Shortly after the start of the new school year last September, Pam Johnson started noticing soap dispensers were going missing from bathrooms at the New Westminster, B.C.
high school where she teaches Grade 8. The streak of vandalism was inspired by a viral trend on the social media app TikTok, and would have been shocking if it happened earlier in Johnson’s 16-year teaching career.
Instead, it is just one example of many she gives about how social media has made her job — and her students’ lives — harder. “It’s like Whack-A-Mole.
Every day, it feels like there’s something new,” said Johnson. “The increase we’ve seen in just overall troubling behaviour, it’s exhausting and it’s very, very concerning.” Even before social media existed, teachers have had to address their students’ bad behaviour and the mental health challenges that come with growing up.