Beloved B.C. teacher’s birthday surprise goes viral on TikTok

A B.C. teacher received some love from his students for his birthday recently and the moment has gone viral on TikTok.

Joshua Filiatrault, called Mr. Fili by his students, teaches physical education and English at Johnston Heights Secondary School in Surrey, B.C.

What started as an alarming sight –two students pretending to be fighting each other — quickly shifted into a birthday surprise for Filiatrault as he was showered with confetti and the seniors serenaded him with “Happy Birthday”.

Filiatrault went viral on TikTok in a video posted by PRLS (@prlsgrad2024) and it has almost nine million views.

“I really just didn’t want them to get in trouble for being in a fight, so my thinking was to stop it as early as possible so they wouldn’t do something they would regret,” Filiatrault said in a statement.

“My feeling originally was relief, then maybe mild irritation that they got me.”

The beloved teacher told the Surrey School District that he was impressed at how much planning it took as the two fighting students set the stage by bickering with each other in an earlier class and two other students distracted Filiatrault by asking for university advice while the rest set up the party.

“He knows us pretty well so the most unexpected thing would be if two of us got in a fight, and we picked the two most believable people to get into a fight,” said Grade 12 student Ivan Japow, one of the 200 PRLS students who kept the surprise a secret from Filiatrault. “Luckily it worked out, he was pretty surprised by it.”

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The students said they just wanted their favourite teacher to get the recognition he deserved.

“We said Mr. Fili is our favourite teacher because of the way he puts passion into everything he does,” said Grade 12 student Maxine Nguyen in a statement.

“And when we see what that passion does for the many activities in our school – it could just be like dancing in the hall or going crazy on the bleachers at games – all those things give an experience to every person who visits our school, and we wanted to share that experience and the impact he’s had on us.”

For Filiatrault, he said he is just happy that his students are getting the recognition they deserve.

“They just work so hard, and for them to see themselves have any cultural impact, things I tell them that I know they can do, it’s nice that they get that reinforced, and I think that’s what this really is,” he said.

“It shows who they are more than it does who I am.”