@c5news: A distraught teacher has posted a video with tears streaming down his face about the literacy skill of senior students he is teaching. Darius Williams, who works for Houston Independent School District’s Wheatley High School, told how he broke down in front of his pupils when he realsied they couldn’t complete a writing exercise. Mr Williams said he couldn’t get through the first class of the second day of school before his students’ poor literacy skills caused him to break down. In an Instagram post recorded during his lunch break this week, he explained: “I just finished a three-hour class, and I literally broke down in the middle of class.” The teacher had given his class two paragraphs to read and asked them to complete another sentence he had largely completed for them. They couldn’t do it. “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!” Mr Williams went on to detail how he had provided his students with the scenario and worked with them on the answers, “before we even had the problem and they couldn’t do it”. “I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write,” Mr Williams, whose eyes were red from crying, exclaimed. The teacher went on to say that the students could 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,” Mr Williams said as he began to sob before ending the video. Some viewers of the video questioned Mr Williams' credentials. He has a bachelor's degree in music from Berklee College of Music and says he is enrolled in a master's programme at the American College of Education where he is studying the curriculum and instruction. The New York Post noted that Mr Williams’ breakdown in class came 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. #5News #school #teacher #read #write

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Friday 14 August 2026 14:00:00 GMT