Leah Barlow, professor of liberal studies at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, prepared to teach his introduction to the class of African American studies in this semester as always: he put together a program, mapped assignments and created an account Tiktok to make the material account as accessible as possible.
He published a video on January 20 welcoming his 35 students to the course. The next morning, he emerged in the algorithm of quite Tiktok users who 250,000 people had enrolled in his channel.
In a few days, the videos of Dr. Barlow had involuntarily inspired a freely affiliated network of black educators, experts and creators of content to form what has become known as Hillmantok University, a free and unconvented online and unofficial online socket and university
In the lessons delivered in TikTok’s length explosions and in longer sessions on Tiktok Live, the instructors teach gardening lessons, organic chemistry, culinary arts and other subjects. From the receiving end, the organizers affirm, it is an audience of about 16,000 registered users.
“I think this was in preparation,” said dr. Barlow in an interview last week from his office in Greensboro, NC “you have accessibility, not only because of Tiktok, but you also have people who must not be in the ivory tower to have the ability to speak. This is something that something that I find it is nice that it is necessary. “
The appetite for information also reaches the dawn of a second Trump administration. Dr. Barlow published his video hours after President Trump has made an oath and quickly decided to dismantle federal programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Many academics fear a dripping effect in education.
“I certainly think that political time and the environment are full of dispute,” said dr. Barlow, adding that Mr. Trump’s assault on the programs of diversity had given “new urgency” to a project that gives priority to black voices.
Ciera Hinton, a former mathematical teacher in Augusta, Georgia, and founder of Hillmantok, saw the original post of Dr. Barlow and some of the first videos inspired by it. “I woke up in Hillman?” He recalled that he was thinking, referring to Hillman College, to the fictitious HBCU present in “The Cosby Show” and his Spin -Off, “a different world”. A name was born for the movement.
Kennddrick Pringley, publicist and DJ in Tampa, Florida, was also among the thousands of Tiktok users who come across the original post of Dr. Barlow. Now he is the president of the Student Union of Hillmantok and part of a group of about 40 content creators transformed into volunteers who have seen the opportunity to organize.
Faced with the uncertainty about the future of educational policy in the context of a second Trump administration, Pringley said that a “social media university” could provide a space to counter the disinformation that circulates online.
“Education is becoming limited, covered, silent and silenced,” he said. “This is a moment and a movement that can teach the masses everything they really should know.”
The organizers of Hillmantok created a website, complete with a catalog and a courses registration page, and have started to provide regular updates on the Hillmantok TikTok account. There is a Foundation Council and a Board of Directors of the Students; Many members of both bodies have spent long nights in zoom creating a formal structure for Hillmantok.
“We are marching together to make sure that everyone has a possibility of a free and fair education,” said Pringley.
When Brandi Smith came across the Dr. Barlow page, he was disappointed in discovering that the class was not actually open to the public. However, Mrs. Smith, who attended Spelman College before graduating from the Savannah College of Art and Design, followed the Syllabus Dr. Barlow published and started to keep study sessions on his Tiktok page, also on topics such as the documentary “13th” by the director of the director Ava Duvernay; The songs “This is America” of Childish Gambino and “The Revolution will not be television” by Gil Scott-Heron; an episode of the “Atlanta” TV show; And the essay “because I will not vote” of Web du Bois.
“It was an opportunity to interact with women of color at a level that really spoke with my spirit,” said Mrs. Smith.
For André Isaacs, professor of organic chemistry at the College of the Holy Cross in Wocester, Massachusetts, Hillmantok offered an opportunity that he had dreamed for a long time: use his growing social media to share his passion for chemistry and the teaching.
“We need scientific literacy in our country,” said dr. Isaacs. “I want to do my part in having people understand the molecules found in the products for skin care they are using and when we say the acid word, what does this mean at a molecular level?”
Dr. Isaacs said about 1,000 people signed via Zoom or Tiktok live to listen to his first Hillmantok lesson. Since then, about 3,000 people have recorded on its website to receive the course material, including registered lessons, lessons, homework and even quiz homework, together with an open source textbook and a discussion channel on Discord , the messaging app.
Dr. Isaacs has been particularly excited to help demystify a topic that is often considered inaccessible.
“Nowadays university lessons are prohibitive, so many people cannot have access to this, in particular many black and brown children,” he said. “If they had just had an understanding of how it appears or perhaps a leg in terms of materials, this would help build their resilience and enthusiasm for the topic.”
Dominique Kinsler of Orlando, Florida, is using Hillmantok to change the perceptions of another topic that many see how to have a high barrier at the entrance: gardening
“Every time I learn something that I want to teach it to other people,” he said. “It is a lot to do while I work,” referring to his career as a pharmacist, “but it’s a passion. It doesn’t seem like an ungrateful job.”
Mrs. Kinsler taught himself to gardening during the pandemic, attracting hundreds of thousands of followers with the teaching videos he publishes under his handle on social media, Pharmunique. So, when Hillmantok was born, a 101 gardening class looked like a natural fit.
His first Hillmantok video received about 1,000 views within 30 minutes and over 1 million within the next day. He received such an enthusiastic response to his Hillmantok class, he said he is working on a textbook. His approach is simple: teaching people how to gardens in the space they have available.
Hillmantok arrived in a “fundamental turning point”, said Mrs. Kinsler, especially when it comes to the influence of politics and disinformation.
“People have a little fear of what education will be like in the future: will we be able to learn these things?” He said, adding that Tiktok’s recent federal ban has amplified this fear. (The app briefly stopped working this month before trembling alive after Mr. Trump said he would sign an executive order by delaying the application of the ban.) “It seemed that someone took a power into it,” he said.
Now, with Hillmantok, people are adopting a different approach, Mrs. Kinsler said: “Let me take a notebook. I want to learn. “
Or in the case of Mrs. Kinsler, fresh plants instead of a pen and a paper.
For their final project, Mrs. Kinsler’s Hillmantok course will be asked to show the fruits of their work: a video of their finished garden.