How Sequoyah Teachers Navigate Social Media
Grayson Throckmorton, Sequoyah School’s Science Department Chair, math teacher, and Director of the STEM Institute, has 3,016 followers on TikTok. How can this be? Can teachers even have TikToks? How many other teachers have TikToks? And why are so many of Grayson Throckmorton’s videos about Taco Bell?
Several teachers from Sequoyah are on social media, although the vast majority are not. It makes sense to avoid social media presence if you’re a teacher. Nowadays, people get fired for things they put online, and the line between professional and personal life keeps getting blurred. Before social media, teachers would say things to their friends without fear of persecution, but when things are posted online, it’s different. It’s public.
Throckmorton started his TikTok at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. He says that students find his TikTok pretty often, but nothing ever comes of it. “They’re like, ‘Oh, I found your TikTok.’ And I’m like, ‘Cool.’” Throckmorton says that being on TikTok has helped him as a teacher. “It enhances the way I can relate to students or understand terms or jargon that come up.” In April of 2021, Throckmorton posted a video on TikTok with the caption, “When my friend responded, ‘Hey, at least you’ll save money on Mother’s Day…’ the day after my mom died.’” The video got 1.6 million views and 557k likes. To Throckmorton, having one of his videos go viral is “just a funny random fact that comes up as a joke.” However, his goal isn’t to go viral. TikTok is more of a creative outlet for him. “I just so happen to have an archive of TikToks that I made, which I think are really cool that I get to look back three, four years from now and see where my life was and how silly I was at a certain point,” he said. Even though Throckmorton says that he is more of a consumer than a creator on TikTok, he has never come across any of his students’ TikToks. “I guess they’re not creating viral content, so maybe they need to step their game up,” he said. One of Throckmorton’s most recent posts was a love letter to Taco Bell. “I’m hoping to get sponsored,” he said.
Noah Cohill, Sequoyah’s Technology Support Specialist, has been using a public Instagram account for his music since 2013; his first post was of himself at Disneyland. Cohill says that working at a school hasn’t changed what he posts on social media, but he is still careful about what he posts online. “I have a rule regarding the stuff that I post. If my grandma doesn’t want to see it, I don’t post it,” he said. However, the danger of social media is that no matter how careful you are about what you post, other people can post about you. A few years ago, Cohill’s high school friends created two fake accounts using his name. “They went into the future and they had me with red eyes and a robot,” he said, “and then they also went back in time where it’s like I’m drumming for the London Bridge.”
Without prompting, Throckmorton and Cohill mentioned that they now post less on social media because, in the past few years since the pandemic, Instagram and TikTok have changed. Cohill said that the only way to get your music to the greater public on social media is to rely on gimmicks. “It’s interesting because, with music on Instagram, you also have to be an influencer. You can’t just post music and expect it to get out there,” he said. Meanwhile, Aimee Zvinakis, a visual art teacher at Sequoyah who has had an Instagram account since 2013, said that she uses Instagram less than when she first had it. Zvinakis noted that when she started her Instagram, she felt like her posts were reaching her friends, but recently she’s lost motivation to post. “Even if I posted something, I don’t think [my friends] would see it. It would just get lost in the algorithm,” she said. Throckmorton said that he lost motivation to post after the pandemic started and now just scrolls. “At this point, it has become a lot more of an entertainment space for me,” he said.
There is no guidebook for teachers using social media. So, every teacher has to navigate social media by themselves. Being a teacher with a social media account is complex and difficult–especially after this article comes out.