High School Student Tells His Teacher To 'Get Up & Teach Instead Of Handing Out A Packet' So She Kicks Him Out Of Class
He told her that if she wants them to be excited, she has to be exciting. And social media users are taking his side.
YouTube The education system is rife with issues that are proving hard to overcome. There are differing schools of thought on homework, a focus on being politically correct in a changing environment, and violence in the classroom.
But way back in 2013, a young man named Jeff Bliss went viral for his epic ‘rant’ about the method his Social Studies teacher, Julie Phung, used to educate her class. The video resurfaced on TikToker, Misty Ann’s account when she uploaded a video originally recorded by one of Bliss’s classmates.
The student calls out his teacher for not engaging with her class.
The video started with the teen young man complaining about the lack of preparation time for an upcoming test. He walked from his seat to the front of the class while telling the teacher, “If you would just get up and teach ‘em instead of handing ‘em a freakin’ packet, yo! [There are] kids in here who don’t learn like that. They need to learn face-to-face”. The teacher can be heard in the background saying “bye” in response. She accused the student of wasting her time.
But Bliss was not done with Phung. He told her that if she wanted kids to come to class excited to learn, she needed to make them excited. He said, “If you want a kid to change and start doing better, you gotta touch his freakin’ heart!” He then reiterated that action speaks louder than words when trying to adjust a student’s behavior.
The teen reprimanded the teacher for not taking the job of educating ‘the future of this nation’ seriously. He also claimed that Chung had previously stated that she was there for a paycheck.
Bliss continued to express his concerns over the quality of education the Social Studies teacher was providing, but his words did not resonate as she kept asking him to leave the classroom.
He ended his impromptu speech by saying, “I’m not b-tching, but simply making an observation. And now I will leave. You’re welcome.” With that, he left the classroom stunned by the confrontation they had just witnessed.
After that video was taken, the principal of Duncanville High School in Texas met individually with Bliss and Phung to try and get to the bottom of the altercation and determine if any misconduct had occurred on either side.
An investigation began and the teacher was placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation. That does not speak to whether or not she had done anything wrong as it is just part of the school district’s standard protocol. The outcome of the investigation has never been disclosed publicly.
The video was shared around the world just hours after it was posted and within 24 hours, had been viewed 450,000 times, with people staunchly in the corner of the outspoken student. But some students at Duncanville High were not as impressed. Terrance Mitchell said, “He could have gone about it a different way. He could have stepped to the side with the teacher and not just made a class outburst.”
With all of the publicity the incident had gained, viewers had high hopes that Bliss would throw a monkey wrench in the education system and become an advocate for new and improved ways of teaching. He launched a Twitter account (@Real_Jeff_Bliss) on education reform but despite its popularity, it is no longer active.
His Facebook page called One Nation Our Education attracted over 18,000 followers but hasn’t seen any activity in years.
People often wonder what ever happened to the high schooler that spoke out for kids like him that needed a more hands-on educational approach, but updates have been sparse. But in 2022, a YouTube video was released detailing Bliss’s story and sharing some interviews that had been conducted afterward.
As for Ms. Phung, a look at her LinkedIn profile shows that she has been with Duncanville Independent School District for 18 years, but searching for her on their website yields no results. We can only hope that both the teacher and the student have been able to find their purpose in the aftermath of such a riveting encounter.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington. She covers lifestyle and human-interest stories that share the readers can relate to and that bring social issues to the forefront for discussion.