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Queen says making learning fun is key for kids who often seem burdened with adult problems
-- there wasn't enough food to go round at breakfast, they couldn't sleep well in overcrowded homes or they have to serve as translators for Spanish-speaking parents in difficult circumstances. When they leave those troubles at home, they arrive at a school that's more fortress than learning sanctuary. The campus is surrounded by a steel-bar fence and padlocked gate. Teachers conduct uniform checks to make sure students are not wearing local gang colors of red or blue. "I try to get them to leave their problems at the door," Queen says. There was a point last year when he thought he might not be able to continue at LA Academy. He was laid off as an untenured teacher, but he returned to the school as a long-term substitute to continue to teach his students as he hoped to get his staff job back. In April, he won a national award for outstanding math achievement from Get Schooled, a pro-education initiative launched by media giant Viacom and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He's also been honored by school district and county educators.
He's now hoping to make rap math a business and launched a website, MusicNotesOnline, with a colleague to market his rap CD and DVD, and expand the use of rap in education to other academic subjects. During a recent class, Queen dons dark shades, sets his laptop to play a driving hip-hop beat and starts rapping about solving equations as he grooves up and down the aisles. "Let's talk about slope intercept.
I don't mind if you interject,
Just don't disrespect.
I say, you have a question for me?
What's y equals mx plus b?"
[Associated
Press;
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