![]() ![]() "A lot of teachers say, 'how Mayfield get 90% of his kids to pass? And half of them, you know, coming from broken homes and this and that.' I said, 'hey, you know, you have to spend time getting to know them'." "That's been one of my biggest accomplishments," he said. It's important to use things that resonate with them. Mayfield said students will produce work if you reach them where they are and take notes on what they're interested in, whether that's music, shoes or sports. "Hard work turns into heart work before you know it" "It was a truly, truly amazing classroom and an amazing space to be in," she said. Morehouse has been featured in music videos by Mayfield like "Queens" and "Raise The Bar." With songs like these, she said Mayfield inspired her to do better in school. They rap and make viral music videos with thousands of views about multiplication, and motivational songs like passing the big end-of-year exam called the STARR test. "Let's start with the tenths/ Like a dime to a dollar, there's 1 out of 10/ Then we move to the hundredths, one part out of many/ One out of 100, we call that a penny." "Now let's break this thing down," raps Mayfield and students in the video. Then they start to rap about decimal point places. In one of Mayfield's videos, he plays an instrumental beat to Luniz's song, "I Got 5 on It." He gets his students pumped. ![]() "Kids started caring more about coming to school" ![]() "It helps to build a less traumatic experience, and they feel like they're invited and welcomed into the classroom." To reach students in a way that was familiar and inviting, he brought rap music to the classroom. He grew up going to these types of schools in Fort Worth, too. Mayfield teaches at Title I schools, where at least 40% of students are economically disadvantaged. "Single parent homes, incarcerated parents, low financial stability - a lot of that was going on," he said. He knew it was important to try something new, especially because most of his students were also struggling outside of the classroom. The 42-year-old math teacher from Fort Worth, Texas, took their frustrations to heart. Or I don't know my facts yet, and I'm a fifth-grader," Mayfield's students used to tell him. Thomas Mayfield had a major problem to solve in his fifth-grade classroom. ![]()
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