In a viral video, a mom called out a parent at her child’s school who started an online bashing session that included “hateful” comments about a new second-grade teacher.
She said parents need to show teachers more respect. Commenters agreed.
In the TikTok clip, Mary (@mountain2mountainrealtor) explains that at the start of the year, her child had a phenomenal teacher, but the person ended up leaving the school because they didn’t think it was a good fit.
There seems to be more to the story there, but Mary wanted to protect the teacher’s privacy and also wasn’t privy to the whole story.
With that teacher gone, the school needed to find a replacement, so they hired a first-year teacher.
Despite being a new teacher and having to take over a classroom that already started the year with another person, Mary was impressed with how the new teacher was handling it all.
But some parents weren’t entirely satisfied, and one went out of their way to send an email to a group of 30 parents behind the teacher’s back, talking about how her child was having a hard time adjusting to them.
Mary said the parent voicing that their child was having a difficult time with the transition wasn’t the issue. The issue was that instead of communicating her problems directly with the teacher, the parent talked about them to others. “I’m like livid right now,” Mary says in the clip.
“What happens is people start to feel comfortable just saying whatever they wanna say, and it crushed me,” she continues.
In the aforementioned email thread, parents started piling on with their own critiques.
“I wanna point out right now that this is a first-year teacher that is stepping into a tough position, and she has taken it on like a champ,” Mary notes.
She also points out that the teacher went out of her way to set up conferences with parents in the first week she was there.
“Let’s give her a little credit. And if your child is having a problem adjusting, then there are a couple of things you can do. Communicate with the teacher, go to the counselor at the school, but don’t email everybody,” Mary adds.
Mary, who herself was a teacher for a decade, says there already aren’t enough teachers who work in her community. She says that parents need to show more gratitude toward the overworked and underpaid individuals willing to teach and care for their children.
“There are teachers that are leaving all the time, and we can’t afford that. And when you guys do stuff like post things online about teachers or do mass emails about teachers, you are screwing with the teachers that are there,” Mary says.
Several teachers have posted on TikTok about their decision to leave the profession, whether due to low pay or poor treatment. Many of those teachers have also shared the second jobs they have to take on to continue teaching, including working at Domino’s or Starbucks. The Texas Education Agency reported last year that 15% of the state’s teachers left the profession.
Mary’s video has over a million views and thousands of comments as of Monday morning.
@mountain2mountainrealtor Fuming 🔥 😡 Do better society! Have the converstaion! Teachers deserve better! #teachersoftiktok #teaching #schoolsystem ♬ original sound – maryzirvin
“Principals need to hold parents accountable like they do teachers. Parents have gotten so bad. (Former teacher),” the top comment read.
“That’s why kids feel comfortable disrespecting teachers-because their parents do it!” a person wrote.
“Parents do this, teachers leave, and now we have teachers coming out saying kids in 7th grade can’t read or write. parents need to look inwards,” another said.
The Daily Dot reached out to Mary for comment via TikTok direct message.