‘Being a teacher is the bomb dotcom’: How SA teacher Luke Springer gained almost 2m TikTok followers

Loved by parents and adored by kids, this is how Mr Luke went from an unknown reception teacher in Adelaide to garnering a an international fan base.

“Do you eat rocks?”

This is among the strange questions teacher Luke Springer has been asked by his curious “little legends”, the Reception students at his Adelaide primary school.

Springer has gained 1.8m followers on TikTok, where he goes by Mr Luke, and his videos, primarily about the oddball questions and comments posed by kids, have garnered more than 64 million likes on the platform.

A pretty impressive number, the 34 year old admits, for something that started as a bit of a hobby and quickly snowballed.

“To be able to share the experience from a teacher’s perspective, from the other side of the desk, I think is kind of cool and kind of special,” Springer says.

“Sometimes I think we need to say, ‘Hey, teachers are fun people and we enjoy what we do’.”

In many of his videos, Springer shares the simple day-to-day conversations he has with kids from his class, slicing the footage of him as teacher and him acting as the kid in question.

One of the most watched to date? Mr Luke explaining how a gold coin donation can’t be handed back for the tuck shop.

Sounds all pretty simple but the video has attracted two million views and counting.

Adelaide primary school teacher Luke Springer is a huge TikTok sensation. Picture: Tom Huntley

Adelaide primary school teacher Luke Springer has become a hit for sharing what it’s really like to teach young kids. Picture: Tom Huntley

And while Springer admits he hasn’t made a cent from the videos themselves, it has led to deals with brands such as Bunnings Warehouse – he has also appeared on iconic ABC kids’ TV show Play School in 2022 and this month he released a children’s book titled, Guess What We Are Doing Today?

“My income is my job and my job is teaching, this is a hobby,” he says.

“If a video goes viral, it goes viral which is great but there’s no money made just out of posting videos.”

He is known for his broad smile and infectious positive attitude and energy, which Springer says comes from “the absolute sheer joy that I have doing what I’m doing”.

“I come to school and I’m happy to be here,” Springer says.

But just months after he started his TikTok account in 2019, he was nervous his blossoming hobby, which had already attracted tens of thousands of followers, would be cut short due to concerns from the SA Education Department.

“In the early stages … there was a time where TikTok was heavily in the news about how it isn’t a good app and x, y, z,” Springer recalls.

Luke Springer’s social following has ballooned since he started sharing the funny things kids say to him in class. Picture: Instagram

Luke Springer has also appeared on ABC Kids. Picture: Instagram

The department’s fears were allayed, however, when Springer showed them that his content was about how “being a teacher is the bomb dotcom”.

“Why stop something that is hopefully doing something good for education?,” he says.

From there he had conversations with his principal and the department where they “mapped everything out”.

“We came to an agreed ‘play on’,” Springer says.

He and the department have since worked together to maintain security measures such as not naming his school, his students and keeping content G-rated.

An Education Department spokeswoman says Springer’s social media account is “subject to the same guidelines that are in place for all teachers in South Australian public schools and must comply with the Code of Ethics for the Public Sector”.

“Luke’s ability to use social media to engage children to love learning, as evidenced by his vast supporter base, should be celebrated,” she says.

Adelaide primary school teacher by day, TikTok star by night. Picture: Tom Huntley

Teaching is “in the blood” for Springer, who was born in Aberdeen in Washington State, US, with travelling educators for grandparents.

He left the US before he turned one-year-old and attended eight different schools across his primary and secondary education in Australia.

“I went to a different school every year of high school which is not your traditional schooling experience,” he says.

His father Scott was a chiropractor and moved wherever the new practice was.

This meant Springer started high school in Renmark, where he “grew up the most”, moved to Adelaide, went to Tasmania for two years and finished year 12 at Eynesbury in the CBD.

“I’d like to think it’s made me very adaptable because every year you’re the new kid,” Springer says.

“My income is my job and my job is teaching, this is a hobby,” says Luke Springer of his huge TikTok profile. Picture: Tom Huntley

After school he studied a business degree, specialising in property development as, at 17, Springer’s priority was “the best way I could make the most money”.

“I thought looking at houses was fun,” he says. But this degree was short-lived.

“I got really greedy at the end of grade 12, I didn’t get into it (education) and then very quickly realised what a big mistake that was,” he says.

“I wasn’t enjoying going to uni to learn about what I thought the rest of my life was going to be about, which is terrifying for an 18-year-old person going, ‘Is this it?’

“At the end of that first year, I thought I should probably stop, pause and freeze and reflect on this a little bit.”

He deferred university, worked at his father’s clinic for a while and went to the US for some soul searching.

A year later he was studying teaching at the University of South Australia and “never looked back”.

It was his 20-something cousin Lauren and mentoring his brother Jackson, five years younger than Springer, who sparked his interest in teaching.

Springer knew he enjoyed helping kids learn and play, after joining Lauren at the “bub club” when he was in year 9 and she was an infant.

Cousin Lauren also introduced Springer to TikTok and he credits her as the “sole reason” he joined the app.

Luke likes to dress up for school events, like sports day. Picture: Supplied.

Springer’s first video, on Lauren’s account, was a dance challenge before he even thought about making his own content.

“I downloaded it merely, as originally planned, as a bit of a time waster,” he says.

But after seeing people sharing their lives online, Springer thought “why not give it a go?”

“It didn’t take long to go from a consumer to a creator,” he says.

What makes his content special, and has drawn the attention of millions, he says, is that “everyone has their own experiences of their own school life”.

Since his meteoric rise to internet fame, Springer has had to dedicate time to planning his social media content.

“I still don’t know what I’m doing daily online but I know I’m having fun and hopefully making some other people laugh on the other side of the screen,” he says.

He has been working four days a week since last year “because this other random, hilarious life that I’m living in this social media realm takes up a little bit of time”.

Springer is part of a team of three teachers who look after his Reception students on rotation, with two in the room at any time.

“I was filming some days after school at 7pm,” Springer says of trying to juggle social media with teaching.

“Sometimes I would come in during weekends to either do more school work … or also do social media life during the weekend.”

Despite his family-friendly content, negative comments are still left on his videos.

Springer says he dealt with online hate early on by developing an understanding that “not everyone is going to like you”.

“If you go on to social media with the expectation of trying to make everyone like you, it’s really dangerous,” he says.

“Just like being a teacher, some students are going to like you and some students won’t vibe with you, it’s going to be the same online.”

Springer has been a staunch advocate for TikTok and likes to think that “used correctly, social media can be fun and enjoyable”.

When he’s not creating videos, Springer can often be found at home, tending to around 100 “plant babies”.

“I have a plant addiction,” he says.

“My house is a little jungle and it looks like you could go shopping.”

Teaching, however, will always be his top priority.

“I can never see the social media side taking away from the teaching side,” he says.

“I cannot comprehend making a life just out of social media … I don’t understand how people do it. But it’s such a cool hobby because it allows me to shed light on my other passion which is my career.”

Adelaide primary school teacher Luke Springer has published a book. Picture: Tom Huntley

Springer’s latest and perhaps crowning achievement of his career so far is his book about the class “guessing what we’re doing today and their wild imagination”.

He describes publishing it as “a full circle, overwhelming moment”.

“If you can read your own book to your own class, that’s an insanely incredible teacher win,” he says.

He read his book to his Reception students, who had “amazing reactions to it”.

“There was a lot of confusion because on the last page there is a picture of cartoon me reading the book,” Springer says.

“There was a lot of, ‘Luke, how are you reading the book to us in class but you’re in the book reading the book?’.”