Gen Z teacher asks students to 'rant about anything' and their unhinged essays are cracking the internet up

Writing lengthy essays is one of young students' least favorite tasks. But a 23-year-old English teacher found an ingenious way to inspire them to write. Dean Whitehead, who goes by @mrcoachwhitehead on TikTok, didn’t assign a complex topic to his students. Instead, he gave them the freedom to write—or rather rant—in their essays. "Do we all have a document open called Argumentative Fun?" Whitehead asked his students after setting up a camera to film himself and record his students' responses.

"I have 10 minutes on the clock and for 10 minutes, you are going to rant about anything that you want," he said in the video. "It has to be something you feel so strongly about that you can type for 10 minutes straight." The announcement sparked curiosity among the students, many of whom began asking questions about the unusual assignment. Whitehead reassured them that he wouldn’t grade based on grammar or spelling. When a student asked for a minute to think about their topic, Whitehead told them he would be give them a total of 11 minutes to finish the writing assignment.

However, using voice texts were not allowed. "If you can convince me you're correct about whatever you rant about, I'll give you five bonus points on your essay," Whitehead stated. He continued telling his students how he mostly gets complaints from them about the essay topics being boring and how they're tired of writing the same things. After Whitehead's announcement, the kids sounded enthusiastic about the refreshing essay idea. In a second video that gained over 11 million views, Whitehead shared some of the best essays that the students submitted.

"I have somebody who ranted about kids and students not having curfews. On weekends, they should be allowed to do whatever they want because school is hard and stressful," Whitehead summarized from one essay. Other students ranted about their Christmas gift lists, while one wrote about boys being stupid and expressed frustration over teachers taking away their phones. One student's essay was all about wanting to be rich so they could give the money to their friends and family. In the middle of another essay, a student even mentioned how Whitehead wasn’t the best teacher.

Lastly, a winner of the essay assignment was chosen. "I had a student rant about their hatred for the animated character of Caillou," Whitehead told his class. "When I say this was the most convincing rant I'd received by the end of it, I mean it. I also hated Caillou. I believe this person cited that he was annoyingly bald and that he always got away with whatever he wanted." The essay writer who shaded Caillou ended up getting five bonus points. "The craziest surprise was they actually did fantastic on their own with grammar and creating full, complete sentences! I was super proud of them!" Whitehead wrote in the comments section in reply to a comment.

The TikTok community praised the way Whitehead arranged the assignment to encourage kids to open up their creative side. @brandondm__ commented, "So when you gonna tell us the story of how that one English teacher changed your life and made you want to do the same thing for kids like you? If my kid has a teacher like you in school, he would be in good hands." @sflow96joked, "As an educator, I cringed at the amount of times you restated the instructions. Glad I’m not alone."@alara.junesuggested, "I would encourage you to have them write by hand every other class to help strengthen those muscles! So many people type instead of writing and those muscles have weakened!

You can follow Dean Whitehead (@mrcoachwhitehead) on TikTok for more videos on education and lifestyle.