teachers need to really ask themselves,

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like, is it more important to get a bunch of views and likes and attention?

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And I'm sure the money that comes with it,

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or is it more important to prioritize the child's feelings and create a space that they can learn safely?

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Like it all comes down to what we value.

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Do you just value the appearance of looking cute and looking like the cool teacher and being the teacher bae?

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Or are you actually interested in being an effective teacher?

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I believe that education should be rooted in trust and in liberation and also respect mutual respect.

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I think that a teacher should empower a child to build critical consciousness.

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I don't believe that that goal can be achieved if your classroom is an influencer content factory.

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I'm sorry.

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We can and we should critique these teacher influencers.

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Of course, teachers do not have to be saintly martyrs,

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obviously, no. But they should also not be undermining the very purpose of education all because they want attention.

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The school system has to do a better job at reining in these teacher influencers.

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Like full stop, they should not be allowed to be recording in classrooms.

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And I believe that the rise of these teacher influencers are again,

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a symptom of the commodification of everything, even the classroom.

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Every facet of human life has to be for profit,

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even children's lives in the classroom.

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We have to think about the children on the other side of that camera lens.

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I believe it's on all of us, parents, teachers, community members.

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We have to be ensuring that children are learning in safe spaces and their growth and well-being should be put first.

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And apparently now if we have kids,

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we have to ask, is the teacher an influencer?

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Like, are you an influencer?

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Can't believe it's gotten that far,

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but that's where we are.

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And the last thing that I'll say is that a teacher should be influencing young minds.

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They should not be chasing influence online.

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A bar.

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I'll drop the microphone there.

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Let's get it together.

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But that's all I've got for you today.

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I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments down below.

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What are your thoughts on these teacher influencers?

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What are your thoughts on Teacher Bae?

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The teacher who had these kids braiding his hair, and painting his nails.

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All these teacher influencers.

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Are there more teacher influencers that I've missed?

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I would love to hear from you in the comments down below.

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And if you liked this video,

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definitely give it a thumbs up.

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And if you really liked it and you want more content like this,

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then definitely hit that subscribe button.

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And besides all that, if you want to see what I'm up to outside of YouTube,

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you can follow me on my social media profiles down here,

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as well as my Patreon,

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where you're always welcome to suggest videos

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and where you can support me for $1.50 a month or $5 a month if you're feeling a little bit more generous.

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And besides all that, thank you all so, so much for watching and I'll talk to you all next time.

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