ESCONDIDO -- A colorful strobe light, a pair of large, exaggerated sunglasses and some tunes from the nearby boombox and middle school math teacher Alex Kajitani has his students learning to a different beat.

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These eighth-grade Mission Middle School Algebra and Algebra I students are not just garnering the tools to tackle long division and master square roots on paper, but through the rhythmic lyrics of rap that help them log the equations and steps to memory.

"It's a way to give them all the important math concepts that they need to learn, in a form that they like," Kajitani said, explaining that after years of having students come into class singing rap and hip hop songs from the radio, he thought he would try his hand at the art form.

"They like rap," Kajitani said, noting his own preference for the genre. "Rap music is so well done and catchy, but I wanted to give them an opportunity to learn something other than the negative things they hear on the radio."

Thus, The Rappin' Mathematician was born -- Kajitani's teaching alter ego that sports sunglasses, drives a Honda Accord, and speaks and raps in rhymes about math, society and being independent and strong.

The lyrics and messages of the several dozen songs Kajitani has written vary depending on the task at hand and the audience, he said, but the ultimate goal is to energize students about learning and teaching them tools to succeed in the classroom and out on the streets.

"I've seen many (students) go from thinking that rap music is all about cussing … to seeing it as a way that they can remember things, that they can learn with it," he said.

Students who weren't motivated about subject have become top scholars and think that math is cool, he said. Youngsters who used to recite lines from MTV music videos and Eminem songs are throwing around lyrics from Kajitani's CD during lunch and as they enter the classroom -- even if it is partly in jest of their math teacher, who is trying to redefine mathematicians and scholars as "cool."

"I thought he was weird, I thought he was kind of dorky," 13-year-old Tania Fonseca said about the first time she heard her math teacher bust a beat.

After, watching countless performances and seeing how the music aids in the learning process, however, Tania, like many of her classmates, said she has changed her tune. She is not only enjoying learning about math, but she has improved her grades as well.

"Since we listen to that type of music, the beat gets in your head and keeps playing over and over," Tania said smiling. "I always had F's, now I have C's."

There is still work to be done, she noted, but the growth is there.

"I'll probably remember (the raps) for a little while," said 14-year-old Thomas Terrazas, who was working on math homework nearby. "He makes math really easy cause the songs. … It's cool."

A common thread throughout Kajitani's math classes, he said, is that the raps have translated into better test scores and a deeper understanding of the subject for many students. Graphs posted in the back of the classroom, document the students progress in class and on tests in comparison to other math students at the school and in the district. In each of his classes this year, Kajitaniís students are outperforming their peers.

"The tests are hard, but if you break it down more it's easy," 14-year-old Michael Calderon said, explaining that the raps do just that: They highlight key concepts that are important to remember for the tests.

Rappin', repeatin'

In class, Kajitani flows freely between his two teaching figures: The Rappin' Mathematician, TRM for short, and the standard math teacher. He breaks down new concepts and lessons on the overhead, revisits homework on the whiteboard and then dims the lights and flips on the strobe light when he's done, to drive the point home.

During a recent lesson on dividing square roots, the key concept of the day was to remember to take perfect squares out from under the square root symbol.

"What's that crooked line? It's a radical sign."

"When you see a perfect square -- Take it out of there," Kajitani repeated as the chorus for a on-the spot rap lesson.

Other more famous songs, which made it on to the CD Kajitani recorded last summer -- "The Rappin' Mathematician Volume I" -- and into two student music videos since, include lyrics about the decimal point in addition and subtraction in "The Itty-bitty Dot," and a standardized test tune, called "Test Tiiiiime!!!"

Songs are bright, witty and all sung along to an authentic beat that anyone could mistake with the newest release on the hip hop chart, Kajitani said. He's simply a teacher that saw his traditional teaching method was not working and adapted.

"The rapping mathematician was born out of survival," he said.

And now, Kajitani said, he is not only surviving, but the kids are excelling academically and his methods are being discussed around the country and songs from his CD are being played in classrooms coast to coast.

"I don't use the raps to teach every single detail, but to reinforce the concepts," he said, adding that he just writes raps down as he teaches. "Every time I got an idea, I wrote it down."

Moments later, an energetic Kajitani pauses in the middle of an example square root division equation that the class is solving together to try out a new rhyme.

""Listen to this, listen to this," he said. "I just made this one up:

"One on top, one below, chop, chop, chop, away they go."

For more information about The Rappin' Mathematician, visit www.mathraps.com.

Contact staff writer Shayna Chabner at (760) 740-5416 or schabner@nctimes.com.