New York Teacher Drops Sick Beats For Grammar Lessons
Dave Robles, an elementary school teacher from New York City, uses rap beats to help his students learn grammar lessons.
NOEL KING, HOST:
Keeping kids' attention is a huge challenge for any teacher. At St. Charles Borromeo School in Harlem, N.Y., one teacher figured out a way.
DAVE ROBLES: (Rapping) Interjection's a word or a phrase that expresses emotion or exclamation.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Yeah.
ROBLES: Write it out.
DAVE ROBLES AND UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: Write it, write it out, hey.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
That's Dave Robles. He teaches English in elementary school and created a curriculum called Grammar Raps.
ROBLES: In Grammar Raps, we essentially rap out all of the parts of speech.
MARTIN: The fifth graders love it.
ROBLES: There's a lot of anticipation. They're waiting for the beat to drop (laughter).
KING: This, says Robles, is what he wanted when he was a kid.
ROBLES: I always wanted to be the kind of teacher I needed when I was a kid. I would've - I love music. Music is life. You can use music for everything. And we do use music in other areas throughout the day in school. And I wanted to do something different with grammar.
KING: And he absolutely is.
ROBLES: (Rapping) Up, off, on, until...
(CROSSTALK)
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