'Freestyle Fridays' Help Philly Teacher, Students Connect

PHILADELPHIA — Teachers the world over have been trying to find ways to connect with their students, and those efforts were amplified exponentially amid the coronavirus pandemic's forced digital learning.

But one teacher in the School District of Philadelphia has found a unique way to foster deep relationships with his students while keeping them on track with lesson plans.

Ben Madry is a fourth grade teacher at William M. Meredith Elementary School in Philadelphia's Queen Village neighborhood.

Every Friday, Madry, 30, gives his students a rundown of their lessons for the week, but not in a typical fashion.

Watch the videos below to see how he does it:

Those are just a few examples of the "Freestyle Friday" videos Madry creates weekly for his students.

Madry told Patch he began making the videos in October 2020.

"That was the start," he said. "I made similar videos before that."

Prior to teaching at Meredith, Madry was at a charter school for five years.

"Last year at the charter school, kids had trouble using a math program so figured I'd make a video and the kids thought it was cool, so I made more instructional videos," he said.

So when he joined Meredith for the 2020-21 school year, the Colorado native decided to use his videos to make online learning more engaging.

And his class of 27 students love the videos.

"I think they're awesome," M.J., one of Madry's students, told Patch. "I always say 'this is the best one,' but the next week they are even better."

M.J. told Patch one of his friends said Madry's rapping is better than Philadelphia native and superstar Will Smith's skills.

"Definitely better than Will Smith," Meredith Principal Tiffany Osei told Patch.

Osei said she's unaware of any other teachers using this method to engage with students.

"I've never seen them use rapping to recap and do closure for the week," she said. "It's a unique strategy for reminder."

M.J. said, like many kids, sometimes he might forget part of the week's lessons, but when Freestyle Friday comes around, Madry has M.J. and his classmates covered on any topics that could nave slipped their minds.

"He uses vocabulary to show us what we learned, and he makes it really fun," M.J. said.

And beyond the lesson recaps, Madry always encourages his students, "even when we think we can't do it," according to M.J.

Madry uses the Voisey app to produce the videos, which he said takes about two hours of writing and recording.

And music is in the Madry family. His brother Josh Madry is a rapper who performs as Black Prez.

"He's been doing it since eighth or ninth grade," Madry said of his rapper brother, who touts more than190,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. "He got into it more in college and was doing shows opening up for people and I was the hype man."

Madry said they'd make songs together from time to time, and the siblings can be heard rapping together on the Black Prez track "Doing my Thing." (Madry comes in on the song's second verse.)

As for his Freestyle Friday videos, Madry said writing takes about 30 to 45 minutes, but it's picking a beat that takes the most of his time.

"I'll sit for an hour and a half picking a beat and get too into it," he said.

So when the videos are done, Madry will share them in his virtual classroom on Fridays and post them to his Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok pages dedicated to the educational raps. The Meredith School will also share the videos on its Instagram page.

And it appears as though Madry's musical proclivities are having an impact on his students' interests.

M.J., who will be attending the district's prestigious Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School next year, told Patch he likes to sing a lot and sometimes makes up his own songs, saying he is interested in pursuing acting or music as a career.

Osei said the relationship between Madry and hit students fostered by his videos, among other aspects of his teaching style, "encompasses relationship building and ensure [students] get the skills that they need to succeed throughout the year."

"I think one struggle we had was trying to build relationships with students and trying to connect in the virtual space," she said. "Ben is an example of a teacher that is using their creativity to be able to connect to students in a unique way and also in a way that reinforced what students are learning."

Osei said teachers are great borrowers in that they learn from one another's methods.

"We are always looking for other strategies to borrow from others," she said. "[Freestyle Fridays] could act as a model for other schools who look for ways to connect with students."

Madry said, especially in the virtual learning world, his experience has been to grow with his students.

The videos "definitely made me feel like if I can reach them in this way as if we had class in person," he said.

And reach them he has. Madry's students, for his recent 30th birthday, made their own version of OutKasts's hit "Hey Ya" to wish their teacher a happy birthday.