Business In The Front + Party In The Back = Mullet Mania Math

SAN DIEGO, CA -- A San Diego County teacher is using 1970s pop culture to engage her sixth and seventh grade students. Kristi Milch, a math teacher at Julian Charter School, recently taught her 11 and 12-year-old students how to calculate ratios using mullets, the classic 1970s style where the hair is short in the front and long in the back.

But to get the right setting for the lesson, Milch sported a fake mullet and cranked up tunes by English rock band Def Leppard, whose members appropriately had mullets as well.

"I told the students to measure out the mullet breaking it down into party and business," said Milch, who has been teaching for three years. "The business would be the top part of it and the party is the longer, back side. So, if party and business are the same length, it's not really a mullet."

Milch said she got the idea for the creative assignment during a professional development workshop earlier this year. Another math teacher, Matt Vaudrey, also teaches math using the hairdo, Milch said.

"I think ratios are now meaningful because they have something in their memory they can connect with," Milch said. "It's more meaningful than just opening a textbook to introduce ratios."

Although, Milch admits the students didn't even know what mullets were.

"They were so confused," Milch said. "They were like 'what's a mullet?'"

So what does Milch have planned for the students this week?

The Julian teacher said she plans to give the students a list of math vocabulary words to write a Valentine's Day love letter. The list includes words such as parallel lines, binomial, slope, intercept and addictive.

"So we'll write lines like 'you and I come together to make a balance of zero,'" Milch said. "Or, 'we're like parallel lines.'"

Sounds like math just became fun.

--Photos of assignment via Kristi Milch