Pennsylvania teacher uses Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” to teach his students how to multiply
- A math teacher used a Taylor Swift song to teach his young students their eight times table, which he set to the sounds of Shake It Off
- The teacher projected new lyrics with numbers instead of words for them to sing
A math teacher in Pennsylvania may want to switch to teaching music after being filmed using a catchy Taylor Swift song to teach students math.
Mr. C decided to use the lyrics of the 2014 Taylor Swift hit Shake It Off to teach his kids to count to eight while teaching their multiplication tables at Hanover Elementary School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The primary school teacher managed to cleverly insert the numbers where the lyrics would normally be – and the children were able to sing along enthusiastically.
The math teacher, known online as @teachwithmrc, projected the revised lyrics onto the whiteboard for the kids to recite – and it seemed to work, posting the results on his TikTok account.
A math teacher used a Taylor Swift song to teach his young students their eight times table, which he set to the sounds of Shake It Off
The teacher projected new lyrics with numbers instead of words for them to sing
‘I can count by eight – got so much in my brain!’, the song begins.
“8, 16, 24, mmmm,” the children sang in unison.
’32, 40 but wait… there’s also 48. 56 and 64 mmmhmm.
Regardless of the content, the message is all in the delivery and it seems to be working.
“My students are so hyped for the Eras Tour in Philadelphia with Taylor Swift. They hope this Shake it off count by 8 version goes viral and Taylor sees it,” the teacher wrote.
Taylor Swift, who hails from nearby Redding, Pennsylvania, was in town last week, playing three dates at Lincoln Financial Field.
Of course, the difficulty for the kids who learned math in Mr. C’s class may come when they find themselves singing through their upcoming exams instead of silently solving math problems.
Pennsylvania elementary school special education teacher @teachwithmrc seemed to get a kick out of his young students singing the song to Swift’s lyrics
On the teacher’s TikTok account, he will see several lessons with well-known songs
Taylor Swift, who hails from nearby Redding, Pennsylvania, was in town last week, playing three dates at Lincoln Financial Field
Mr. C has also gone viral for his math lesson videos featuring other Swift hits, including Trouble and Anti-Hero, as well as songs from artists like the Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, and Adele.
Mr. C’s real name is Sean Connolly, and he lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he is a special education teacher in the local district.
Connolly, who has a master’s degree in education from Wilkes University, has been teaching for 15 years.
‘I have been a teacher of special education learning support for 15 years. I quickly learned that every textbook program a district buys requires the learning support/interval teacher to reinvent the wheel to reach struggling students,” Connolly writes on his website.
In an interview with We are teachers, Connolly said he came up with the method of using songs when he first discovered TikTok.
“I realized that I could do a lot with the TikTok short video format. Then I came up with the idea for a Count by 9 method using the Backstreet Boys song “I Want It That Way”. I posted it on a Friday night. By morning there were 2,000 views and by the end of the day it was almost 100,000,” he said.
In the same interview, Connolly said that even Taylor Swift liked one of his videos. He added that he has no musical background and his favorite Swift hit is Shake it Off.