It Is Not TikTok’s Fault.
It is not TikTok’s fault. It isn’t. TikTok is not to blame.
Challenges like “Devious Licks” have been going on for years in schools. Students have taken items or been challenged to take a teacher’s things as a prank for years. Most often the items were returned and never were these actions videotaped and posted online to be part of a challenge.
I recall a story an autoshop teacher shared with a small group of us teachers in training about this very issue. He was a teacher in the early 1980’s and teaching an autoshop class. The class was comprehensive and included everything from oil changes to major engine and body work on cars. The classroom had all the tools and equipment necessary for the jobs and the students were able to work hands on the entire class.
One day, he noticed a couple of tools missing. Nothing big, just a few items that he couldn’t find. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, he realized things were going missing from the tool cage. Some of it could be attributed to misplaced items or potentially careless students who didn’t replace tools, but ultimately, there were a bunch of tools missing.
One day he walked in, looked at the tool cage, and realized that there wasn’t enough equipment to work in the class. He closed the cage and put the lock back on it. Then started class.
He told us he had the students get the autoshop class books and to start reading a specific chapter. He said he was quite clear with the students that, since there were not enough tools in the cage to do actual work on the cars, they would learn how to do the jobs by reading. To which the class of students, who he described as not the academic elite of the school, grumbled. They were unhappy. Why? They hated to read for starters. They wanted to work on cars, not read from a book.
He shared that he told the students a simple message. Most of the tools are gone from the cage. There are not enough there to work on the vehicles. I am not buying more tools. But you know where they are and who took them. When the tools are returned to the class, we will go back to work learning how to fix cars using the tools. Until then, we are reading from the book. He thought nothing of his statements.
The next morning, there was a bag of missing tools sitting outside his door. All the tools were there. No note or explanation was given. He returned them to the cage and thought nothing of it. His message had worked and the class had resolved the issue.
The students took ownership of the class and valued the space. They knew that the decisions of a few people had greatly impacted them. They could not do the work of their classroom because individuals took all the equipment that they needed. It was that simple. The taking of items greatly impacted them personally so they resolved the issue, got the tools back, and returned to class as normal.
Do your students value your space?
Our students do not greatly value their spaces if they are completely okay taking items from them. Yes, it is stealing. Do not try to call it anything else or coddle these students. They are stealing from the school and also directly from teachers. They are recording it. They are putting it on social media and thinking it is hilarious.
But TikTok is not to blame. TikTok is a social media platform that has many great benefits for education. I have been reading about how great some of these videos are for sharing art, dance, music, and educational content. Personally, I have not gone down this road, but I have considered it because of the reach of the platform.
But it is just a platform. TikTok is not to blame. They provide a service that people can access. Just like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and a myriad of other social media platforms. They are just a tool.
The issue we are dealing with is value for the facility and community. Our students are coming out of a year plus of being at home, quarantined. They don’t have a sense of community and must rebuild it. Or, if they do, they value the community so little that they are willing to tear it down instead of be educated by it. And then, use that destruction to promote themselves on social media.
Is there a solution?
How do we resolve this issue then? How do we stop a social media juggernaut driven by poor choices?
We don’t. We can’t. TikTok isn’t going away. Social media isn’t going away. Poor student choices are never going away. So, we had better come up with other solutions than saying blame TikTok and social media.
There are some things we can resolve, some we can not.
We can not get rid of social media. It is not going away. However, we can teach our students how to use social media effectively. More importantly, we can teach them the long-term impacts of social media. And this is a rare opportunity to do so. Posting on social media has long-term impacts and is in fact, a double edged sword. Yes, students can post their #deviouslicks on social media. At the same time, others can access that AND use it as evidence against them in criminal actions as well as rejection of college admissions. This has and will continue to happen based on these choices of students.
Teach students about good internet use in your school. This shows more than ever that our students need to know about it. Our students need to see the long-term impacts of social media and this is a rare opportunity to have a teachable moment. You have plenty of material right now easily accessible.
We will never stop students from making poor choices. The developing teenage brain is just not wired to make great decisions. As a result, most of the time they make good decisions, but they make some poor ones as well. We can’t help that as it is biology and human development. No amount of good teaching will change that.
However, we can focus on building a sense of community and a safe space for students who do fail, to learn from their mistakes. Many of these students have been isolated or quarantined for over a year. They need to relearn about the community that they are entering. They are literally recreating a community in the school as it has been absent from their lives. They don’t know how to act or respect the space. That all needs to be recreated and rebuilt from the ground up. All those values and beliefs you had, they are not the baseline any more. Keep that in mind as you rebuild.
Our students need to return to a sense of value of the space. School needs to become a space that they want to be at, a place where they can exist and call theirs. If they don’t value this, they will happily destroy it because it is not theirs. Be very systematic in rebuilding the values of the space and the ownership of the school with your students. They need to take ownership of the space to reduce the damage we are seeing.
Consequences must happen. I have received some negative feedback recently on social media because I said that the police should be involved in these crimes. Yes, they are crimes. The are planned and premeditated, shot on video then put on social media. Yes, I think the police need to be involved, especially in the high value destruction of property and theft. No question. But arrests do not need to be made nor do charges need to be filed against students.
The involvement of local law enforcement, in this matter, brings the serious nature of it to the forefront of students. These are criminal charges that could stick with them because of their choices. However, if we use a restorative justice model, the involvement of law enforcement can be used to drive home the point that these decisions have long-term, real consequences. It brings the conversation to a very real and serious point. And for some of the items stolen, I would say that criminal charges are warranted. However, host of the consequences could be handled within the school. Most could be resolved through school based disciplinary procedures including restorative justice, detentions, restitution, and repair of the damage.
In this, educators need to get creative in the consequences and solutions. You can not just hand out suspensions and think you have solved the issue. Other than suspension going on their record, most students will just see it as a free day or two at best. So, we must be creative. We must ensure that students work hard to resolve the issue themselves. They need to do the work to repair damages and broken relationships. They need to restore trust as well as return items. They need to know the cost of their choices go beyond replacing items and returning stolen goods.
Even if you do everything right. Even if you have an amazing resolution to this issue that is used as a national model, it will still happen again. You will still have issues again in your school. Why? Students will make poor choices. They just will. Be prepared for it.
The best you can do is build a community where students value the space and want to be there. Where they value the tools and the materials they are provided. Where they recognize the connection between their classroom and their education and your positive relationship in that.
With that, we return to the story from the start. Yes, all the tools were returned to the classroom because the students wanted to work on cars, not read books. The students recognized the value of the classroom. They knew that the tools were necessary for the class to function effectively.
The teacher told us that, when the students returned, there were questions of if the tools were back and could they go back to work on the cars. He of course nodded yes and they happily returned to work. This teacher shared that one student was noticeably working apart from the other students in class that day. From a casual observation, the student had all the appearances of having been in a fight. Black eye and a cut nose and what looked like bruising. Remember, this was the early 80’s, not today.
He said he recognized that was not the best solution to the issue didn’t use that method of solving problems again. But he acknowledged, the students were willing to resolve the situation themselves if they had high value and high relationships with the classroom.
