The Milwaukee teacher behind this viral video says he’s inspired to put kids first

When sixth-grade Milwaukee teacher Terrance Sims shot footage of his students spitting dope rhymes over Tee Grizzley’s “First Day Out,” he didn’t know the video would go viral. The song, titled “Excellence First,” is now a social media sensation and on his account alone has more than 81,000 views in less than one week.

“It started out by me just writing the verse, and when they came in for the first day of school, instead of saying good morning and greeting them, I just put the video on and then set the verse. They loved it,” Sims told The Undefeated.

Aryn Fears and Savana Patterson are stars in the full music video and students of Milwaukee Excellence School.

“At the end of one of my math classes we had some extra time, and it was their idea to go up one at a time and show how they could spit the rap,” Sims said. “When I heard the two ladies in the video spit it, I went, there’s no way you could not record this. That’s kind of how it got started.”

Sims first hit the scene earlier this year when students in a fourth-grade class at his former school participated in a photo shoot dressed as stars from the movie poster for Hidden Figures. Draped in clothing similar to those of Figures stars Janelle Monae, Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer, the students represented children of color and attributed honors to black women in history. Monae tweeted the photo, which went viral.

“That was at my old school and was actually part of my chosen project for that school where we had to look at a problem at school and try to solve it,” Sims explained.

When he searched to find posters to hang up around the halls and classrooms of the schools, his problem was that he could not find any representations of people of color.

“My idea was to re-create positive posters with my kids in it and post them on the streets,” Sims said.

Upon completion of the photo shoot, he added a picture in his personal group chat and his friends did not believe the photo would get much attention.

“I went ahead and posted it and they went crazy,” he said. “We actually did like 30 different posters, but that one went like crazy on the internet. It was cool because it got them down to the NAACP awards to meet all the stars, and then we got to go down to Houston and toured the NASA facility. It turned out to be a really great day for the kids.”

Sims has been teaching for four years and has a degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin. He earned his master’s degree in education from Alverno College in Milwaukee. The 28-year-old said his teaching career started on the day his father was diagnosed with cancer. His main goal is to inspire children to reach their goals, and he has dedicated himself to “putting school first.”

“It’s what he [Sims’ father] put first and he quietly passed away in February, and that’s why if you look on my Instagram you’ll see a lot of my lyrics are to honor his legacy. Everything I do is to honor my father passing away.”

Sims said his father was a pastor in Milwaukee and “really pushed kids to get high grades. I wanted to make sure that continues to happen.”