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Ed Sheeran Shares Songwriting Secrets, Writes Killer Tooth Brushing Jam With 3rd Graders in Sweet Episode of ‘Celebrity Substitute’

Ed Sheeran is used to playing for tens of thousands of rabid fans in stadiums around the world. But how does his emotional music play in a New York classroom of third graders? Check out the latest episode of the heart-warming series Celebrity Substitute, in which Sheeran pops into PS20 in Brooklyn to teach students how to transform everyday sounds into fully fledged songs.

Host Julian Shapiro-Barnum sits down with Sheeran in the Clinton Hills classroom’s small chairs to observe as the singer teaches his young charges about rhythm and sound using his trusty loop rig, even as Ed laments that perhaps he’s “not the best substitute teacher.” Or, he offers, maybe he is just that because, he recalled (before the students arrived), sometimes when a sub comes in you feel like, “‘f–k, you’re not my real teacher… don’t tell me what to do!’”

Well aware that he doesn’t command authority and is basically a big Pokemon-loving adult kid himself, Sheeran recalled the nasty names he got called in school, helping to prove Shapiro-Barnum’s credo that “weirdos make the coolest adults.” (See the full video below.)

After getting affixed with his official “Mr. Ed” sub name tag — and getting warned by teachers Mr. Chung and Mr. Hampton that his lesson plan was “ambitious” at best — Sheeran dug into his curriculum of teaching the importance of rhythm, finding your own sound and, most importantly, rehearsing.

Sheeran got right to work, playing his 2015 Billboard Hot 100 No. 15 hit “Photograph,” which was met with mixed reviews from kids who were fans, some who were not so much, and one girl who recalled seeing him in a book about Taylor Swift once, but having no idea why he was in it. “I like the music… a lot,” said one young man named Theo, who admitted that he wasn’t familiar with Sheeran’s ouvre, but does love soccer and had a friend who was the fastest player on his team before he moved to England.

After teaching the kids the basics of the waltz and 4/4 rhythms by noting that pal Swift’s “Style” is in 4/4 by clapping his hands in time, Sheeran set about making sure the kids were picking up what he was laying down by asking them to clap their hands and stomp their feet at the same time in rhythm.

One-by-one the students came up to the mic to say silly phrases that Sheeran looped together to form a rhythm, earning praise from the teachers for his pedagogical skills. Busting out a box of instruments that turned the room into a riot of noise, Sheeran then encourage each student to share their unique sound into the mic, from saxophone bleats to fart sounds.

The 15-minute clip ends with a command Show & Tell performance of “The PS20 Kids and the Morning Routine” original song about brushing your teeth which is guaranteed to be the cutest thing you see all day.

Watch Sheeran on Celebrity Substitute below.


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