Substitute teacher wants to change class’ lives in fifty minutes (satire)

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James Winchester delivers a motivational lesson in place of a worksheet in Gregory Harrison’s third period English 3 Honors class.

Walking into English 3 teacher Gregory Harrison’s third period honors class, substitute teacher James Winchester kicked up his black Nike Air Force 1s on the teachers’ desk, knocking over several pencils.

“Hey, class,” Winchester said. “Your teacher was sick and left you a worksheet, but I want to talk to you about something that you’ll actually be able to use in real life.”

After turning on the digital projector, Winchester reportedly asked students about their goals after college before using TED talks to demonstrate the benefits of thinking outside the box.

“I was working for the man at a big company,” Winchester said. “But I realized that the most important thing I could be doing was looking after the youth and breaking the programming that society puts into you guys.”

Students expressed irritation at the unconventional lesson but were relieved by the lack of work.

“It’s like he saw ‘Dead Poets Society’ once and decided to make that his entire personality,” junior Henrietta Lawson said. “He went on this insane tangent about how Shakespeare was ‘the first rapper.’”

Forty-three minutes into the lesson, campus security entered the room, attempting to handcuff Winchester, who broke the second-story classroom’s window and escaped the building.

“Remember me!” Winchester said. “Don’t let them crush your dreams!”

Campus security quickly moved to figure out what had happened.

“It appears that Winchester wasn’t an actual certified substitute,” security officer Frederick Marshall said. “We suspect that he slipped sleeping pills into Mr. Harrison’s morning coffee and then took over the class.”

Students were disturbed about being misled, but took it in stride.

“I was confused from start to finish,” junior Alexander Richardson said. “But at least it’s a period off. There’s an old saying that you should never interrupt your enemy when they’re in the middle of making a mistake.”