0:00

Yeah, is

0:05

anyone else bothered by the proliferation of

0:07

Instagram famous teachers, I

0:11

don't know. I seriously wonder

0:13

about how much teaching goes on in some of

0:15

these teacher influencer classrooms. As

0:18

a parent, I would be very upset

0:21

to know that the teachers using learning time

0:23

to create content for their own personal benefit.

0:26

I know what you mean. I can't look at my Explore

0:29

page without being attacked with these Insta

0:31

teachers. Some have good stuff

0:34

and cute stuff, but mostly it's all promotions

0:37

and perfect classrooms. I

0:40

followed a lot of Insta teachers, only to be completely

0:43

done with them because of how crazy it is. In

0:45

the beginning, I loved them for their ideas and

0:47

inspiration, but it's stopped being inspirational

0:49

and just started being nauseating.

0:53

As a first year teacher who is

0:55

struggling so hard, I

0:58

had to unfollow those accounts be they

1:00

made me feel like I'm not

1:02

doing enough. What

1:06

you just heard are some complaints about teachers

1:09

who post their lives on Instagram.

1:11

These complaints come from parents and

1:14

also from other teachers. I

1:16

found them in a Reddit thread that had

1:18

thousands of comments. Yeah,

1:21

so teachers are on Instagram?

1:24

This shouldn't come as a massive surprise, since

1:26

teachers get this. They're

1:29

human beings who live in the freaking world.

1:31

Remember rule for influencers.

1:34

If something exists in the world, then there's

1:36

an influencer for it. Teachers

1:39

put the bill, But teachers as an influencing

1:41

category really does surprise a

1:43

lot of people. Glenn has actually couldn't

1:45

believe it when I told her today we're going

1:47

to talk about teacher Instagram.

1:51

Is that a real thing? What

1:53

is teacher Instagram? It feels problematic to

1:55

me already, and that's why we're bringing it

1:58

up. It feels like

2:00

a special where you discover that

2:02

the person teaching your child has

2:05

a separate double life doing something

2:07

that makes you anxious.

2:10

But what they might be bringing into the class.

2:12

So in the old days it used to be like, oh my gosh,

2:14

like what if my kids teacher were drug

2:18

dealer? That would be the real special.

2:24

To better understand the shock and fear

2:26

of seeing teachers on Instagram, I called

2:28

the first listener who dammed me about it. Her

2:31

name is Jesse. Hey,

2:36

I'm good. How are you?

2:40

You slid into my d MS

2:43

like six or seven months ago. Can

2:46

you just tell the audience why

2:48

you messaged me. Sure, So,

2:51

my pre schooler is getting

2:54

some special services at school, and

2:57

when we found out who the

2:59

services to be provided by, I googled

3:01

them. Because we're new to the school district.

3:04

I was kind of curious to know her

3:07

credential, Like I figured I'd

3:09

find some professional page from the county website

3:11

and instead discovered pretty

3:14

quickly because of her distinctive last

3:16

name, that she is uh

3:19

an influencer. Yeah,

3:23

so what was that discovery

3:26

like for you to be like, Oh,

3:29

the woman who will be teaching

3:31

my kid, helping my kid in school is

3:34

putting parts of their lives out

3:37

there on the Internet. The part of fouls

3:39

who felt hard is I'm on cool,

3:41

you know, like during the pandemic, I

3:44

moved from the city into the suburbs.

3:47

Um, I do not wear crop tops.

3:49

I wear lots of soft pants now. And

3:53

there's a new restaurant that opened in our neighborhood

3:55

that's very cool. And she

3:58

made it to the soft open. Was

4:01

she wearing a crop top? There was

4:03

there was with a cool

4:06

like I don't know what you call it, like duster over

4:08

it. M m m m. Yeah. Yeah.

4:10

I can never pull up off a crop top. With

4:12

a duster these days, I

4:15

just can't. I'm also I'm glad you brought

4:17

that up, because I'm also not cool.

4:19

I'm not cool anymore, and I will

4:21

say that looking on Instagram is just a daily

4:24

reminder of how not cool. So the reason

4:26

I wanted to talk to you was just

4:29

kind of to get out there, like

4:31

all the feelings that come up when

4:34

we discover someone's an influencer

4:36

that we didn't expect to have

4:39

this life on the internet, and whether

4:41

or not those feelings are fair. I

4:43

don't know if they are, and we're going to

4:45

unpack them, but I do know that

4:48

maybe you don't want to see the

4:51

person who's teaching your kids out

4:53

partying hard during a pandemic.

4:56

And then also just the

4:58

ability to compare our ourselves exactly

5:02

right. It felt crazy making, and it felt

5:04

like it was then easy

5:06

to judge what she was doing. It's

5:08

not fair, but it happened. I

5:11

had a mix of concern that she

5:13

wasn't professional, which is the part that was

5:16

I think unfair but definitely

5:18

present um and also

5:20

kind of curious, like what's her motivation

5:23

and why is she like into selling

5:25

crop tops and bow tops on

5:28

Instagram? By night if by

5:30

day she's helping kids.

5:38

Okay, I think I

5:40

might know why, and I don't

5:42

think that it is as scandalous

5:44

as Jesse thinks. But we have

5:47

some more reporting to do. I'm

5:49

Joe Piazza. Then you're under

5:51

the influence Episode

6:15

three rule. So,

6:18

as I said, I've got a theory as

6:21

to why so many teachers are becoming all different

6:23

kinds of influencers, and it's

6:25

pretty simple. Frankly, I'm

6:27

just gonna throw out a little bit of wisdom

6:30

right here. We don't pay teachers

6:32

enough in this country. We do not pay them

6:35

well for the very important job they do teaching

6:37

our children. If you don't pay someone

6:39

well, they need a side hustle. Of

6:42

course, I told glenn Us this, because I tell glenn Us

6:45

everything I'd probably

6:47

tell. Glennus worried too much, but she

6:50

was also completely fascinated

6:52

by this, so we're bringing her further along on

6:54

this journey. Today. You me Glennys

6:57

to talk through my thoughts. Since

7:00

I talked to Jesse, since I started digging into this,

7:02

I found out that there are so many

7:05

teachers side hustling on Instagram,

7:07

doing all different kinds of things.

7:10

Some of them are influencers for other

7:12

teachers, they're doing lesson plans

7:14

and look at my beautiful classroom.

7:17

But others are like, you know, the

7:19

teacher of Jesse's kid, who

7:21

are you know selling botox

7:24

and crop tops and and there's other

7:26

ones that are travel influencers, fertility influencers.

7:29

But I understand why they do it. They do it

7:31

because we're not paying teachers nearly

7:33

enough to one support themselves

7:36

and to pay for all of the crap

7:38

they need for the kids in their classroom.

7:41

I can't stop thinking about

7:43

that video that went viral of

7:46

the teachers in South Dakota. There

7:49

was it showed up and it was at

7:51

some sort of fair, was a hockey game. It

7:53

was a halftime like game. And

7:55

this game, right was that they

7:58

were going to dump a ton of cash

8:00

money onto ice and

8:03

then the teachers would scramble for

8:05

it, and it was money to improve their classroom.

8:08

And there's just this video of these three

8:10

or four teachers on their hands and knees scrambling

8:13

for these dollar bills like in a rush.

8:18

It felt to me like if aliens

8:21

landed on Earth, you

8:23

could show them this video and it would explain

8:25

almost everything you need to know. About

8:29

the ways in which America

8:31

treats the industries

8:33

which we pretend to value so

8:36

much. And yet the amount of

8:38

shame attached to this and disrespect

8:41

it was so grotesque. It's disgusting

8:43

how we treat teachers in this country.

8:45

I did. I did some reporting on this just to

8:48

look up some statistics, and teachers

8:50

make about less than

8:52

other professionals with similar education and

8:55

similar experience. That is a fact

8:58

in many parts of this country to chers

9:00

actually live below the family

9:02

loving witch. And so of course

9:04

teachers are going to try to

9:06

make some extra cash by shoving

9:09

it down their shirts at the halftime

9:11

of a mid level hockey game.

9:14

And in so many ways. I mean where in this happened

9:16

in the middle of a pandemic, where teachers are

9:18

bearing the brunts along with mothers. It's

9:20

the two roles that we fill

9:22

to care of take children, which mothers are

9:24

being punished by having their children at home, which I know,

9:27

you know, Joe, and teachers

9:29

are being punished and asked to risk their health

9:31

by having kids in school. And then you just watch

9:33

this frenzy over this and you just think, like, how

9:36

much lower can we force people

9:38

to go in an effort to not just support

9:40

themselves, but to support children.

9:43

Yeah, the video is a dystopian nightmare. And

9:46

our educational system has simply

9:48

failed teachers, and like most

9:50

things in this world, Instagram is

9:53

trying to fill in those gaps.

9:56

These teachers that are husting on Instagram are

9:58

doing it to It got from the fact

10:00

that we don't pay teachers enough. That's why they're doing this. Absolutely,

10:07

Jesse was real aware that she was being judge,

10:09

and I get it. I would be a little bit judge.

10:12

Two I'm a total judge asshole. But

10:14

it goes to show that people get freaked

10:17

out when someone they don't expect to see

10:19

on Instagram is on the Instagram.

10:21

It's a lot like when I was growing up a thousand

10:23

years ago and I saw my teacher

10:25

in the supermarket or worse at

10:28

like the townpool and they were

10:30

wearing a bathing suit and it's all

10:32

like, oh my god, you're

10:34

not supposed to be a human being

10:37

who has thighs. But

10:40

I also think it's because there aren't

10:42

any guidelines about any of this

10:44

anywhere yet. We don't know what

10:46

to do or what to think. And Glenn has

10:48

brought up a really really good point why

10:51

do parents need to look at a teacher's

10:53

Instagram account anyway?

10:59

I there's a bit of like

11:02

a church and stateist, like does the teacher

11:04

want kids parents following them

11:06

on Instagram? That feels like there's no rules,

11:09

that's the thing. So what

11:11

I want to explore is if your

11:13

day job is a specific

11:16

thing taking care of children or

11:18

as a hospital worker, you

11:20

know a person that is what if you're going to

11:23

cologist? Was an influencer and some other

11:25

give me something to talk about during my paps mares?

11:29

So like what are the boundaries?

11:31

Like what day jobs is it okay to be an influencer?

11:34

And what day jobs is it not? When

11:36

I started doing the research into teachers

11:39

on social media, my first question was

11:41

what are the rules here? What

11:45

are the school rules? Yeah, the school rules,

11:47

but then also the legal rules,

11:50

like what are the actual legal boundaries

11:53

of what teachers are allowed to post? And

11:55

also what are their protections exactly?

11:57

Like will the school protect them or

12:00

are there legal protections that say

12:02

no, a school can't fire a teacher

12:04

for something that they post on Instagram even

12:07

if parents feel uncomfortable

12:10

about it. What are

12:12

the parameters of how a teacher is allowed to

12:14

act on it exactly. So

12:16

what what is the answer to this question? Did you find

12:19

out? I

12:21

love it when Glenness asked if I've found something

12:23

out, because of course I found it out.

12:25

I can't not find it out. It is like

12:28

the best and worst parts of me that

12:30

I have to keep chasing down answers to these questions.

12:34

And what I found out is that it is a real

12:36

gray area. Like most things

12:38

about women on the internet, it's

12:40

confusing. And I got another

12:43

inkling of this when I talked to an influencer

12:45

named Karen Jefferies. Karen

12:47

is a fertility influencer that is

12:49

also rule. It exists in the

12:51

world. It exists on Instagram. There's

12:54

a whole world of fertility

12:56

influencers. When Karen

12:59

was having trouble having a eight, she started

13:01

in Instagram about it. Her account,

13:03

which is at hilariously infertile.

13:06

I'm really into that handle, by the way, completely

13:09

blew up around. She's

13:12

got nearly a hundred thousand followers. She's

13:14

even written a book about fertility. She is

13:16

a hardcore fertility influencer

13:18

who talks about things on her account

13:20

like uterus is and

13:23

ovaries and sperm.

13:28

Now in Karen's other life. She's

13:30

a fourth grade dual language Spanish

13:33

and English teacher in a public school outside

13:35

New York City. When her Instagram account

13:37

got really popular, she started to

13:39

get nervous about her job. In

13:47

my teaching contract, the contract

13:49

says that teacher is allowed to be

13:51

otherwise gainfully employed as

13:54

long as it is becoming of a teacher. In

13:56

that line, as long as it is becoming of

13:58

a teacher was like kind of for me the gray area,

14:00

because I was like, I know that what I'm doing

14:02

isn't wrong, and I know that what I'm doing

14:05

isn't bad. However, I

14:07

teach fourth grade and the

14:09

content that I'm posting and that I'm talking about

14:12

is not geared towards children.

14:14

Karen had a long conversation with our union

14:17

organizer to try to figure out what the

14:19

hell it meant to do

14:21

something that was unbecoming of a

14:23

teacher. Content

14:26

not becoming of a teacher is

14:29

so vague, So they I

14:32

mean, that is like the greyst of gray

14:34

areas that I've ever seen in

14:36

a contract. Well, so that was a question.

14:38

I was like, I know that what I'm doing is wrong, but like I'm

14:40

talking about gynecological stuff and reproductive

14:43

stuff, and I'm talking about penisis and the giants. I'm talking

14:45

about like when men have to give their donation

14:47

and and basically masturbate

14:49

in the little office that's provided at the reality

14:52

Like I'm talking about all that. I'm talking about

14:54

the bornness supplied and how

14:56

it's weird and it's also awkward rate and I'm

14:58

and that's what I'm talking about in my um

15:01

my. The president of my union at the time said

15:04

no, like, what what it means is basically like you can't

15:06

be a stripper. That was the

15:08

analogy that he told me. And I was like, okay,

15:11

like I'm not being a super but like, I'm also talking

15:13

about this other stuff too. It was it was really interesting.

15:16

After talking to Karen, I was convinced

15:18

there had to be a much more clear

15:21

legal line about what constituted unbecoming

15:24

behavior for a teacher. Unbecoming,

15:27

Like there has to be some kind of legal explanation

15:30

of this somewhere in the legal

15:32

archives place where people make

15:35

up rules for the world. I

15:37

also assumed that there had to be some kind

15:39

of legal protection for teachers about

15:41

what they were posting on social media. That's

15:43

part of the constitution. Yeah,

15:47

so I found myself an expert,

15:49

an expert on teachers and their

15:51

First Amendment rights, specifically

15:54

when it involves social media. But

15:57

first a quick break. Okay,

16:09

So, when I first found out that teachers

16:11

were on the Instagram, because there are

16:14

humans, I assumed there were

16:16

legal guidelines for what a teacher could and

16:18

couldn't do on social media. It turns

16:20

out that's a real funny assumption on my part.

16:23

I found a really good expert who could walk me

16:25

through it. My name is Mary

16:28

Rose pop Andrea, and I am the Samuel

16:30

Ash Distinguished Professor of Constitutional

16:33

Law at the University of North

16:35

Carolina at Chapel Hill. That is

16:37

such a fancy title. I love it. I

16:41

asked Professor pap Andrea exactly how

16:43

the hell she fell down this rabbit hole of

16:45

social media? How did any of us

16:48

get here, by the way, And she told me

16:50

that it was, like most things in life, by

16:53

accident, a very happy

16:55

accident for her. She really likes this rabbit

16:57

hole, as do wheel. I was

16:59

very treat by what was going

17:01

on in the public school

17:04

arena in the First Amendment because the Supreme

17:06

Court has developed a whole separate

17:09

jurisprudence that governs the

17:11

speech rights of public school students

17:13

and also of government employees,

17:16

which includes of course public

17:18

school teacher. So in these areas,

17:21

the court does not follow the usual

17:23

First Amendment doctrine, and so the

17:26

focus of my scholarly career has

17:28

been focusing on these areas where

17:30

the normal rules of the First Amendment

17:32

don't apply. I

17:34

found Professor Papandrea from an article

17:36

in the North Carolina Law Review. It

17:39

was titled social Media, Public

17:41

school Teachers and the First Amendment.

17:44

It sounds very, very serious,

17:47

and she totally had me at

17:49

the introduction. It is riveting, and

17:52

it starts by describing how some school teachers

17:54

have been punished by their schools for their social

17:56

media accounts. Here's a bit. Ashley

17:59

Payne was a twenty four year old public high

18:01

school English teacher in Georgia when her

18:04

principal called her into his office to tell her

18:06

that she could be suspended because

18:08

of content on her personal Facebook page. The

18:11

objectionable content standard

18:13

tourist photos of pain, drinking alcohol

18:16

in European beer gardens and cafes,

18:19

and the fact that she attended in this

18:21

right. Here is my favorite line in the whole

18:23

article. A trivia contest

18:26

called crazy Pitch Bingo. First

18:32

off, I want to go to Crazy Bitch,

18:34

but sounds

18:37

so fun. And then

18:39

there's another example where

18:42

school officials found out that a Virginia

18:44

teacher who had created artwork

18:46

using her body parts and

18:49

posted that, and another

18:51

instance where a Nashville teacher was

18:54

fired after posting what are quote racy

18:56

photos of herself on her MySpace

18:58

profile. Another teacher

19:02

was suspended for a month without pay

19:05

because a fellow teacher posted a

19:07

picture of her on Facebook with

19:09

a stripper at a bachelorette party.

19:12

Like all of the I mean, so this

19:14

is this is rich territory teachers

19:16

being on social media posting

19:18

their their lives. Also, a

19:20

lot of teachers are in their twenties

19:23

and thirties and there

19:25

I mean, thank god social media

19:27

was not like really a thing in my twenties because I would

19:29

never get a job at That's right, That's right,

19:32

yes, No, I mean these stories that you're

19:34

highlighting are what led me to write my article

19:36

because I just felt like, wow,

19:39

this cannot be right. And

19:41

you know, without going into all the nitty gritty

19:43

details of this framework, I will say it's

19:45

not clear that teachers have

19:48

protection for anything

19:51

they say on social media, that

19:53

isn't political speech.

19:56

If parents get outraged, if

19:58

students get outrage aged, if

20:01

administrators think it makes the school

20:03

look bad, it's not clear, and

20:06

that's not a good place to be for

20:08

for someone who's in trouble. You don't want to be

20:10

told. And it's not clear that the

20:12

First Amendment protects your right to post

20:14

your vacation photos on social

20:16

media, even when you're not directing

20:19

them at your students or

20:21

at the community at large. You're you're

20:23

trying to communicate with your friends. And

20:25

so that's what happens in most of these cases.

20:28

Um, these teachers are not sending racy

20:31

pictures to their students. They're not

20:33

telling their students about crazy

20:35

bitch bingo or whatever whatever. That's

20:38

not how these cases come about. Um.

20:41

They come about because somebody

20:44

has seen it. And how they've seen it,

20:46

who knows, But somehow they

20:48

have have obtained access to the

20:50

social media account and it make it forwarded

20:53

from one person to another. In any event, it gets

20:55

to the attention of the school, and the

20:57

school calls Ashley or whom

21:00

ever into the office and says, this

21:02

is making us look bad, so you better take it

21:04

down. Or we're gonna put you on

21:06

leave, but fire you. I

21:09

had one listener sent me a

21:11

message and say she found out that

21:13

her child's teacher was an influencer

21:16

who posed in bikinis

21:18

and showed herself getting

21:21

botox and had sponsored botox

21:23

and things like that, and she was a

21:25

little appalloged by it. It didn't meet

21:27

her standards of what was okay.

21:31

And the woman was also doing it to make extra money

21:33

because teachers are not paid enough,

21:35

which is a whole other caniforms

21:38

that were going to explore. But is

21:40

what she's doing illegal?

21:43

Oh gosh, it's not illegal. It's

21:45

really distressing because the law

21:48

does not clearly protect this. But

21:50

you know, you're right to highlight it is something

21:52

that comes up with public school teachers

21:54

in particular, rather than say,

21:57

you know, some other town worker

22:00

or some other employees. ME care

22:02

a lot about our teachers and how

22:04

they're influencing our children. We

22:07

hold our teachers to a very

22:09

high standard, and so if we see

22:11

that they're posing in bikinis

22:14

or going to crazy Bitch Bengo, or

22:16

or doing anything that is less

22:18

than ideal, we don't like it. You know,

22:20

one day I don't I can't remember what this is in that

22:23

article or not, but this whole controversy

22:25

about teachers on social media reminded

22:28

me historically of when teachers

22:30

would get fired if they got pregnant

22:32

and they weren't married. You

22:35

know that sort of thing. Yes,

22:37

because when you just said ideal,

22:40

I thought, you know, but held to this

22:43

quote, ideal of what

22:45

certain segment of society or in society at large,

22:48

expects from pure

22:50

young women, a kind of women that should

22:52

be guiding our children's

22:55

minds and education. And

22:57

yeah, teachers used to get fired for getting

23:00

right outside of marriage, right,

23:03

Yeah, because they're having sex and they're

23:05

not married. Exactly. Well,

23:08

and of course, who is to say a bikini

23:10

photo or botox is bad? Like

23:13

where is the line for

23:15

what makes a parent uncomfortable? And

23:17

the fact is we're all googling our

23:20

kids teachers now, but I haven't googled

23:22

my postman or my garbage

23:25

man. That's right, that's

23:27

right, that's exactly right. Yeah,

23:30

it's very it's very dangerous. I wonder what when

23:32

the parents complain about these

23:34

photos. I wonder what's going through

23:36

their minds. I mean, maybe some of them are worried

23:38

their children are seeing these

23:40

photos and and then

23:43

that's going to undermine there,

23:46

you know, they're their moral development or

23:48

something. I don't know. I

23:50

don't know. So it's just something

23:54

about the Instagram is signaling

23:57

that the teacher might not be who

24:01

not appropriate. Yes,

24:05

yeah, exactly. And so it feels

24:08

wildly unfair in a lot

24:10

of ways to judge young women for

24:13

what they're posting about their social

24:15

lives and to assume that they're

24:17

unfit for a profession that I

24:19

think is incredibly noble and should

24:22

be paid much more money for what they

24:24

do to shape the next generation

24:26

of human beings in this world. And

24:29

yet that judgment persists. And it's not

24:31

just judgment, because there is power,

24:33

as you said, for schools to dictate

24:36

what these teachers can do, right, that's

24:38

right. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I haven't

24:40

done an empirical study on this, but one

24:43

thing worth highlighting as well is that it is

24:45

a lot of times the female teachers who

24:47

are targeted. Um. You

24:50

know that may just not be surprising

24:52

at all of anyone listening, but you know

24:54

that women are held to a higher standard,

24:57

you know, and using that his

25:00

oorgal example of women getting fired for

25:02

being pregnant, I mean, no one was firing a

25:04

guy because he forgetting

25:07

someone. Yeah.

25:09

Well, and also I think if

25:11

a male teacher shows shows off pictures

25:14

of himself at a beer garden in

25:16

Germany, I feel like parents would

25:18

be like, look at him traveling

25:20

the world and and

25:22

interacting with different cultures,

25:25

whereas with a young women there

25:27

might be some parents that are like, well, she seems like

25:29

a drunk slut. And

25:32

I'm taking it to the extreme. But I do feel

25:34

like it's worth taking to the extreme

25:37

of how we view what women do versus

25:39

how we do what men do. Um,

25:42

And it's just so unfair, and we

25:46

correct me if I'm wrong, But I do believe the majority

25:48

of public school teachers K through twelve

25:50

are women. Right, Yes,

25:52

I'm sure that's true.

25:56

Yeah. The hardest thing for me, and when I

25:58

was writing that articles of figure out when

26:01

it would be appropriate to um

26:04

punish a teacher or something

26:06

she did on social media. And because

26:09

I think saying carte

26:11

blanche, you know, people can post whatever they want,

26:14

um, but certainly the kinds of things

26:16

we've been talking about with teachers go no where

26:19

are close like a vacation photos

26:21

or um, you know, bikini photos.

26:23

Those she really should not reveal an unfitness

26:26

to be a teacher, I

26:28

played back. Professor Popingrey has interview

26:30

for Glenness. Wow,

26:32

yeah right, yeah,

26:35

that part about firing pregnant

26:38

teachers. I don't

26:40

know if that was the case when I was in

26:44

grammar school. I don't know. Should we look it up and find

26:46

out? Yeah, although I went to Catholic

26:48

school and I'm pretty sure and this might

26:50

actually still be the case that you

26:53

not only getting pregnant outside of wedlock

26:56

is grounds for dismissal, but like living

26:58

with your boyfriend who's not your husband. But

27:01

isn't that like wild?

27:04

Pierre is an actual headline from June.

27:08

An unmarried Catholic school teacher

27:10

got pregnant. She was

27:13

fired. Oh so I'm

27:15

remembering correctly, and I don't even need to remember

27:17

because it's still happening. And I bet

27:19

their argument is this on religious grounds. But regardless

27:22

of that, it's crazy

27:25

to me the way

27:27

we treat teachers. It's insane. We

27:30

trust our children's well being too teachers,

27:33

and then treat them so terribly and

27:35

offer them zero protections in a world

27:37

where as we watch every day, there's

27:40

so little protection in the public sphere anyway,

27:42

So you give them no resources, and when

27:44

they turn to the Internet to try and generate

27:47

some for their classes, it leaves them vulnerable

27:49

to anything, anything to

27:52

public castigation, to losing

27:55

their jobs, to losing their entire safety

27:57

net, to it's

28:00

amazing any of us leave the house. Honestly, Frankly,

28:08

I do think it's amazing that any of us leave the house

28:10

anymore. I mean, not that we really leave the house

28:12

that often, but you know the fact that any of us

28:15

can still figure out a way to live

28:17

in the world. But what's even

28:19

more amazing to me is that we

28:21

do leave the house, and when when we leave,

28:24

we take pictures of everything that we

28:26

do, post them to the Internet and

28:28

then let everyone, including

28:31

strangers and all of your high school ex boyfriends

28:34

look at them, just get a window into your

28:36

entire life. I keep thinking

28:39

about the crazy double standard that

28:41

women teachers are held to. If

28:44

a dude teacher posted

28:47

a picture of himself in a bathing

28:49

suit looking looking real good

28:52

with with the abs, I don't think anyone

28:54

would be complaining at all. We

28:56

would just like hire him to come

28:58

train our husbands. But

29:01

I'm getting off course. We're getting away

29:03

from the real issue here, which is the fact

29:05

that teachers, mostly women,

29:08

turned to Instagram because they've got to

29:10

make extra money because we're not paying them

29:12

nearly enough for how much they work and

29:14

how much of their own personal money they're

29:17

spending on classroom supplies to make our kids

29:19

lives enriching and wonderful. So

29:22

so far we're talking about teachers who have been lifestyle

29:25

influencers, fashion influencers,

29:28

fertility influencers. But

29:31

there's also a whole genre

29:33

of Instagram influencers that are

29:35

teachers influencing other teachers.

29:38

It's called teacher gram. Hashtag teacher

29:40

gram follow it on your Insta if you

29:42

haven't already. And it exists so

29:44

that these teachers can make some extra money,

29:46

but also so they can help out other

29:49

teachers, and some of these women

29:52

are making serious bank. More

29:55

on that after a quick break. Hi

30:04

guys, this is Mrs Willie and Fant. You

30:06

may know me from TikTok Instagram my classroom.

30:09

I always repurchase first,

30:11

are my you brand parents? I get them a target,

30:13

but I think you can buy them elsewhere as well if they write

30:15

so so so my students are obsessed with the song

30:17

has so I turned it into a skip

30:20

council song. This is what we found by boars.

30:24

I can gon buy fours or

30:27

twelve six? Those

30:30

are the dulcet tones of teacher Graham. This

30:32

is a place where teachers influence

30:34

other teachers. It is

30:37

a way for teachers to have a side hustle

30:39

in a pretty wholesome way. And if

30:41

it wasn't for that Reddit thread at the beginning

30:43

of this episode, I would find it pretty hard

30:45

to believe that any parents objected

30:47

to this kind of influencing at all from

30:50

their kids teachers. But apparently

30:52

some do. Someone hates everything.

30:56

I reached out and I talked to a lot of teacher Graham

30:58

influencers, and I found one who I think

31:00

really encapsulates this world, who

31:02

was really excited to talk to me about why

31:05

she does this and why she wants to

31:07

influence other teachers. Off

31:10

of my teaching salary, I could not

31:12

have paid my rent and my

31:14

living expenses, Like I didn't even have a car

31:16

payment, I didn't have debt from

31:18

college, like literally just my typical

31:21

living expenses. So for

31:23

me, the only way I was even able

31:25

to make that move is because I had that supplemental

31:28

income. That's Michelle

31:30

Emerson. She's a second

31:32

grade teacher and a very

31:35

good entrepreneur. She's got a

31:37

hundred and seventy three thousand Instagram

31:39

followers on our account, pocket full of primary

31:41

and more than a half a million subscribers

31:44

on YouTube. She sells various

31:46

products like attendance trackers for

31:48

virtual learning, email templates

31:50

to go to parents, and all other kinds

31:52

of teaching resources and organization

31:54

products to make teachers lives easier. She

31:57

does it all on social media, and her business

31:59

is freaking thriving. I will

32:01

say that three years

32:04

in I matched

32:06

my teaching income, and I remember that

32:08

was like a shock. I didn't think

32:10

it was possible when I started it. I remember

32:12

telling my parents that was a goal and they're like, all right,

32:15

Michelle, good luck. But I

32:17

was able to match my income three years

32:19

in, and then beyond that, it's

32:21

just continued to grow, which was interesting

32:24

because it went from my side hustle to really

32:26

my main source of income, which again

32:28

took off the pressure of I can work in

32:31

whatever district I want, whatever school I want.

32:33

It's not about the paycheck. It's I want to find

32:35

the right fit for me, and it takes off a lot of that stress

32:38

and pressure. What I really wanted to know was

32:40

how Michelle got here, how she got

32:42

onto the teacher gram in the first place.

32:44

And her story was a really familiar one if you

32:46

listen to season one. Michelle got

32:48

on social media because she was trying

32:50

to navigate a new job. She

32:53

wanted to figure out how to be a better teacher, and

32:55

she wanted some community.

32:57

As a new teacher, you have your instruction

32:59

from edge, but you get into the classroom

33:01

and it's a totally different ballgame. And

33:04

I was in a district where we didn't really have a curriculum.

33:07

I was having to do everything myself,

33:09

and so I needed as many ideas

33:11

as I could get. I wanted

33:14

ideas for classroom management because

33:16

it's not a topic you receive a

33:18

lot of instruction on in college. It's

33:20

kind of like, well, you'll just figure it out in the classroom,

33:23

And then I got in the classroom, it's like, hold

33:25

on, I'm struggling in this area in

33:27

terms of those routines, those procedures,

33:29

those different incentive systems that you can implements.

33:32

So interesting because we heard the same

33:34

thing from mom influencers in

33:37

season one that so many women

33:39

were looking at trying to find out how

33:41

to be moms right, and they were

33:43

like, there's no like, I know, I know how

33:45

to set up my baby shower registry,

33:48

and I know how to paint my nursery, but I

33:50

don't know how to manage my time or

33:53

manage my own emotions. And so they

33:55

were looking for community. So do

33:57

you think that a lot of teachers were looking for community, Because

33:59

let's be honest, being a teacher is sucking

34:01

hard. I think community

34:03

is a huge aspect of it. I know for me, that's

34:06

something I found a lot of solacen because

34:08

I didn't connect very well with my team

34:10

teachers during my first year of teaching. They were

34:13

a fair amount older than I was, and I just

34:15

didn't connect with them. And so being

34:17

able to find these other teachers who were around

34:20

my age or even older where

34:22

they had more experience and I could kind of look up

34:24

to them. But then also these people

34:26

who were going through the same thing I

34:29

was. It was their first year of teaching or even student

34:31

teaching, and I felt like for

34:34

me that was more like the realistic

34:36

version. So I could see, like, here's

34:39

the ideal and then here's also kind of the

34:41

real side of it. That I can better relate to

34:43

right right, right right? Are those kinds of things

34:46

taught to you when you're getting a bachelor's not

34:49

at all. And for me after

34:52

my first year of teaching, knowing how much I struggled,

34:54

and it's because college does not adequately

34:57

prepare you for what the classroom is like. And then all

34:59

of a sudden, it's like you're pushed out of the nest

35:01

and it's like figure it out on your own, and

35:03

that's really hard, and I didn't feel

35:05

like enough teachers were talking about that,

35:08

about the struggle that comes along with it,

35:10

and so my goal kind of became, you

35:12

know what, if I can make someone else's first year

35:14

of teaching easier because they better understand

35:17

the realities of teaching, then

35:19

it's all worth it. Since

35:22

then, Michelle has turned her Instagram, her lesson

35:24

plans, and all of the products that she makes for teachers

35:27

into big business. I mean, I will

35:29

tell you she still does not love the term

35:31

influencer, which is fair. We've

35:33

talked about that before. When I hear the term influencer,

35:36

to me, an influencer is just someone who promotes

35:38

other people's products, And in my opinion,

35:41

I'm like I have my own brand, I have my

35:43

own business, and that wasn't

35:45

what I initially set out for.

35:47

I mean, I started selling teacher resources because

35:50

I needed money. I was spending a ton

35:52

in my classroom. What she's saying

35:54

here is not that she needed money to live on, even

35:56

though she needed that we all

35:59

got to live, needed money for teaching

36:01

supplies for a classroom. And

36:03

I still I still can't wrap

36:05

my head around the fact that teachers have

36:07

to pay for their own classroom supplies. It's

36:12

gross. It's just gross.

36:15

Yeah, that was one of the biggest shockers going

36:17

into my first year. I knew I would be

36:19

spending my own money. I just

36:21

don't think I realized how much. I want

36:23

to say, my first year of teaching total, I

36:25

probably spent minimum five thousand dollars

36:27

out of my own pocket. Really,

36:30

because you see these pictures of

36:32

classrooms and it's like you're not given

36:35

any of that, at least in most cases. I'm sure

36:37

there are schools and districts where they do provide a lot,

36:39

but I walk into an empty classroom.

36:42

I have to get the bins and containers

36:44

to be able to organize all of my supplies.

36:46

I had to purchase a lot of the supplies out

36:49

of my own pocket. And when I had students coming to

36:51

school that didn't have certain materials, I'm

36:53

going to supply that for them, right

36:55

right, And I just, yeah, I don't think that we

36:58

think about that. And then the that we think about

37:00

the teachers aren't being paid nearly

37:03

enough that you know, it can be precarious

37:05

to think, all right, can I make rent

37:07

this month? So by having this

37:10

second business, the second

37:12

career, almost have you been able

37:14

to become a lot more financially secure and

37:16

then comfortable in doing what

37:18

you do love. Yeah,

37:22

I think back to again

37:24

my first year, I was on the struggle bus, trying

37:26

to figure out how do I balance, you know,

37:29

the money coming in versus what I'm spending.

37:31

Decided to start trying to supplement

37:34

my income by selling resources here and there.

37:37

Three years after Michelle started teaching, she moved

37:39

to a different part of Maryland, a part

37:41

that was like super expensive. My

37:45

teaching income went up by like two

37:47

or three thousand dollars. It wasn't a significant

37:49

increase, but my rent

37:52

to the dollar doubled. I was on

37:54

the eastern shore of Maryland, and when I moved

37:56

to the Western Shore closer to like d C Annapolis.

37:59

My rent literally doubled, but she

38:01

can handle it because of her side hustle, because

38:04

of Instagram and YouTube and the fact

38:06

that teachers would pay her for some of her

38:08

teacher products. And for me that

38:10

move, I ended up in a much better school

38:12

that just fit me, my personality, my

38:15

teaching style, which allowed

38:17

my passion for teaching to grow even more.

38:19

Because we want our teachers to be happy, we

38:22

want, we would need the people

38:24

that are teaching our children to

38:27

be able to feel supported. I

38:29

mean that just feels like a fundamental

38:32

human right at this point.

38:36

Yeah, And I think

38:38

one of the biggest issues when it comes down to teachers

38:40

and the income, it's all the work behind

38:42

the scenes that people don't even see, and the number

38:44

of hours outside of just contract

38:46

hours that go into those lessons

38:49

and go into just being a teacher. And so

38:52

when you're constantly overworked,

38:54

you're putting in all of this time, all

38:56

of this energy, and not only does your paycheck

38:59

not reflect that, but you kind of

39:01

have this feeling of like not being appreciated.

39:04

It's like no one even notices the work that you're

39:06

doing. And I think that's another way social

39:08

media in general can kind of highlight those

39:10

realities and parents

39:13

can better understand, like all the

39:15

work that goes into what the teachers

39:17

are doing. Scrolling through

39:19

your instagramming this is essentially

39:22

just like a beautiful magazine

39:24

of what it is to be a teacher. Like this is like real silball,

39:27

but in teacher world everything

39:29

is very bright and it's just like very

39:32

Is that a cupcake with poop on top? Oh?

39:35

Yes, that was amidst the pandemic

39:37

one of our coworkers gave everyone

39:40

a cupcake with literally the icing was like

39:42

a piece of poop, and it was so on brand

39:44

and like exactly what we were all dealing

39:46

with at the time. I

39:51

think we should all enjoy a cupcake with

39:53

poop on it icing. That is

39:56

poop, all

39:58

right? Maybe not, maybe just

40:00

a just a cupcake, but the

40:02

poop cupcake really does sum up our

40:04

country, doesn't it. We're

40:07

just living in a poop cupcake. I

40:09

came into this episode with so many

40:12

mixed feelings, Like

40:14

Jesse, I didn't really want to see

40:16

my kids teachers, And just to be clear, I

40:18

have not seen my kids teachers on Instagram. There

40:21

is a church and state thing going

40:23

on in my kids school, but I

40:25

don't know how i'd feel if I was watching

40:28

their private lives on

40:30

the Graham. It feels

40:32

like a massive invasion of privacy.

40:37

But then there's also sort of no privacy

40:39

at all anymore for anyone.

40:42

It's like our whole world is

40:44

one big public space, and

40:46

teachers are people just like anyone

40:48

who live in that public space. So

40:51

I don't know what kind of standards

40:54

a teacher's Instagram should be held to, if

40:56

any And I can also

40:58

see how some parts of teacher gram could

41:00

be really intimidating for

41:03

other teachers, how looking at a perfect

41:05

classroom makes you think, fuck,

41:08

my classroom doesn't look like this. My classroom

41:10

is never going to look like this, because that's how

41:12

I feel when I look at every other mother's account

41:14

on Instagram. And I also understand

41:17

how during this dumpster fire of a pandemic,

41:19

teachers are completely stretched to their limits

41:22

the same way parents have been, and they

41:24

have to turn to Instagram to find community,

41:27

the same way that I'm turning into other moms. This

41:30

platform is a monetary side hustle for

41:32

so many, but for even more people, it's

41:34

an emotional crutch. What

41:37

I think is so interesting about this episode

41:40

is that what we see in

41:42

the world of influencing continues

41:45

to just be a microcosm of

41:47

the massive problems that women are

41:49

facing in our fucked up country.

41:52

And one of the reasons for that is that there's

41:54

the potential to make tons of money, there's an absence

41:56

of rules, and then women get into it, and of course

41:58

the absence of protect and makes them vulnerable

42:02

in so many more ways than

42:05

men ever are, and vulnerable because

42:07

they go into it with less financial security and vulnerable

42:10

for all the ways we know when we're vulnerable online, and

42:12

then when it breaks us and

42:15

we have massive mental

42:17

health problems and depression and anxiety,

42:21

we have no health care to take care of us. And

42:23

then and then you know what happens next, Then

42:26

women turn to mental health influencers

42:30

to try to get help. M

42:32

hmm. I think I might be wearing a jumpsuit

42:34

from one of those mental health influencers

42:37

right now. Her name rhymes

42:39

with puinnous gull throw. So

42:42

guess what. Guess what next week's episode is? Did

42:45

I give too much away? If

42:49

you guess, you can have some free

42:51

mental health from unlicensed A

42:57

couple of months ago, I asked all of you on Instagram

43:00

to tell me a mental health influencer that

43:02

you follow, someone you admire, someone

43:05

that helps you get out of bed in the morning. The

43:08

responses were insane. I

43:10

got more than two thousand comments and d ms.

43:13

That is a lot of comments and d ms, and

43:15

I did not expect that. I didn't expect

43:18

that almost everyone I know follows someone

43:20

on Instagram to try to make their life just

43:22

a little bit easier and a little bit

43:24

better on a daily basis. Mental

43:28

health on Instagram. It is a topic

43:30

so huge, so massive,

43:33

so far reaching, that we're

43:35

devoting the next two episodes to

43:37

it. If

43:48

there's a tight rope of good can

43:52

do public harm, I feel like mental health

43:54

influencers kind of thread that line and lean

43:56

towards the harm side. Bombs

43:59

are desperate for some for it, and

44:01

there's not a lot of options for

44:04

the type of support people really need,

44:06

and when they find it, they

44:08

want more of it. Mothers, we are

44:11

the hardest on ourselves and the hardest

44:13

on each other to continue to feed

44:15

into the myth because no one has given us

44:17

permission to say, you know what, this

44:19

sucks. This is really hard.

44:22

Yeah, I think my baby's cute, and

44:24

then the rest of the time I feel like I made

44:27

a huge mistake and I miss my old

44:29

life. See you next

44:31

week. Under

44:34

the Influence is hosted and reported by me Joe

44:36

Pianza. Our senior producer is

44:38

Emily Maronoff. Glennys McNicol

44:41

is our editor. A booze Afar is

44:43

our producer. We got additional production

44:45

help from Aaron Peterson, and our associate

44:47

producer is Lauren Philip. Sound

44:49

design and mixing from Jackie Huntington's.

44:52

Our Fame was composed by the wonderful

44:54

Jessica Crunchich, Additional

44:56

music by Jessica Crunchich and Jackie

44:59

Huntington's. Anna Stump is our consulting

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producer, and we are executive produced

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by Me Joe and

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Nikki Toor. Special thanks

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to Christina Everett, Julia Weaver, Lindsay

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Hoffman, Anna Stump, and Morgan Lavoy

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for being the very angry voices

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of our pistolf parent Read it Threat