by Larry Alexander
February 5, 2023
Malaika Costello-Dougherty is a writer for Edutopia. In this informative 2009 article, she describes how Daniel Joseph Duey and Alex Kajitani use hip-hop beats to teach math to their middle school students.
Then see what you think of two YouTube videos: One is a 2011 video on Math Rap by Mathodman, and the other is Mr. A’s 2017 Math Rap.
Duey is a professional rapper and teaches middle school in Westland, Michigan. His video called Fractions has been shown on TeacherTube.com and in math classes around the country. Teachers use the video “to introduce a lesson, engage inner-city students who prefer music to math, and show students how to calculate their grades on an assignment” (Costello-Dougherty).
The video has more than 580, 000 views and teachers say “When these teachers play rap videos like Fractions in class, they find that students can quickly grasp complicated concepts: The repetition and rhyme help with memorization, and students connect with the lesson” (Costello-Dougherty).
Alex Kajitani, known as the rappin mathematician, also uses hip-hop to relate to his students. He teaches middle school in Escondido, California, and says it’s one of the most poverty-stricken areas of California. When he first started teaching, he could not get students to pay attention. However, when he noticed how easily they memorized rap songs, he went to work and created a hip-hop song for a math lesson. It was a disaster, but the students loved it-and he had made the teaching connection that he wanted (Costello-Dougherty).
He later heard the students rapping to his song So Many Lines, and they seemed excited about class the next day. In the process, they learned that “parallel lines are two lines that never touch, they never intersect, and that’s why they are such” (Costello-Dougherty).
Also, check out these next two videos. Does this seem like a good way to get students interested in math?
Works Cited
Costello-Dougherty, Malaika. “Rapping Math Teachers Bring It.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2 Nov. 2009.
“Math Rap – Solving Equations Rap (Dougie Freestyle Math Parody).” YouTube, 22 Dec. 2011.
“Mr. A’s 2017 Math Rap -‘The Real Math Students’.” YouTube, 6 June 2017.
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