Teachers Are Using Beyonce’s ‘Mute Challenge’ to Instantly Quiet Their Classrooms

Teachers are going viral on TikTok for using Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour “Mute Challenge” as a call-and-response tool in their classrooms

If teachers have one superpower (kidding! They have so many), it’s getting classrooms full of kids to quiet down and pay attention. And now, they have a genius new tool for silencing their students—using Beyoncé’s “Mute Challenge” from her Renaissance Tour—and the results are pretty incredible.

Here’s how the “Mute Challenge” works: When Beyoncé performs “Energy,” her crowds in different cities unofficially compete to be the quietest during the challenge. Right after she sings the lyric, “Look around, everybody on mute,” Beyoncé, her dancers, and everyone in the crowd freeze and stay perfectly still and silent for several seconds before the performance resumes, with the goal of achieving total silence in a sold-out stadium.

After going to Beyoncé’s show in Atlanta, first-grade teacher Amber Drummond had an idea for how she could use the “Mute Challenge” as a sort of call-and-response in her classroom. She recorded the moment on Instagram, and it absolutely took off.

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After Drummond says, “Look around, everybody on mute,” her chatty class goes completely silent. It’s beautiful. Other teachers are now following her lead and using the “Mute Challenge” themselves.

But the “Mute Challenge” isn’t the only way to engage students using music like this. Kansas City fourth-grade teacher Jeremiah Kim has also turned other Beyoncé songs into similar challenges for his class to get their attention when he needs it.

In his viral TikTok video, his students nail their call-and-response to Bey’s song “Heated” and other hits so that he can start a lesson. It may be a bit unconventional, but it’s clear that this works. Kids love music, and everyone loves Beyoncé, so it’s really no wonder this is so effective.