Math rocks! Teachers look to take lessons on tour. Friday, October 26, 2007 • By AMY STETTS • The Express-Times Some kids may think their teachers are square or un-cool, but there's one trio of Lopatcong Township Middle School teachers who really rock. Two Plus One -- a band featuring math teacher Gary Hank on guitar and vocals, social studies teacher Kenney Lutz on drums and special education teacher Anne Bercaw on bass -- have taken classic rock songs and reworked them to teach arithmetic basics. "It's like 'School House Rock,'" Hank says, referring to the popular educational shorts that ran between Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s. "A little cooler though," Lutz is quick to add. For example, Two Plus One has taken The Beatles song "Lady Madonna" and reworked the lyrics to convey a catchy lesson about fractions. Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" now explains types of angles. Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" teaches how to figure out if a number is prime or composite. And, perhaps surprisingly, most students absolutely love the classic rock songs with lyrics changed to sneak math into their heads. "It makes (math) easier to remember," says Katie Decker, a seventh-grader at the school. "I love it because when I hear the songs on the radio, I sing along with their lyrics, especially 'Pi.'" "Pi" is a Two Plus One tune set to the music of "867-5309/Jenny" by Tommy Tutone. The chorus to the familiar '80s hit is changed to: "Circle, I got your number I need to multiply By the square of your radius 3.14159 . 3.14159" The band's popularity in Lopatcong Township has left the trio itching to take their show on the road. "We're looking to do assemblies in other schools and branch into Pennsylvania as well as New Jersey," says Lutz. Two Plus One can do shows geared at kindergarten through fourth grade, and another targeting grades five through eight. Along with the songs that teach math lessons, behind the band on stage is a gigantic PowerPoint presentation that has lyrics, so students can sing along, and examples illustrating the math concepts in the songs. "It makes it easier to remember. It hits them two different ways with information," says Hank, a huge fan of The Beatles with a passion for math who writes most of Two Plus One's lyrics. The band is performing two assemblies in early November for students in Alpha and hopes to add more gigs throughout the Lehigh Valley and beyond in the future. They even dream of hooking up with textbook publishers and other educational companies to distribute their work. "It's such a good thing here. We really want to try and get it out there," Bercaw says. Assistant Features Editor Amy Stetts can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by e-mail at astetts@express-times.com.