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Teacher slammed for TikTok video for 'mis-pronouning' student: 'Beyond any level of stupidity'

'I am so sorry. That is completely 100% my fault. I apologize. I will not get it wrong moving forward,' the teacher said in the video

A TikTok video of a teacher has gone viral after she was seen explaining how she handled the aftermath of not using the correct pronouns for a student in her class who had changed their pronoun to "they/them" just two days day after altering it to "she/her".

The clip of the unnamed teacher was uploaded to Twitter by the account, "Libs of TikTok" who captioned the video, "This is what teachers are most concerned with[.]." The video has so far received over 660,000 views, over 3,000 likes, and more than 1,500 retweets. From the background in the video, it was clear that the teacher filmed the video in the school that she worked at. Some of the other teachers who made headlines recently include Christina Sosbe, Andrew Cowells, Jeanette Valle-Tejeda and Antonio Bailey.

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What did the teacher say in the video?

In the video, the teacher began recounting her experience of "mis-pronouning" a student with an exaggerated groan. "Guys. I messed up. I messed up," she groaned. "So, I had a kid on Monday they said their pronouns were she/her. Then on Wednesday, yesterday, they came to me and said, 'You know what? My pronouns are they/them. I want you and the class to use they/them.' OK, cool. Great. They come to class today. There's names on desks in groups for assigned seats. They can't find theirs because I guess my first class knocked it off. So I go to the class, 'Hey, is she in anyone's group? Does anyone see her name?'"

She added: "It took me five minutes to realize what I did. So, someone asked a question yesterday, 'What do you do when you mess up?' Well, we all mess up. So what I did when they were sitting by themselves, I approached them and said 'I screwed up, didn't I?' And they said 'Yep!' And I said, 'I am so sorry. That is completely 100% my fault. I apologize. I will not get it wrong moving forward. Please know I heard you when you told me your pronouns and I will get it right. That was totally my bad. I apologize.' So that's what you do: You own it; you apologize. They were happy that I came over to them, they were disappointed in me."

Then explaining what she had learned from the whole experience, the teacher said, "I just saw the look of disappointment, and I was like so disappointed in myself. But we just get better. We learn, we grow, we get better, I will not F it up again."

'This is beyond any level of stupidity'

The teacher received backlash from social media users for blowing the incident out of proportion by making a TikTok video about it. People who did not agree with children coming up with their own pronouns also pointed out the ridiculousness of liberals in encouraging such behavior. "No concern with a child who just out of the blue decides to flip the switch a few days later and ask to be called something else. no, that's just simply accepted. no questioning it? no worry over maybe there's something deeper going on here?" one user asked, while another said, "I used to substitute teach and I accidentally mis-gendered a kid. I felt really bad and apologized to the kid after class. We didn't have Tic Toc back then and I didn't make a video about it."

A third commented, "Honestly question. How can you teach proper English and when to use nouns and pronouns in a sentence or speech when you encourage the kids to use whatever pronouns that want literally any time they feel like it?" The next remarked, "How can THEY not see they're creating far more problems and confusion than they're resolving? The same child would have had absolutely no emotional reaction to be called 'she' 15 years ago. And it's going to continue. Same with all 'them'. People will always say he/she sometimes."

A commenter tweeted, "Individual persons do not need to use 'they/them' pronouns in the first place. Kids in school should not be demanding this, and teachers should not castigate themselves for not satisfying the kids' demands." One more quipped, "This is beyond any level of stupidity that we’ve seen lately. This garbage is what public school kids are being exposed to. It’s all a reconditioning plan." A person reacted with, "This is moral insanity. If you are a public school teacher and you agree with this, you should quit....and leave the education field. This is educational malpractice."