A passionate elementary school teacher has taken a creative approach to teaching her students about what inappropriate touch is. In a video that has quickly gone viral, Gelda Waterboer stands at the front of her classroom and leads her students in singing a song about “private parts.”
“These are my private parts, private parts, private parts. These are my private parts. No one should touch them,” she sings with her elementary school students, gesturing toward her chest, crotch, and buttocks as she sings.
The song also educates her students about what to do if someone touches them inappropriately.
Through the energetic song on TikTok, Gelda also emphasizes to her students that they can and should tell an adult they trust if someone touches them inappropriately. The song goes, “And if you touch my private parts, private parts, I will tell my mother, I will tell my father, I will tell my teacher.”
Over the video, Gelda wrote, “Being safe. Make sure they put in the emotion.”
Some critics noted that Gelda sounded “aggressive” as she sang it, but many others said the “aggression” and passion was totally necessary given the subject matter.
@gelda_waterboer ♬ original sound – Gelda Waterboer
Explaining this, one person who watched the video on TikTok wrote, “For those criticizing the teacher’s aggressive tone, remember she’s teaching. She’s showing these kids that their private parts are a serious matter. The firm delivery matches the seriousness of the words in the song, so the message sticks and they understand it’s not to be taken lightly.”
Another person agreed, commenting, “I love that she is singing it with aggression and not making it a cutesy little ha ha type song.”
A third person noticed a significant detail in the song. “Adding ‘I will tell my teacher’ because sometimes the abu$e happens at home 😢😢😢😢 Thank you for giving them a safe space,” the commenter wrote.
Overall, people praised the teacher for sharing such an important lesson with her students.
“We need more teachers like her,” one person wrote. Several others commented that she deserves a “Teacher of the Year” award for this lesson. To many, the video made it clear that the teacher is passionate about her job and really cares about her students.
“Teachers are not given enough credit I swear,” one person shared. Someone else wrote, “I’m definitely teaching my kids this song.”
In a follow-up video, Gelda shared her story.
@gelda_waterboer ♬ original sound – Gelda Waterboer
For her, the lesson she’s teaching her students is personal. Her own traumatic experiences as a child made her even more passionate about protecting children.
“I know what such trauma causes,” she explains in her video. “I know that it changes you. It changes your destiny, it changes the way you think of yourself, it changes the way you value yourself, it changes you completely. And if I can use my voice to heal a child and to save a child, I will do that.”
In the same video, she addresses some of the “insensitive” comments she received from people who called her “aggressive” and said she clearly must have survived a traumatic experience. She added that people do not need to experience trauma in order to care about protecting children.
