Molly Dugan, 26, a teacher from the Kansas City area, has gone viral on TikTok with a video where she reveals the wilder things her 8th-grade students have said. They range from personal insults to strange observations that you’ll only get from kids stuck in the awkward phase between elementary and high school.
Since being posted on May 16, the video has been viewed over 15 million times.
What’s interesting about the video is that she delivers all of her students’ quotes in a stoic deadpan and they all come from memory. It’s a perfect performance for the teacher’s first-ever TikTok post. “Things that my 8th graders have said to me,” opens the video, looking straight into the camera.
Here are a few of the things her students said:
“8th graders will make fun of you but in an accurate way.” – John Mulaney @John Mulaney official
@miss.dugan1 “8th graders will make fun of you but in an accurate way.” – John Mulaney @John Mulaney official
“Are you in therapy? You seem like the type.”
“You look like my grandpa’s couch.”
“Your pants look like trash bags sewn together. Ha ha. Trash bag pants.”
“I don’t get why you write so much on my rough draft. I’m not reading all that, bruh. For real for real.”
“Fat a** alert.”
“Miss Dugan, the toilet paper in this school sucks. I just got dookie on my hand.”
“How does it feel to be the only unmarried teacher in this school?”
“Yuh, I felt that one in my nuggets.”
The teacher captioned the post with a quote from comedian John Mulaney. “8th-graders will make fun of you but in an accurate way,” Mulaney said in his 2015 Netflix special, “The Comeback Kid.” The quote struck a chord with Dugan who teaches 7th and 8th-grade English-language arts and will begin working with high school students next year.
“I never related to something more,” she told The Kansas City Star. “Sometimes they say it and they don’t know that they’re insulting you, but they kinda do. That’s the beauty of middle school, they’re such a blend of elementary and high school. They know they’re saying something mean but they didn’t mean it in a bad way.”
“I fully believe that my students are really great at heart. The purpose was not to roast my students or put them on blast, rather than just to give people a little comedic relief,” she continued.
The video is a funny example of what life is like as a teacher, but it’s also proof that you need tough skin to step into the classroom. “Do teachers get like some mental support and treatment from like a group of psychologists by the end of each school year? This is so intense!” Andybeta74 wrote in the comments.
Ultimately, Dugan’s honest rapport with her students is great for everyone involved. “When I’m the first to show my human side, my students start to feel more safe to be themselves, too,” Dugan told Newsweek. “My kids might poke fun at me and have some brutal one-liners, but they are all incredible humans whom I am proud to have taught.”