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Thank you very much.
My name is Alex Kajitani
and I am on a mission to make math cool.
(Single Laugh) Thank you very much
one person in the corner over there.
Now I am known to my students
as The Rappin' Mathematician.
But I must admit I didn't always start out that way.
In fact several years ago I was a brand new teacher
absolutely struggling to survive my classroom.
I couldn't get my students to pay attention.
I couldn't get them to sit in their seat
and I certainly couldn't get them to remember
the math rule that I had just taught them.
I was extremely frustrated.
But what I realized is that a rap song
would come out on Monday and by Tuesday
they seemed to have every single word memorized.
And the problem with this, of course,
is that they were coming in rapping about
violence and drug use and abusing women.
And so one day I had just absolutely had enough.
We were studying adding and subtracting decimals at the time.
And so I decided to write my own rap song
called the "Itty-Bitty Dot" about the decimal point.
(Laughter)
And I went home and I did an internet search
for free rap beat online and I found one.
and I practiced all night in front of my mirror, I will admit.
And I thought "I am going to be the man
when I come to the school tomorrow morning."
And so I got everything ready. I got in early, got everything set.
My students came in. They sat down.
I hit play and I busted out the "Itty-Bitty Dot".
(Laughter)
It was a complete disaster! (Laughter)
I was humiliated.
My students began laughing at me, hysterically.
In fact I can still picture, I had a student named Jose
he was laughing so hard, he began clutching his stomach
and he leaned forward, fell out of his chair,
hit his head on the carpet
and I had to send him to the nurse for an ice pack.
(Laughter)
And so I said, "OK, I see exactly where this is going."
Yesterday my students wouldn't pay attention to me,
today my students are laughing at me,
tomorrow I'll be looking for a new job.
(Laughter)
And so I just kind of blew it off and went about my day.
But then a very interesting thing happened
as I walked to the teacher's lounge for lunch that day.
I walked by the lunch tables and all the students were singing my song.
Even the ones who weren't in my class
were singing along with the ones who were.
And the next day something which
had never happened to me, happened.
The students came excited to my class.
And they were saying things like,
"Oh Mr. Kajitani, yesterday was the best day ever in math class.
Are you going to rap again?" (Laughter)
And Jose, all better now, asked me if I was actually going
to quit teaching and be on MTV full time.
(Laughter)
They haven't called yet.
And of course at the end of the week
my student's test scores shot through the roof
and so I like to say I've been math rappin' ever since.
This is very embarrassing, but I'm just going to put myself out there
and show you a video of the first song I ever did - the "Itty-Bitty Dot".
I have to admit that my dance moves
have gotten much better since the filming of this video.
OK, they haven't gotten better at all.
But here it is, the "Itty-Bitty Dot".
(Video) (Music)
♫ Now what in the world is that Itty-Bitty Dot? ♪
♪ Yo I just can't remember and it's making me distraught. ♪
♪ I saw it in the price of the item I just bought. ♪
♪ It's the decimal point, yeah now your getting hot. ♪
♪ When you add and subtract 'em there must be a rule. ♪
♪ So listen to my rhyme and use it as a tool. ♪
♪ Just line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ I said line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ And when you take the difference in other words subtraction ♪
♪ Just use the same rule and bring on the action. ♪
♪ Just line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ Come on, line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ So turn off the TV, forget the radio station. ♪
♪ Cuz the Itty-Bitty Dot is a math sensation. ♪
♪ Move it to the right and the number becomes greater ♪
♪ and the Itty-Bitty dot needs no translator. ♪
♪ Move it to the left and the number gets smaller. ♪
♪ Yes the Itty-Bitty dot is an academic scholar. ♪
♪ So don't forget the rule which needs no revision. ♪
♪ Cuz the Itty-Bitty Dot in on a great big mission. ♪
♪ Line up the dot give it all you got. ♪
♪ Line up the dot give it all you got. ♪
♪ And thus this concludes the decimal song. ♪
♪ With the rappin' mathematician you can't go wrong. ♪
♪ Just line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ I said line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ Just line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ Come on, line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ Just line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ I said line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ Just line up the dot and give it all you got. ♪
♪ Come on, line up the dot and give it all you got. ♫
(Music)
(Applause)
Thank you.
And so as I started to watch individual achievement
rise in my own classroom
I actually started to research rap music and its role in society.
And what I found was both fascinating and disturbing.
What I discovered is that teens
who regularly watch Gangsta rap videos
are 3 times more likely to hit a teacher
2 times more likely to have multiple sex partners
and 2.5 times more likely to get arrested.
And that's when it occurred to me.
Rap music is the greatest teaching strategy of all time.
(Laughter)
In 2 minute increments it is teaching our kids
how to talk, how to dress
and what they perceive is reality.
And man, it can make anything cool.
And so at that point my mission became very clear.
Could we take standards-based mathematics curricullum
and instead of taking two days to teach a math concept
how about taking two minutes by showing it
to our kids in the form of a rap music video.
And so I wrote another song about parallel lines
and I gave it to our after school video club advisor
who along with her students created a video called "So many lines".
And this video actually went on to win the IVIE
or Innovative Video in Education award
for best student film.
Now don't get me wrong, embedded in this two minute video
are countless student hours utilizing 21st Century skills
like learning how to operate a camera,
how to edit video, tell a story,
work collaboratively and of course, plenty of math,
like distance, angles and timing.
Here's a quick clip from "So Many Lines."
(Video) (Music)
[This is a song about lines so many lines in the world today]
♫ So many lines! ♪ ♪ So many lines! ♪
♪ So many lines in the world today. ♪
♪ So many lines! ♪
♪ So many lines! ♪
♪ Going every direction and every way. ♪
♪ So many lines hard to tell them apart. ♪
♪ Where do they end? Where do they start? ♪
♪ There's lines on your hands and lines on your feet. ♪
♪ There's lines on the sidewalk and in the street. ♪
♪ There's lines on the buildings and on the walls. ♪
♪ There's even some lines on a basketball. ♪
♪ And not every line happens to be straight. ♪
♪ Like the line of potatoes on my diner plate. ♪
♪ And what about the lines like the railroad tracks. ♪
♪ You mean parallel lines? Yeah you got my back. ♪
♪ Well parallel lines are two lines that never touch. ♪
♪ They never intersect and that's why they are such. ♪
♪ Yeah parallel lines are two lines that never touch, ♪
♪ they never intersect and that's why they are such. ♪
♪ Oh parallel lines like the sides of a ladder? ♪
♪ Yeah parallel lines, Yo you got the subject matter. ♪
♪ So many lines! So many lines! ♪
Group: ♪ So many lines! ♪
2006 the Los Angeles Unified school district determined
that the number 1 most failed class among
High School dropouts is Algebra 1.
Now we talk all the time in education
about how doing well in Algebra 1
is the gateway to getting into a 4 year university.
But what we are not talking about is the fact
that failing Algebra 1
is the gateway to dropping out of school completely.
And the biggest reason why students who fail Algebra
do not relate to the math is because they simply
do not see how the math relates to them.
And all of this unlocked in me
the realization that the true key in education is to stop
taking our curriculum and forcing it into our student's lives
and instead take our student's lives and fit it into the curriculum.
This "So Many Lines" video that I showed you earlier
was so successful because the students took
their lives, their neighborhood, and what is important to them
and used it to create something which required them to learn math.
Now in order to instill the real world relevance of mathematics
in our students at a very young age,
I created a game called the "Math Professor"
that I hope every single person here will go home
and play with their own children or students.
It's very simple, I pretend to be the Math Professor
and I declare that there is nothing
that does not have something to do with math.
And I challenge my students to try to think of something
that I cannot somehow relate to mathematics
And we have such a good time playing this game.
The students bring up all sorts of crazy things
from their lives and try to stump me.
They always bring up ketchup.
And we get to talk about ratios and proportions,
and calories and cost production.
Or they bring up Soccer and we talk about distance
and angles and keeping score.
Now I will admit once I was almost stumped.
A student raised his hand and said,
"Oh Mr. Kajitani, I know something
that has nothing to do with math."
I said, "What?" He said, "Love."
And I said, "Huh?" (Laughter)
And just as I was about to admit
being stumped, another student raised his hand and said,
"Oh I know, I know what love has to do with math!"
I said, "What?" He said,
"When you're in love, that can be very expensive!"
(Laughter)
And another student raised his hand and said,
"Oh I know, normally in math 1 plus 1 equals 2.
But if you're in love and you're not careful,
1 plus 1 can equal 3."
(Laughter)
I cut it off right there.
And so, you see what happens is at first
the students are really, really excited to play this game
and then, after a while, they start to say things like,
"Oh hey Mr. Kajitani, I thought of something
that has nothing to do with ma --
Oh wait, no, never mind, never mind, I figured it out."
Or, "Oh hey, I finally thought of some --
ah, never mind, I got it."
And after a while the students
don't want to play this game anymore.
And that's when we know we've got them.
When the students start saying things like,
"OK Mr. Kajitani, fine, everything has something
to do with math, alright. Let's move on."
That's when we know we've instilled in our students
the real world relevance of mathematics and that now
they see how their lives are beginning to fit into the curriculum.
And the last idea that I want to share with you today
is something that many, many teachers do,
the only difference is I've been taking all the credit for it.
(Laughter)
It's just a way of formatting your homework paper.
You probably remember this from math class.
You've got to put your name, date period
at the top right hand corner.
You write your assignment on the top left hand corner.
You number each problem. Keep your numbers straight.
Things like that.
The only difference is I call it "Kajitani Style".
(Laughter)
And so when I'm walking around checking off homework,
I don't have to say to a kid,
"How come you didn't circle your final answer?"
I say, "Hey, is that Kajitani Style?"
And they say, "No" and they have to fix it.
But what happens is over the course of the year
Kajitani Style becomes something much more
than how you format your homework paper.
It becomes a part of the culture of our classroom.
So when I walk into class with a new haircut and the kids go,
"Hey nice haircut. That's Kajitani Style right there."
One day when I spilled mustard on my tie at lunch.
I didn't worry about it. I just wiped the mustard off,
left the stain and I walked into my next class and said,
"Hey check it out folks, it's the mustard on the tie look,
that's Kajitani Style, yeah!"
And after a while, the students begin to form their own style.
A loud and rambunctious student
like Myra starts to develop "Myra Style".
And a quiet and shy kid like Victor
starts to develop "Victor Style".
And all of the weird and awkward things
that my middle school students think about themselves
suddenly starts to become their "Style".
When I first started rappin' I thought I had to be like
famous rapper Snoop Dogg or Eminem,
I'm still hopeful. (Laughter)
But what I had to become comfortable with
was being that weird and wacky math teacher who was willing to rap.
Because that's what being cool really is.
It's being comfortable with what we have and who we are.
Because the true key to education is to stop trying
to take the lessons that we need to learn
and forcing them into our lives.
But instead taking our lives and placing them
into the lessons that we need to learn.
So on the count of 3 I want everybody here
to shout out their last name followed by the word "Style".
Are you ready? 1, 2, 3.
(Audience shouts)
Come on 1 more time 1, 2, 3.
(Audience shouts)
My name is Alex Kajitani and I'm on a mission to make math cool.
Thank you so very much.
(Applause)