Teacher Reacts to Oscars Shoutout From ‘EEAAO’ Director

A now-retired Alabama public school teacher watching the Oscars live at home on Sunday night said she “nearly flipped” when one of the winners, Daniel Scheinert, named her in his acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay. Scheinert, who accepted the prize for Everything Everywhere All at Once’s script alongside his creative partner, Daniel Kwan, thanked the teachers who educated him, inspired him, and taught him “to be less of a butthead,” name-dropping “Ms. Dummier, Mr. Toole, Mr. Hudson, Mr. Chambers, Madame George…” In an interview with Good Morning America, Kay Dummier said she remembered Scheinert in one of her fourth-grade classes, but didn’t remember doing “anything special” with him. “I treated him like all my other neat little kids,” she said. The teacher said she had tuned into the Oscars to “make sure [Scheinert] got something” for his movie, and was “tickled” to see him thank his educators—and his parents, whom he shouted-out while collecting his Best Director prize. “I thought, you know, this guy has got his head on straight,” she said.