A Texas high school teacher was reduced to tears and broke down in front of his class when he realized the seniors he was teaching couldn’t complete a writing exercise.
Darius Williams, a teacher for Houston Independent School District’s Wheatley High School, said he couldn’t get through the first class of the second day of school before his students’ poor literacy skills were too much for him.
“I just finished a three-hour class, and I literally broke down in the middle of class,” Williams said in an Instagram video during his lunch break on Tuesday.
Williams, a New Education System (NES) Career and Technical Education (CTE) staffer, said he gave his class full of seniors two paragraphs to read and asked them to complete another sentence he had practically filled out for them, but was left stunned when they couldn’t finish the task.
“I basically completed the sentence for them, he said. “These are 17- and 18-year-old kids, and they couldn’t fill in four words. Four words!” exclaimed Williams.
“I gave them the scenario, 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 said frustratingly.
“This is only day two, and I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write,” Williams cried out.
The broken-down teacher, who had red eyes and tears streaming down his face, said his students can talk, reason and defend their reasoning, but can’t apply those skills to written text.
“Our young black men, our young brown men, our young black girls, and our young brown girls,” Williams said as he began to sob before ending the video.
Williams faced backlash after posting the video as critics called out the teacher’s qualifications to be able to speak about his students’ literacy troubles.
The teacher and part-time cooking influencer showed off his second bachelor’s degree earned from Berklee College of Music back in April, then claimed he was enrolled in a master’s program at the American College of Education where he is studying for Curriculum and Instruction.
He also listed the numerous certifications that he holds, including with the state of Texas and the Texas Education Agency.
“I have all of my certifications lined up,” Williams shared in a follow-up video.
“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,” he said.
Williams’ breakdown in the middle of class came days after it was revealed that a majority of New York City students between third and fifth grades failed their English Language Arts tests last school year.
Preliminary results released this week by the state Education Department found 57% of 3rd graders, 52% of 4th graders and 57% of 5th graders all got failing marks on their tests in the 2025-2026 academic calendar.
Just 48% of students in the testing grades, 4th-8th, rated proficient in ELA — a “significant” 5% plunge from the previous year, the department said.
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