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Rap Your Way Through Algebra
posted by: Steph | June 28, 2010, 02:31 PM   

♪♫ I’m just a bill, yes I’m only a bill. ♪♫



This and many other Schoolhouse Rock songs (click here for more) were written to teach children different academic lessons in a fun way. A teacher in Los Angeles has developed this concept of learning by music for the new millennium.

LaMar Queen is a middle school math teacher who was challenged when after only a couple of months of teaching, his students told him they found his class boring. This recent college graduate took something he and his students had in common and has used it to make his classroom engaging and exciting. Queen raps his math lessons.

Let's talk about slope intercept.

I don't mind if you interject,

Just don't disrespect.

I say, you have a question for me?

What's y equals mx + b?

"Rap is what the kids respond to," says Queen, "They don't have a problem memorizing the songs at all." 13-year-old Kejon Closure, who went from a C-average to an A, notes, "Some kids who aren't even in Mr. Queen's class go around singing his songs." Queen recognizes that many of his inner city students face adult challenges at home, but he encourages them to set their problems aside and focus on learning in his classroom.

Rapping lessons won't work for all teachers nor for all students, but Queen has used the medium to establish common ground with his students in the musical style he'd been singing since he was a seventh grader. While the school reform movement is meant to benefit students on a large scale, innovative teachers like Queen are benefiting their students one classroom at a time.

Do you use music to help your students remember things?
What innovative tactics have you or your colleagues used to engage your students?

Comment below.


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written by Silke, via Facebook, July 28, 2010

Creative !!!

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