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teachers

A mom is embarrassed by her child.

One of the great joys and stresses of parenting is that you never know what will come out of your child’s mouth. When you have kids who are young and inquisitive, they can say really inappropriate things to people without knowing that they were being rude or possibly offensive. TikTok influencer Aurora McCausland (@auroramccausland), known for her DIY cleaning tips, recently told a funny story on the platform about how her son believes she makes a living. The problem was that she heard about it from her child's teacher.

@auroramccausland

so this wasn’t on my bingo card 🥲 #momlife #momtok #sahm #sahmlife #funnyvideo #fypシ

“The other day, I went and picked my five year old up from school and when I get to his classroom his teacher pulls me inside and says, ‘Hey, today he wanted to tell us about what Mommy does for work and said that Mommy makes videos in her bedroom but only when I'm [he’s] not at home,” McCausland recalled.

Given her body language while telling the story, McCausland was clearly mortified after hearing what her child said to his teacher. It makes it look like she may be posting videos to adult sites while her child is at work, which most people wouldn’t want their son’s teacher to know about.

The good news is that another teacher was there to clarify the young boy's comments by adding, “I think she makes TikTok videos.” The uncomfortable situation was a great invitation to chat with her son about what she does for a living. “So I have to have a conversation with my son about how he tells people what I do for work,” she finished her video.

teacher, funny teacher, teacher posing, kindergarten, funny kidsA teacher folding her hands.via Canva/Photos

The funny video went viral, earning over 1.7 million views on TikTok, and inspired many people to share the times when their children had funny ways of explaining their careers.

"My son told everyone that we were homeless (because we don’t own our home, we rent)," KBR wrote.

"I work in ortho.. my daughter told her teacher I steal people's knees bc she heard me talking to my husband about a knee replacement," Aingeal wrote.

"My son told a teacher we were living in our car over the summer. Camping. We went camping," Kera wrote.

"In kinder, my son thought Red Bull was alcohol and told his teacher I liked to have beer on the way to school," Ashley wrote.


"My niece told her teacher her mom and dad work at the wh*re house. They work at the courthouse," Ellis wrote.

"My husband works as a table games dealer at a casino. Kindergartener, 'Daddy's a Dealer!' We now start every school year clearly stating he works at the casino," CMAC

"My son said we lived in a crack house…There’s a tiny chip in the wall from the door knob," KNWerner wrote.

"My dad is a hospice chaplain and officiates a lot of funerals. My son and nephew were asked by their preschool teacher if their papa was retired or had a job. They told her his job was to kill people," Tiffyd wrote.

In the end, McCausland’s story is a fun reminder of how children see things through their own unique lens and, with total innocence, can say some of the funniest things. It’s also a great warning to parents everywhere: if you aren’t clear with your kids about what you do for a living, you may be setting yourself up for a very embarrassing misunderstanding.

Popular

A teacher's historic 1968 racism experiment on third graders is still incredible today

“I watched what had been marvelous ... children turn into nasty, vicious discriminating little third graders in the space of 15 minutes.”

Jane Elliott conducts on experiment on her students in 1970.

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, and the news devastated Jane Elliott, a third-grade teacher in Riceville, Iowa. In the wake of King’s death, Elliott heard people on the news and work colleagues making racist remarks about the slain civil rights leader. So, she scrapped her lesson plans for the next day and, instead, gave her students a two-day lesson on racism. A version of this lesson was later filmed in 1970 and shown on PBS as the documentary The Eye of the Storm.

What is the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Experiment?

The next day, she told the children in her overwhelmingly white and protestant school that they would be divided by their eye colors, brown and blue. The blue-eyed people would be privileged, and the brown-eyed people would be treated like second-class citizens. "Since I'm the teacher and I have blue eyes, I think maybe the blue-eyed people should be on top the first day. I mean, the blue-eyed people are the better people in this room. Oh yes, they are all right. They are smarter than brown-eyed people,” she told her classroom. “This is a fact. The brown-eyed people do not get to use the drinking fountain; you'll have to use the paper cups. You brown-eyed people are not to play with the blue-eyed people on the playground. The brown-eyed people in this room today are going to wear collars so that we can tell from a distance what color your eyes are ready."

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

When lunch rolled around, the blue-eyed children began insulting the brown-eyed children, and "Brown eyes" became an insult. The brown-eyed children felt hopeless because they had no power over their treatment.

“It seems like when we were down on the bottom, everything bad happened, and uh, the way they treated you, you felt like you didn't even want to try to do anything. It was like Mrs. Elliott was taking our best friends away from us,” one of the brown-eyed children said. “I watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious discriminating little third graders in the space of 15 minutes,” Elliott recalled.

The next day, the roles were reversed. The brown-eyed children were given all the privileges, and the blue-eyed kids wore collars. Interestingly, the brown-eyed children who experienced discrimination on the first day were kinder to the blue-eyed people when they were in charge because they understood how they felt.

The teacher also discovered that when a group of students were told they were superior, they worked through their phonics lesson faster than when they were part of the group deemed inferior. They even claimed that they couldn't think as well with the collars on, which gives some insight into the yoke of living under prejudice. The children deemed superior on the first day underperformed the next day in their lessons.


On the third day of that dreadful week following Dr. King’s assassination, the kids had learned a big lesson in life about discrimination, evidenced by a call and response Elliott had with her students where they agreed that it was wrong to judge people by the color of their skin. “Now you know a little bit more than you knew at the beginning of this week,” Elliott concluded her lesson.

Let’s hope that the children from Riceville, Iowa, in 1968 took Elliot’s lesson to heart and led a life where they, as King said, “Judge people by the content of their hearts instead of the color of their skin.” After the exercise made headlines, Elliott left teaching at the elementary school and became a full-time anti-racist speaker, conducting the experiment throughout the world. In 1992, she performed it in a controversial episode ofThe Oprah Winfrey Show.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Image via Canva

Elementary school teacher Alice Yates does hair for student who lost a parent.

Teachers play a much larger role than simply being educators. And elementary school teacher Alice Yates (@missaliceinteacherland) understands what it means to go above and beyond for her students, especially those in need.

In a new video shared on Instagram, Yates shared an emotional video about a student who recently lost a parent. After noticing she was coming to school with her hair unbrushed most days, she decided to step in with kindness and help take care of her by doing her hair everyday.

In the start of the video, Yates shows herself brushing out a little girl's hair as she tells her story in the captions. "A few months ago one of my student's parent died pretty suddenly...she was coming to school with her hair not even brushed most days," she writes. "I just wanted to help where I could. So I bought a cheap comb and hair ties so that I could at least do a basic pony for her to get her hair out of her face."


The small act of love did not go unnoticed. Her other students noticed Yates doing the student's hair, and wanted to get their hair done, too. "Then the other girls in the class started asking if I'd do their hair too. Now during breakfast, we have chitchats while we do hair! I wouldn't trade this time for anything. It has helped us all become so much closer.❤️"

She goes on to explain that she wasn't sure if parents would be okay with it, but was put at ease after getting a thankful message from one.

"I was a little nervous some parents might take it the wrong way that I'm doing their kids hair, but then I got this message: 'I just FaceTimed with [student's name] and saw her hair. It was adorable. Thank you for being extra sweet to my girl while I'm away. I don't even know what her hair looked like when she came in lol."

Yates offered more details as to why she treasures the personal interactions with her students. "I love being the teacher that I needed growing up...when I was a kid many of my teachers didn’t take the time to get to know us. They didn’t really show us love, tell us about their family, or even ask about ours," she writes. "They showed up, taught from a McGraw Hill Teacher Guide and went home. I think back on school and I hated it most years. I can count on one hand the teachers that I felt safe and happy with."

It was that experience that made her want to be a different teacher. "School filled me with so much anxiety and I think it’s a huge reason why I pour my heart and soul into teaching now," she writes. "I find so much comfort in looking into a parents eyes and telling them that I will take care of their baby, and they look back and me and know I mean it. ❤️"

Yates' emotional video got an incredibly supportive response from viewers. "And that’s a vocation right there & exactly the teacher our children need 💕," one wrote. Another shared, "This is beautiful bc when I was in 3rd grade my dad almost died in a motorcycle accident. Needless to say with no family nearby, most days I was barely dressed much less brushed. My teacher would bring barrettes to put up my hair and ill never forget the difference it made in my life ♡." And another viewer added, "They will never forget you and the time you took for them ❤️."

If you would like to contribute to Miss Alice's classroom, you can shop her Amazon Classroom Wishlist here.

Education

Teacher-of-the-year nominee's 5-point explanation of why she quit goes viral

"The people making these decisions are NOT looking out for the students' best interests."

An empty classroom.

Talented, dedicated teachers are leaving public schools because the system makes it too hard to truly educate kids.

When I studied to become a teacher in college, I learned what education can and should be. I learned about educational psychology and delved into research about how to reach different learners, and couldn't wait to put that knowledge into practice in the classroom.

But after graduating and starting to teach, I quickly saw how the school system makes it almost impossible to put what we know about real learning into practice. The structure and culture of the system simply isn't designed for it.

The developmental default of childhood is to learn. That's why four-year-olds ask hundreds of questions a day, why kids can spend hours experimenting and exploring in nature, and why kids are so much better at figuring out how to use technology. Children are natural, fearless learners when their curiosity is nurtured, and they are given an environment where learning can take place.


classroom, students, teachers, learning, quitting teachers, state of education, group projectA group of students working on a project with their teacher. via Canva/Photos

Most teachers know this. And many find themselves so frustrated by trying to teach within an outdated, ineffective system that they decide to leave. I only lasted a couple of years before deciding other avenues of education were worth exploring. A viral post written by a celebrated teacher highlights why many teachers are doing the same thing.

Michelle Maile was a first-grade teacher before she resigned this month, and her 5-point explanation of why she did it resonates with thousands.

Maile shared on Facebook why she, a celebrated teacher in a great school district, decided to turn in her classroom keys. Her post has been shared more than 67,000 times and has thousands of comments, mostly in solidarity.


"Why would a teacher of the year nominee, who loves what she does, who has the best team, the best students and parents, and was lucky enough to be at the best elementary school not want to come back?" she wrote. "Let me tell you why….

1. Class size. Everything in my training, what I know about kids, and what I see every day says that early childhood classes should be at 24 or less. (ideally 22 or less) Kids are screaming for attention. There are so many students who have social or emotional disorders. They NEED their teacher to take time to listen to them. They NEED their teacher to see them. They NEED less students in their class. The people making these decisions are NOT looking out for the students' best interests, and have very obviously NEVER taught elementary kids.

2. Respect. I feel disrespected by the district all year long. They don't trust that I know what I am doing. I have a college degree, go to trainings every year, read books and articles about kids, and most importantly, work with kids every day. I KNOW something about how they learn and what works best for them. Please listen to us.

teachers, students, teachers aids, classroom size, state of education, teacher salary, quitting teachersA teacher with her students.via Canva/Photos

3. Testing. Stop testing young kids. It doesn't do anyone any good. Do you know which kids slept poorly last night? Do you know who didn't have breakfast? Do you know whose parents are fighting? Do you know who forgot their glasses and can't see the computer? Do you know who struggles to read, but has come so far, just not on your timeline? You don't, but I do. I know some of my best students score poorly on their tests because of life circumstances. I know some of my lower students guessed their way through and got lucky. Why stress kids out by testing them? How about you ask ME, the professional, how they are doing? Ask ME, the teacher who sees these kids every single day. Ask ME, the teacher who knows the handwriting of all 27 kids. Ask ME, the adult in their life who may be more constant than their own parents. Ask ME, then let me teach.

4. I felt like I was drowning. So many things beyond teaching are pushed on teachers. Go to this extra meeting, try this new curriculum, watch this video, then implement it in to your next lesson, fill out this survey monkey to let us know how you feel (even though it won't make any difference), make clothes for the school play, you need to pay for that yourself because there's no money from the school for it. There's no music teacher today, so you don't get a planning time. There are weeks I truly felt like I was drowning and couldn't get a breath until Friday at 5:00. (NOT 3:00)

bills, teacher pay, teachers, low pay, financial stress, teachers quit, educationA woman stressed out about her monthly bills.via Canva/Photos

5. Pay. I knew becoming a teacher would never make me rich. That has never been my goal. I wanted to work with kids. I wanted to help kids. I wanted to make enough money to take care of my own kids. Sadly this isn't the case for so many teachers who have to work two jobs to support their own families. This isn't right."

Maile says the system may be broken beyond repair, which is why she's tapping into a growing educational movement.

"The school system is broken," Maile continued. "It may be broken beyond repair. Why are counselors being taken away when we need them more than ever? Why are art and music classes disappearing when these forms of expression have been proven to release stress in an overstressed world. Why are librarians being cut when we should be encouraging kids to pick up an actual book instead of being behind a screen? Do you know how many elementary students are on anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications? Look. The number will astound you.

So where am I going? Because I still love kids and want to help them with their education, I will be an online charter school teacher. I will be helping families who have chosen to homeschool their kids. They also see that the school system is broken. When I told my school I was leaving, I had multiple veteran teachers say, 'I would do the same if I was younger.' 'I am so glad you are getting out now.' 'It is only going to get worse.' 'I don't see it ever getting better.'

It makes me sad. I have three kids that are still part of this public school system. If you are a public school parent, fight. Fight for your kids. Fight for smaller class sizes and pay raises for overworked teachers. Fight to keep art and music in the schools. Please support teachers whenever and wherever you can. I have been so lucky to have so many amazing parents. I couldn't have done what I have without them. I am sad to leave, but happy to go."

teachers quitting, teachers quit, news report, youtube, education, state of education, cbswww.youtube.com

What do you do when an enormous system has so many inherent flaws it feels impossible to change it?

What to do about public education a hard question. Many former teachers like myself strongly believe in public schooling as a foundational element of civilized society, but simply can't see how to make it work well without dismantling the whole thing and starting over.

When I chose to educate my own kids, I was surprised by how many former teachers end up in the homeschooling community. Many of the most well-known proponents of homeschooling were or are public school teachers who advocate for more effective models of education than what we see in the system. There's a lot that could be debated here, but alternative models may be the best places to look for answers to the question of how to fix the system.

At the very least, until we start moving away from copious amounts of testing and toward trusting educators (and paying them well) to do what they've been trained to do, we're going to keep losing great teachers—making an already problematic system even worse.

There is a positive note to Maile's story about the education system. According to a study by Education Week, teacher morale spiked in 2025 to +18 on a -100 to +100 scale. The jump was a big contrast to the 2023-24 school year, which saw teacher morale plunge to -13, meaning more teachers felt negatively than positively about their jobs. There were two big reasons for the increase in morale; one was the education system became more stable after years of disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a decrease in the politicization of the profession.

This article originally appeared six years ago.