Submitted by Denair Unified School District

Alex Kajitani’s self-described mission is to make math “cool” for his junior high students. To do so, he had to step well outside his own comfort zone. Combatting the glazed looks he saw on too many faces in his classroom meant trying to connect on an entirely different level.

He chose rap music, recognizing that his sixth- and seventh-graders consistently knew the words to new songs within days of their release, yet couldn’t remember concepts he’d been teaching for weeks.

Kajitani wrote a song called “The Itty Bitty Dot” to explain decimal points, put it to some music he found on the Internet and enlisted the help of some tech-savvy students at Mission Middle School in Escondido, north of San Diego, to produce the video.

He played the song – featuring Kajitani rapping the refrain, “Line up the dot and give it all you got” – one morning in his class. The students thought it was hilarious. He thought it was a complete flop.

But by lunchtime, something amazing had happened. As he walked through the cafeteria, many of his students – and many more who hadn’t been in his class – were rapping the lyrics. He had made a connection. The “Rappin’ Mathematician” had been born.

Kajitani – who was named California Teacher of the Year in 2009 — shared that experience and more Thursday morning with the teaching staff of the Denair Unified School District. It was part of a training day for the district’s 80 teachers from all grade levels.

“The true key to education is to stop taking our curriculum and forcing it into our students’ lives and, instead, take our students’ lives and fit it into the curriculum,” said Kajitani during his hour-long presentation.

Rap music simply is a way to convey ideas in a way students can relate to. Continue reading “Teacher Alex Kajitani Uses Rap Music to Deliver Serious Message About Math” »