A Killeen ISD 2nd grade teacher's creative math lesson has brought joy to millions of people on TikTok.

Back in late August, Skipcha Elementary School's Ashlee Skelton came up with a fun and creative way to teach her students about greater-than and less-than. She dressed up in a shark suit and danced along with 'Baby Shark' to demonstrate the proper use of > and <.

Hannah Roddy's classroom is next door to Skelton's. When Roddy heard the song playing, she peeked into Roddy's class and filmed her dancing.

Roddy told Good Morning America she uploaded the video to TikTok that afternoon, and by the time she got home from work it had been viewed 10,000 times.

Today (Sep. 12, 2020), it's been viewed over 3.3 million times.



Skelton's 'Baby Shark' dance was a perfect way not only to make learning fun, but to keep students learning remotely focused on the lesson.

“We’re trying to make lessons fun and interactive,” Skelton said after the video caught on. “We like to come up with games to play and not just rely on virtual worksheets. We know it’s hard for children this age to be in front of a screen for a long time. To get up and dance for 2 minutes gets them refocused."

"This is a normal day except for the shark suit," she added.

Roddy said students love when teachers include pop culture in lessons because it shows that teachers take an interest in their pupils and care about them. I couldn't agree more. Some of my favorite teachers growing up found ways to tie music, movies, and TV shows they knew we were into to lessons to help us make sense of them in a modern context. Plus it just made learning fun.

Congratulations to Skelton and Roddy on the massive success of this video. It perfectly illustrates the resourcefulness, creativity, and genuine love for students that the best teachers bring to their classrooms every day, whether physically or virtually. This school year will be a challenging one for students and educators, but it looks like the teachers at Skipcha are up to it.

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