4 Questions For Spectac: The Rapping Principal

4 Questions for Spectac: The Rapping Principal

“First Capture Their Hearts, and Their Minds Will Follow” Does the principal of your school moonlight as a rapper? Does he or she win Principal of the Year awards during the day and then collaborate with Grammy award-winning producers at night. Meet Mervin “Spectac” Jenkins, a former middle school principal in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Flocabulary has worked with Spectac on a variety of projects including Shakespeare is Hip-Hop and The Hip-Hop History of the World. We recently put Spec through our 4 question interview. 1. You've been both a working emcee and a middle school principal. Did you ever see…

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What You Know About Math?
  • September 17, 2009

What You Know About Math?

This video was sent in by Mr. Gentile, a math teacher in San Lorenzo, California. He and his students have taken the very popular "What You Know About Math" (see below below) and done a kind of middle school remix. Both videos are remixes of T.I.'s "What You know (About That)" which was a huge song in 2006. And no T.I. does not stand for Texas Instruments. Nicely done Mr. Gentile! Excellent stuff! And the original remix.

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Old School. Really, Really Old School.
  • September 17, 2009

Old School. Really, Really Old School.

Anyone who's ever attempted to curl up in an armchair and read a few paragraphs from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales knows that it's not exactly like reading Dan Brown. Chaucer's Middle English doesn't exactly roll of the tongue for most folks. This would seem to make Chaucer an unlikely target for a hip-hop makeover. Though, as we at Flocabulary know, it's often the most unlikely targets that are most interesting when done through rap. Here are 3 unique approaches to rapping Chaucer. In the first, a teacher does his best to "rap" Chaucer. It's not exactly Jay-Z, but we're not…

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Julius Caesar Rap In A Quick Minute

Julius Caesar Rap in a Quick Minute

Better than Flocab? Have any students who listen to one of our songs and say, "not bad, but I could do better"? Well, three such students at Lindenwold High School in New Jersey heard "Three Times," our version of Marc Antony's famous speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and decided to take the challenge. So Booshon, John, and Kyle spent a weekend writing and recording their version of the famous speech. The result is pretty incredible. Lyrics: Friends, lend me your ear for a quick minute! Romans, lend me your ear for a quick minute! Countrymen, lend me your ear for…

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Pre-Test Jitters? Try A Pep Rally!

Pre-Test Jitters? Try a Pep Rally!

With the increased importance on high-stakes standardized tests in recent years, lots of teachers find themselves devoting more and more time to test preparation. You can teach students how to take the test, but what do you do for all those students who find test-taking a nerve-racking experience? One unique solution that we've seen in action: Have a pre-test pep rally. Two members of the Flocabulary crew (Blake and Vlad) had a chance to participate in an amazing pep rally this morning to kick off the ELA tests that start tomorrow in New York. At PS 40Q, an elementary school…

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