SINGAPORE - The teacher who was shown dabbing in a video that went viral has responded on the incident, saying all teachers do their best to educate and nurture students.

Mr Tan Thiam Soon, a teacher at Chung Cheng High School (Yishun), was shown in a clip first posted on Instagram last week, demonstrating a physics concept.

He places a piece of paper on top of a textbook.

"Textbook that's heavy, paper that's light," he says. "Now, paper on top of textbook. Let's try this. One, two - and three!"

He then drops the textbook, which falls with a thud.

The class claps, but he then performs a dab, a dance move where a person drops his head into the inside crook of his elbow, while the other hand is extended out straight.

The class goes wild, clapping and cheering. While the original video on Instagram is no longer available, the clip has been reposted on several other platforms, reaching an international audience.

The video was shared on Facebook page Edgy English Memes For Angsty Teens Who Have A Slight Disliking Of Plebs, and has more than 300,000 views.

Facebook user Deyshan Bandara commented: "I wish we had an Asian teacher like this guy. He dabs like he's trying to say bow down to me."

Mr Tan told The Straits Times over e-mail on Friday (Sept 15) that "all teachers are doing their best to educate and nurture our students".

"I would like to commend all the good work done by my fellow colleagues in the fraternity," he said.

He confirmed that he was demonstrating the concept of free fall, discovered by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei, in which objects in free fall motion would descend at the same rate as long as they are not affected by air resistance, even if their mass is different.

The experiment illustrates that the textbook, which is less affected by air resistance, shields the piece of paper from air resistance so that both objects are essentially moving under the influence of gravity alone. They accelerate at the same rate, and land on the floor at the same time.

He did not comment on whether it was part of his efforts to reach out to millennial students.

Mr Tan is listed on the school website as the Head of Department for Human Resources.

Several users on Internet forum Reddit said they recognised him.

User MysticAuraa wrote: "That's my teacher from secondary school. I was from Chung Cheng High Yishun. He mainly teaches physics and was a pretty good teacher, making me enjoy his classes."