Rap The Math

Now here's an interesting story. Christine
L. Smith's 6th-grade maths students score
on the Ohio Achievement Test rose from 0
(yup, nil) to 48%.

How did she do it?

Well, she found a way to make maths interesting
to the kids, of course.

Now, I think the best part of this ploy isn't
that she turned maths into rap lyrics, but the
fact the kids learn that there is s much maths
involved in music.

From the article:

“I meet kids all the time who tell me they want to
be a music producer. The first thing I ask them is,
are you good in math? Because there's so much of it
involved with creating music, the tempo, the beat ...”
Nesmith said. “They are going to need to know what to
set their quantization on — should it be 1/4, 1/8,
1/16, 1/32? If they don't understand division, they
won't understand music. The top producers — Kanye
West, Rodney Jerkins, Teddy Riley, Dr. Dre — they
might not explain things in mathematical terms, but
they all have that mathematical grasp that makes their
music sound so good.”

Full article here:
Math plus hip-hop equals success for
local students