UNITED STATES: Texas teacher goes viral for getting emotional about his students struggle to read
A Houston high school teacher was reduced to tears in front of his class on the second day of school after realizing many of his seniors struggled to complete a basic writing exercise.
Darius Williams, a Career and Technical Education teacher at Wheatley High School in Houston ISD, posted an Instagram video during his lunch break on Tuesday describing the moment.
“I just finished a three-hour class, and I literally broke down in the middle of class,” Williams said.
Williams said he gave the class, made up of 17- and 18-year-olds, two paragraphs to read and a sentence that was nearly completed for them. He said he was stunned when students could not fill in the remaining four words.
“I basically completed the sentence for them. These are 17- and 18-year-old kids, and they couldn’t fill in four words. Four words!” he said.
“We annotated together. I gave them the answers before we even had the problem and they couldn’t do it. I don’t know, I simply don’t know where the problem is,” he added.
“This is only day two, and I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write,” Williams said in the video, visibly emotional.
Williams noted that his students can speak, reason, and defend their ideas, but struggle to apply those skills to reading and writing. He ended the video referencing “our young black men, our young brown men, our young black girls, and our young brown girls.”
After posting, Williams faced criticism online questioning his qualifications. In a follow-up video he defended himself, highlighting a second bachelor’s degree from Berklee College of Music, enrollment in a master’s program for Curriculum and Instruction at the American College of Education, and multiple certifications with the state of Texas and the Texas Education Agency.
“I have all of my certifications lined up,” Williams said. “For those of you who may have an issue or problem with me teaching young adults, take the charge, you do it. You get certified, walk into these high schools, you get a classroom, you stand in front of 22 kids each period and let me see how well you do.”
Williams’ post comes days after New York state released preliminary test results showing major declines. For the 2025-2026 school year, 57% of 3rd graders, 52% of 4th graders, and 57% of 5th graders failed the English Language Arts exam. Overall, just 48% of students in grades 4-8 scored proficient in ELA, a 5% drop from the previous year.
The problem of poor writing and reading skills could be attributed to AI and excessive dependence on digital platforms can, on the other hand, have negative effects on learners’ mental abilities, particularly their capacity to read and write effectively in the English language. Reading and writing are fundamental components of English, as they are of every language. While speaking a language can be acquired naturally by children and even by adults who have never attended formal school, reading and writing generally require systematic instruction, practice, concentration and sustained engagement with written material. Excessive reliance on AI and digital tools may therefore discourage learners from developing these essential skills independently, especially when they use technology to generate, summarise or complete written work instead of engaging critically with the learning process.