'She left the door unlocked and people from other classes looking for you walked in and walked right out after they saw the sub,' wrote a student.
Editor's note: This article was originally published on March 2, 2023. It has since been updated.
It is quite common for teachers to hand out tasks for students when they are absent, but to give out a questionnaire to check how their day is going is quite unusual. A teacher, who is also a TikTok user, @fairyniceofyou, shared a video of what the responses of her students were and it did give her some interesting insights about them. She says in the video, "I'm going to read their responses because they had me laughing." One student responded, "The sub is very snippy and rude and takes her job way too seriously. I miss you." Another student wrote, "I walked in on time and she said I was late when the second bell never rang yet. I respectfully told her 'no' because it was true and she called me rude. Overall my day is going pretty good."
The student added, "The class is on good behavior but the sub was just a little cranky." One more student complained about the sub. "She left the door unlocked and people from other classes looking for you walked in and walked right out after they saw the sub." According to a different student's response, the discipline administrator called Miss Blank and “started telling people to go take off their shoes if they had Crocs on,” further writing, “It was so stupid lol.”
Mandie mentioned that out of 250 kids, only 26 submitted their responses. "But what I learned is that this method gives quiet students a way to communicate," she says in the video. "Almost all the responses that I got are from students that never talk in class," she added.
The video went viral with more than 2.2 million views and is captioned, "Sharing the 9th grade with you all." Many on the platform appreciated the teacher for the relationship she built with the children. @sfj07118 commented, "You can tell the safe relationship you have built with these learners for them to respond so freely without judgment." @shoemafia_kels commented, "The teacher that rolls around on that knee thing came in .. I don't know what for" took me out." @tojislovebot commented, "This is great because I always had subs who were so weird and then told our teacher that we were behaving poorly, and then we would get in trouble!!" @brittany.michele commented, "I love this so much. I wish my teachers did this when I was in school. I hope my kid's teachers do this."
Many people admired the teacher for her incredible idea to use Google Forms with quiet students. @regananddanielle commented, "As a quiet student, can confirm I would indeed be the one to fill out the survey." @just_mckinley commented, "Yup, as a kid that didn’t really talk in class I 100% would’ve filled this out." @jacobrogotzke commented, "Thank you for doing this. Sincerely, one of the quiet kids." @bailey.shayne commented, "My professor use to do these every Friday as the warm-up and it really helped easily communicate w him without having to do it during class time."