Would you ever join a class or club in SPASH to learn about TikTok? Let alone would you pay a $165 fee to be in a class about learning TikTok? Ms.Jordan, a social media strategist, teaches many online students about the app TikTok with this fee. Even though many teens use TikTok for entertainment, there are some high schools that teach TikTok classes and get more in depth on how to use TikTok to make money. What would you even learn in a TikTok class, are kids in SPASH ever going to use this idea, and what schools already have this in classrooms?

Dancing or Learning?

Although it may seem that there is no reason why there should be a TikTok class there are a few things that a teacher could teach. Ms.Jordan, a social media strategist, has had her class fall into three categories to learn about TikTok classes. “How to navigate TikTok, how to actually make videos for the app and how to make money from them.” Many teens think it’s easy to navigate but she explains how to use the algorithm and what you need to know to make good money off of TikToks. This could help teens or young adults make a name for themselves or a brand and learn how to promote it using social media like TikTok. Even if this could be helpful, many people can argue that they could just learn it themselves and get famous by making their own videos and using their own creativity.

Another teacher for the app Ms. McGoff explains how to make videos on the page and develop a personal brand on TikTok which helps you “grow and grow on other social media platforms.” This could be good for business type things or if you are very interested in something and wanna promote it. Although for teens, It won’t really promote their interest because they just wanna watch TikTok for fun or have fun with the app and make funny videos. 

Why in High School?

So what would we use TikTok for in high school? Creativity can be one of them. In the West Orange High School they have a club that meets every other Monday in school. They have an adviser Mr. Callahan who makes sure they do not goof around the whole time and have an agenda. Their usual agenda is to watch some videos and find something that they can do and recreate it. “Amy Sommers and her TikTok partner, Kaylani Heisler, a 16- year-old senior at West Orange High School, danced until they began sweating. “This is hard work!” Kaylani said between steps.” A lot of kids in the club feel like they can do something fun without getting judged and they feel that they can express themselves and be creative with the type of TikToks that they make. This is a good way for the school to promote itself and its different sports.

Not only can students use it but teachers can use it to their advantage as well, for example this one teacher in San Jose had some of her students share a TikTok video explaining Newton’s Law for some extra credit. This could help students be more creative with explaining things that they understand and show that they understand the certain topics we learn in school. It could also be something that teachers use for grades because students will more likely want to do projects involving something that they know versus something like an essay or huge project they do not want to do. 

SPASH TikTok?

TikTok classes can be good in high school but could we have them in SPASH? It would be a little difficult to have full classes in SPASH just learning about TikTok. You can learn everything in a few days vs a long semester, but we do have classes that talk about TikTok and social media in SPASH. We have video productions which is a class where we do things with TikTok to promote the school. You can make TikTok videos about the sports or different classes in SPASH so people know what’s happening. We also have a class called social media where you learn about the different aspects of social media and how to use it in the business world. This class also involves TikTok a bit which teens in SPASH can learn about.

So we already have classes that involve these things but what about a specific class about it…, it would not be the same. Many students watch it but how many would join a club or class? In a survey of SPASH students out of 58 responses 60.3% said “Yes obviously” to watching TikTok. 22.4% have said they are addicted. Even though most of them said that they watch TikTok , 89.7% said that they would not join a TikTok class or club. So this means that if there was a club or class a lot of SPASH teens would not join it because they view it more as a thing you can do in your free time and not something you could learn from school. 

A TikTok class could help how to learn about the site and maybe kids can learn how to get a brand for themselves. High School students could also have fun with it in a club where they could do simple things like make videos and post them. Although in SPASH it would be hard to make kids join especially with the amount of kids that say they wouldn’t. So do you think a TikTok class would be helpful in SPASH?