Most teachers do not expect their first bell to be interrupted by singing calculus students, but East teacher Pat Kreider’s Calculus 3 class made it a goal to spread some educational holiday cheer this December.
Around one-third of this advanced level math class of mostly seniors chose to write a total of 28 Christmas carol parodies to perform to over 25 classes at East.
The idea was first sparked when East senior Jack Doyle wrote “Carol” as an acronym for “Calc away reveal our love” and suggested caroling to the whole class.
Another East senior, Christian Coons, came up with the idea to write a different Christmas carol parody for each general subject taught at East.
“We started with classic carols turned into calculus. Then, we realized most other subjects wouldn’t understand them very well,” Coons told Spark. “So, we started making them about other classes’ subjects.”
East seniors Parker Kimble and Irene Antiri described the process of writing the carols outside of class during their free time. They shared that it took about two weeks to modify classic Christmas carols, such as “Jingle Bells,” “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” and “O Christmas Tree” into play-on phrases that relate to each subject.
“Over the course of the next few weeks, we wrote about 28 carols for each subject that we wanted to go to,” Kimble told Spark.
Doyle said that they had to convince their teacher Mr. Kreider to let them go caroling by singing to him some of their songs they wrote.
Kreider emphasizes the initial reaction he had to his students suggesting such an activity, thinking it was a long shot.
“When Christian shared more about it, I thought you know what, this might actually be kind of a cute idea,” Kreider told Spark.
East junior Izzi Derickson explained that all the teachers they planned on caroling to had received an email asking for their permission to interrupt their planning period either on Tuesday, Dec. 16 or Friday, Dec. 12.
According to Kreider, his students took their free time to put this production together, in addition to practicing in class to get a feel for performing in front of other students.
When the day finally came, Kreider described the low expectation he had for the teachers’ reactions, particularly Mr. Alexander, who at the time happened to be “wielding a meter stick” in his hand.
Derickson described the surprisingly positive reactions they received from teachers as well as other students, particularly seniors, during their caroling session.
“Big Master’s (East senior Varun Das’) solo on ‘Hallelujah’ was very good; it was very much enjoyed by Mr. Warren’s class,” East senior Aaron McClain told Spark.
Doyle jokingly added that he “saw some tears in people’s eyes.”
Kreider expressed his delight and surprise at the success of this project and the positive impact it had on his class’s community.
“If you would have told me five weeks ago when they first brought up the idea that it was going to end up being such a good collaborative and fun activity for them to participate in that would be received so well by the classes,” said Kreider, “I would have laughed at you.”
Reflecting on how much effort his students put into this fun project showed Kreider what a special group he has.
“They proved me wrong, which happens fairly often with these guys,” said Kreider.
Antiri shared how this caroling project helped unify their class despite some initial academic tension between them.
“Even though it wasn’t any extra credit project or anything we were doing in class, we were able to unify the class a little bit more,” Antiri told Spark. “I think the carols were kind of a good compromise for most of us to try and have fun together.”
Many of the students believe their calculus class allows them to learn in an environment that is simultaneously fun and educational.
“There has always been a fun atmosphere around the class; Kreider would often say that Calc 3 is sort of like the reward after going through so many years of math,” East senior Sam Greer told Spark.
While this caroling project only lasted a little over a month, the group shared that they feel like it encapsulated their high school experience together.
“We have all kind of grown up learning together; most of us have all been in the same math classes over the years and we have kind of built our own small community and it was fun to be able to go share that with people,” said Kimble.