Minot teacher shares gift of music on TikTok

MINOT, N.D (KMOT) – “The Weekend Song” is one of many tunes that Risha Allen wrote to serve as a creative outlet for her students.

“She’s a great singer and her favorite shop is the boot barn,” said Alissa Drain, a third grader.

Risha started writing music in fourth grade.

“I haven’t written any yet, but I’m thinking of doing some,” said Logan Russell, a third grader.

The second-year music teacher said as a child she felt a ton of frustration while she was learned how to play the piano. She said she had great teachers, but it took a while to click. Now, she’s taking the opportunity to teach music the way she would’ve wanted.

“It’s alright if you don’t get it. We’ll back up and learn it again. We’ll learn this five or six different ways,” said Allen.

And she posts some of it on TikTok.

Recording bite-sized teaching hacks and classroom passion started small at first, allowing friends and family to see videos.

Now she has more than 200,000 followers on TikTok. A Roosevelt Elementary fifth grader said he was surprised.

“I didn’t think she was going to be this famous, you know what I mean?” said Aiden Laducer, a fifth grader.

Risha said her followers largely consists of teachers, parents, principals, and students.

One of her students said Ms. Allen composes songs based on ideas from all her classes.

“She’s made kitchen utensil songs, rare fruit songs, a frosty frogs songs,” said Juliauna Zahn-Guess, a fifth grader.

Risha said she’s glad she made the decision to switch to music after teaching English for 13 years prior.

“I love teaching English it was a great career too, but this, this is a dream career for me,” said Allen

Risha continues to make her own songs and will soon release another single.