A substitute teacher was almost unable to teach in Laval public schools anymore. Her TikTok posts, most of which were filmed at her workplace, lacked professionalism, according to her management.
“Hello! I’m a 6th grade teacher.”e year, then I would like to share with you my trick for classroom management that works every time!”
This is the kind of sentence that Mélanie, aka Smarties on TikTok, says at the beginning of the dozens of videos she posts on her account to challenge her subscribers. She asked us not to publish her last name to limit the impact of her testimony on her career.
In addition to her contract at the Laval School Services Center (CSSDL), the bachelor’s student in preschool and primary education posts activity ideas for students, classroom management tips and material finds for teachers on TikTok.
In several of her videos, she shows off her outfit of the day while standing in front of her phone in her classroom. In another, she films the hundreds of papers she has to grade during her spring break. Most of them are filmed in her classroom. The children are present in the classroom in only one of the videos broadcast. We hear their voices and their laughter, but we don’t see them.
A breach of the code of ethics
At the end of May, Mélanie was invited to an evaluation meeting with the management of the school where she had been working on a teaching contract since November.
During this meeting, the school management informed the young substitute that publications on her TikTok account did not respect the code of ethics and professionalism associated with one of the skills assessed.
Among the facts alleged: a lack of transparency, because she had not communicated to her employer the fact that she was publishing content on TikTok.
Mélanie says she started making videos of her daily life as a teacher more frequently in April.
The school management therefore recommended that the young teacher be removed from the list of teachers eligible to work at the CSSDL.
“There wasn’t really any room for discussion, in the sense that I tried to defend my point, I tried to collaborate. I really didn’t want to add fuel to the fire,” insisted Mélanie, who had never received a warning or other evaluation in the past.
“It really destroyed me,” she told The Press.
La recommandation de l’école devait être par la suite appuyée, ou non, par le Service des ressources humaines du CSSDL.
Soulagement, mardi, Mélanie a ouvert sa boîte courriel pour y découvrir que la décision avait été rendue. Une lettre en date du 5 juillet du CSSDL l’informait qu’elle pourrait continuer à y travailler.
« L’enseignante a fait l’objet d’un processus d’évaluation, comme toute nouvelle enseignante, et des forces et des points d’amélioration lui ont été signifiés », a précisé le CSSDL dans un courriel envoyé à La Presse.
« Nous intervenons lorsque ces publications ne respectent pas les règles de confidentialité, d’éthique et de sécurité ou qu’elles nuisent à l’enseignement des élèves », a précisé l’organisation dans ce même courriel.
Ce cas d’enseignante sur TikTok n’est pas unique. De façon générale, le CSSDL note qu’il peut arriver que certaines situations soient portées à son attention en lien avec le phénomène.
Mélanie assure ne jamais avoir eu de commentaires négatifs de la part de parents sur son contenu.
Le Regroupement des comités de parents autonomes du Québec, qui chapeaute le comité de parents de Laval, affirme de son côté ne jamais avoir reçu de plaintes de parents liées à ce genre d’évènements.
Pas la seule
Mélanie, pour qui il s’agissait de son premier contrat à vie, avait par ailleurs été recommandée par l’enseignante qui avait dû être remplacée elle-même. Elle assume la totale responsabilité des vidéos qu’elle a publiées et respecte la recommandation que l’école avait faite au CSSDL.
On ne m’a pas dit [quand je suis arrivée] that social networks were forbidden, otherwise, of course I would not have acted in this way, I did not mean to do wrong.
Melanie, teacher
Nowhere does it mention her name, the school where she works or the city where she lives, she said.
Earlier this week, Mélanie posted explanatory videos on her TikTok account to raise awareness among teachers about the repercussions of social media posts.
As of Wednesday, the post has reached nearly 300,000 views. Since then, she has received dozens of testimonies from teachers who have experienced a similar situation to hers.
“I thought I was really alone. There are really more than you think,” she said.
Other teachers present on the social network, however, stressed that they had never had any problems with their employer.
Melanie wonders if clear rules will be established.
“It’s brand new. It leaves room for interpretation.” […] “You can’t guess what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not allowed to do if you don’t know what to do,” says the teacher, who has always dreamed of doing the job.