Hillsborough County teacher goes viral for dance battle with students

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — A few seconds of fun turned into a viral moment for a Hillsborough County School teacher.

For Yolanda Turner, showing students how to shine is all in a day’s work.

“Every kid in there has something, has a light inside, and it just takes that one little nudge to get it out,” said Turner.

She’s been a teacher for about 23 years, now at Sumner High School in Riverview. While on a break during exam week, some students had a simple question.

“They said can we have a dance battle? Can we have a dance battle?” said Turner.

It was a request Turner couldn’t turn down.

“I was watching the young man, and I’m like, oh god, don’t make me have to get on these knees, don’t make me have to use these knees,” said Turner. “That song, Lose Control, is like one of my favorite songs. It definitely gets everybody off their feet. So when it came on, I was just, so hype and the crowd was hyping me up.”

The school’s assistant principal recorded it all and posted it to Twitter last Friday. In less than a week, the 38-second video has now been seen by millions of people.

“I didn’t even know what viral meant,” said Turner. “I thought viral was like 30,000 views or 40,000 views. This thing went to 15 million, and it hasn’t even been a full week yet.”

The tweet even got back to the artist behind the song herself.

“I’m going through the comments, and then I see Missy Elliot, I see Dr. Bernice King, and I’m like, oh my god this is crazy!” said Turner.

Within a few seconds, the teacher helped show students to take a moment to have some fun in and out of the classroom.

“I’ve gotten messages from people just around the world that have seen the video talking about how amazing it is to engage kids,” said Turner. “Some people talk about they wish they had this kind of engagement while they were in school or they want a thousand Miss Turners, but I’m like, there’s only one Miss Turner, now.”