Kenyan Teacher Gains Global Recognition For Innovative Use Of TikTok Entertainment To Teach

• Priscilla Wanjiku Karanja, known as Teacher Cillah, is the type of teacher that every child eagerly anticipates having in their classroom
• The dynamic educator shows how she employs TikTok as a creative tool to educate elementary school students using music and dance
• Her approach has not only transformed the learning process into an enjoyable experience but also garnered her a substantial TikTok following and catapulted her to global fame

Her parents christened her Priscilla Wanjiku Karanja, but she has gained recognition across borders through the TikTok nickname Teacher Cillah.

The Kenyan teacher's name grew in leaps and bounds after she chose entertainment as a less-used approach to show how she conducts her lessons.

Transformative approach

Details indicate that Teacher Cillah started her journey of teaching through dance and creativity, as shown on TikTok in 2019.

Her approach was simple: record herself taking her students through the lessons then use it to create engaging content on the social media channel.

Each of her videos is packed with short but captivating concepts that are captured cleverly, accentuated by music and enchanting dances.

"I believe that learning should be a joyful experience, something that children look forward to," she started.

Learning shouldn't be boring

Her students have come to love her, and so has the world, so much so that one of them was captured in a video delivering fresh flowers to her desk.

She disclosed that before she chose the TikTok path, most of her primary school students were introverted and hardly participated in class activities.

That is attributed to the fact that the online platform has offered her an opportunity to engage with her students in a language they understand: that of creativity and fun.

"My content is driven by my passion for teaching as well as commitment to seeing my students excel. I believe that a happy student is a successful one," she revealed.

Gained an avid following

As of the time of filing this report, Teacher Cillah's TikTok account had over 154,000 followers and 2.4 million likes, both young and old.

She has come to discover that her dance routines go a long way in aiding memory retention and concept comprehension.

"My son used to be disinterested in studying, but now, he eagerly waits for Priscilla's TikTok lessons. It's amazing to see him learning and having fun simultaneously," a parent named Patricia Njeri praised, as reported by Anadolu Agency.

"I never thought I could enjoy learning so much. Her dances make me feel like I'm part of something bigger, like I'm dancing and learning with friends," Mary, a seventh-grade student added.

An innate passion for teaching

Teacher Cillah says that she fell in love with teaching as a young girl when she found joy in helping her younger siblings with their studies.

As the years went by, it dawned on her that she was gravitating towards a career in teaching, and that is how she ended up pursuing a degree in education.

While teaching in one of the local primary schools in Nairobi, she figured that technology had limitless abilities to bolster her teaching.

That is when she began to explore ways of leveraging technology to revolutionise the craft and ended up on TikTok.

Teacher informs little girls about privates

Another Kenyan teacher also went viral for inventing a creative way to teach pupils about private parts and inappropriate touch.

The teacher named Marion Mukenyi took it upon herself to sensitise the young ones before they proceeded to the half-term break.

She used herself, as an illustration, to help learners understand why some parts of the body are concealed and reiterated the importance of not allowing people to touch them.