{"id":45007,"date":"2026-02-09T14:43:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/im-a-math-teacher-and-have-over-1-million-followers-on-tiktok-i-help-kids-and-parents-make-math-more-fun\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:43:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:43:38","slug":"im-a-math-teacher-and-have-over-1-million-followers-on-tiktok-i-help-kids-and-parents-make-math-more-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/im-a-math-teacher-and-have-over-1-million-followers-on-tiktok-i-help-kids-and-parents-make-math-more-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m a math teacher and have over 1 million followers on TikTok. I help kids and parents make math more fun."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69820a1de1ba468a96ab412e?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Deidre Kelly headshot\"\/><figcaption>Deidre Kelly is teaching kids math on TikTok.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Deidre Kelly<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Deidre Kelly is a mom of three and has taught 6th-grade math for 14 years.<\/li>\n<li>She turned to TikTok to keep her students engaged during remote learning.<\/li>\n<li>Now, she has more than 1 million followers, many of whom are parents.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with <\/em>Deidre Kelly<em>. It has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is my 14th year teaching sixth-grade math, and I enjoy it just as much as I did when I started. Math and middle schoolers both get a bad reputation, but I love them both. <\/p>\n<p>I always knew I wanted to teach math, and I gravitated toward sixth grade, where students develop the time management and accountability skills that they&#039;ll use for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2019, I noticed in the fall that my students were laughing at their phones and dancing around their desks. I thought, &quot;What are ya&#039;ll doing?&quot; By January, I had a TikTok account and was making videos with my own three kids, who are now 11, 13, and 16.<\/p>\n<p>When our district switched to remote learning, most of my formal class time with my students was focused on making sure they were doing OK. I still wanted to teach them, so I started making fun, math-focused TikTok videos.<\/p>\n<h2>My students realize I&#039;m not all fun and games<\/h2>\n<p>At first, I posted the videos quietly. I was curious if I would show up in my students&#039; pages organically. Sure enough, a student asked, &quot;Why are you on my &#039;for me&#039; page?&quot; From there, it spread quickly. Today, I have 1.3 million followers on TikTok.<\/p>\n<p>That&#039;s made me a bit of a local celebrity in my Texas school district. Recently, kids were watching YouTube in another class when they came across a TikTok commercial featuring me. They came running down the hall to tell me.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s fun for students and parents to have &quot;The Mrs. Kelly&quot; live in their classroom. My class has the same fun, energetic vibe that I bring to social media. But, there&#039;s always a point during the year where the students realize I&#039;m not just a fun TikTok teacher \u2014 if the class isn&#039;t focused, I can use my mean voice to get things done.<\/p>\n<h2>My school community loves my TikTok<\/h2>\n<p>I typically keep notes on videos I want to make and spend a few hours in my classroom recording after school each week. I aim to align my TikTok videos with what my students are learning, so they appear the day after I teach a concept.<\/p>\n<p>That&#039;s helpful not only for students but also for parents and grandparents. I use math at work every day, so I didn&#039;t realize how many adults have forgotten middle school math. Today, a lot of my audience is adults who need a math refresher so they can help with homework.<\/p>\n<p>I&#039;ve never had any pushback about having such a public social media presence. I let parents know about my videos, but I&#039;ve never had anyone opt out of their kids participating. I&#039;m careful to stay positive and appropriate at all times. My husband is an attorney, so if I run an idea by him and he hesitates, I don&#039;t do it. If I don&#039;t know a song well, I check with my oldest to make sure it doesn&#039;t have any risqu\u00e9 lyrics.<\/p>\n<p>When I switched schools, I made sure the principal knew I brought a large social following. Now, even the superintendent loves it.<\/p>\n<h2>Relating math to the real world helps kids remember<\/h2>\n<p>Because of my husband&#039;s job, our family has always been financially comfortable, even though my teaching salary isn&#039;t the best. Now, TikTok has had a big impact on our budget. For the first time, I have the financial flexibility to say, &quot;I&#039;ve got this.&quot; I also appreciate the travel and opportunities I&#039;ve had because of my social media.<\/p>\n<p>I want to encourage parents to help their kids relate math to the real world. Connect it to whatever they&#039;re interested in. For my sixth-grade daughter, that&#039;s makeup. So, when we shop at Sephora, we talk about percentages and discounts. Maybe you relate ratios to sports statistics, or your kids&#039; favorite video games. That will help them really understand the real-world impact of what they&#039;re learning and remember math concepts for life.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deidre Kelly is teaching kids math on TikTok. Courtesy of Deidre Kelly Deidre Kelly is a mom of three and has taught 6th-grade math for 14 years. She turned to TikTok to keep her students engaged during remote learning. Now, she has more than 1 million followers, many of whom are parents. This as-told-to essay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}