you want your life changed, its simple,
I'm gonna show you which you're to use correctly because we always seem well,
y'all always seem to get that mixed up.
Here we go.
What's your superpower?
All you have to do is replace the four letter word,
your with the two letter word in mind.
And it makes sense. What's my superpower while you
possibly R E means you are, that is a subject and a verb.
That's a sentence all in itself
on international Women's Day.
We should not only put a focus on the women who
came before us and left their mark on the world,
but also the women who are currently doing the
work every single day for a better tomorrow.
And joining me now is Miss James, also known as I am that english teacher on Tiktok.
She's an Arkansas teacher who took her talents to the social media platform
to expand her classroom from its four walls
to the world. Miss James, thank you so much for joining us. We are delighted
to have you. So tell us, why did you originally decide to make a Tiktok account?
Thank you. I'm so glad to join you this afternoon for my classroom.
I decided to join Tiktok. It was my students idea.
Uh,
some of my students were virtual and some of them were in person and I would post my
grammar lessons on my Youtube channel and I noticed
that my students weren't actually viewing the grammar lessons.
So when they returned to class, I said,
what can I do to get you guys to watch your grammar lessons?
The grammar lessons are really important
and they will help you improve your writing.
And they told me that I could post them on Tiktok. And so that's what I started doing.
That is such a great idea. No better way to connect with the youth and go on Tiktok.
Now, can you recall one of the first times you ever went viral?
What was that experience like for you?
The very first time I went viral?
It was surreal. I mean, honestly, it was something I never imagined.
I've always wanted to be a teacher.
A lot of people, you know, come fall into the teaching profession.
I wanted to be a teacher since I was six years old.
So teaching is not something that's new to me.
I've been teaching to my brothers and sisters when they were,
when we were growing up all the way to
having a daycare and now a public school teacher.
So I'm just glad to expand my classroom.
Can you recall which of your videos went viral first
or which of your videos has been most popular?
The video that most popular is the most simplest video. It was a congregation of
the verb was,
and I think the reason it went viral is because I
uh mentioned E. S. L.
Because I am an ssl certified teacher english as a
second language and I think that that helped uh english
language learners realized that I had some skills that they
could use in order to master learning the english language.
I want to talk about how your videos have impacted Tiktok users.
What kind of feedback have you been getting on them?
You know, when I first started posting on Tiktok and I told my students, I was like,
oh, I don't like the comments and I was like, Miss James,
the comments are everything.
And one of my students came back, she said, but your comments are boring and I said,
why are my comments boring?
And she said, because they're all good. She said, everyone loves you.
And so the, after my video went viral, one particular weekend,
I grew 300,000 followers and that was actually a year ago, um, this month and
it's just been um
skyrocketing since then.
Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with boring kind comments in my opinion,
especially when your followers are rising like that now,
it's very obvious with James from your videos
that you are an incredibly passionate teacher.
So where does your desire to actively educate come from?
My desire to act of educate?
Because even before nelson Mandela said,
education is the most powerful weapon used to change the world.
I knew that for people that look like me, education was a game changer.
I came from a family,
uh educators, in fact,
female educators and my aunts all showed me the power
of education and what I could do with that.
And so that's where I want to go as I want to highlight education.
I want to be able to show how education can be quote a game changer
for everyone.
And most importantly, I want to inspire future teachers because just be honest,
I'm not gonna teach for the rest of my life,
but I want to have some other people that can carry on the torch such as I am.
Now, can you talk to us about the importance of having impassioned teachers,
especially in this day and age when we're dealing with with
a a series of very complicated issues like remote learning.
For example,
you know, I had a student,
she wrote in one of her essays, she said
you were the only teacher that I saw every day during
my remote learning because she was quarantined and she said it was
important for me to see you because that let me know
that the school would still be there when I was there.
And that just empowered me with so much.
We,
I just read an article in my local
newspaper talking about learning loss during this time
From 2020 until now.
And I hope that I have tried to help fill that gap,
but it's so important for us to um really
value education and value our students and their opinions.
You know, the little known fact is I cannot dance when I say I cannot dance,
I cannot dance and for me to have 3.3 million
followers on Tiktok and I can't dance speaks to the
power I met people where they were and gave them
something that they probably weren't expecting to see on Tiktok.
You know,
that is incredible because it does seem like everyone is dancing on
Tiktok and I know I certainly don't want to dance either.
So that's I think really encouraging to people who want to try out the platform.
You know,
what advice would you have for other educators who maybe want
to follow in your footsteps and get on Tiktok as well?
Well, I actually have a lot of educators who are following in my footsteps.
In fact,
I have about 10,000 teachers that follow me and a
lot of them actually use my videos in their classroom.
I would say two things be true to yourself
and make sure that what you do,
that you will be able to stand behind it and
not embarrass yourself or your students or your school district.
And that is the two things that I try to do is I try to present wholesome uh
content so that anyone watches it will be a family friendly.
And Miss James. We certainly do enjoy watching your videos.
Miss James, thank you so much for joining us today on cheddar news