Culturally responsive youth empowerment program provides creative and innovative education with a spin

BY PAUL JUNOR

It will be five years on March 20^th, 2022, that Math Thru Music (MTM) has been making a difference in the lives of students in Canada and the United States. Joseph Khargie, who serves as the President of this innovative and creative program, founded it.

Joseph has received several awards over the years such as the 2016 Inspirational Award, 2017 Top 40 Under 40 Leadership Award and the 2020 Business Excellence Award. He worked for fifteen years with youths in schools in the Greater Toronto Area and decided to launch MTM in order to capitalize on his love for music to change the lives of students.

According to the MTM website: www.MathThrumusic.com its mission is, “To excite, educate and empower students to gain understanding of numeracy, entrepreneurship, coding, physics and social justice using the art of DJing.” The vision of MTM is,” To put a turntable in every school that will be used to teach our unique, hands-on curriculum that builds innovators, leaders, mentors and passionate contributors to society.” The MTM program offers “Education with a spin,” and is intended to inculcate the following values: creativity, confidence, curiosity, collaboration, and connection.

In addition to President Khargie, the team that runs the MTM program includes Vice-President Suneil Matthew Baboolal, Program Coordinator Joshua Lalor, Director of Distribution Chester Bryan, Chief Operations Officer Peter Karl Youngren and Northeast U.S. Representative Kendrick R. Tilghman.

The roots of the MTM program can be traced to Hip-Hop Culture, which originated in New York City in the 1970’s among the economically impoverished Black, Brown and Latino immigrants. The website states, “From a whole lot of nothing, and a whole lot of imagination, Hip-Hop took its form. Through decades of suffering, this art form blended and transcended to become a means for seeing, celebrating, experiencing, understanding, confronting, and commenting on life as a person of colour in the world. Hip-Hop, in other words, is a way of living – a culture.”

I interviewed Joseph Khargie on Tuesday, February 8^th, 2022, and he shared details about the MTM program. He told me that the focus of MTM is, “Excite, educate, empower.” He stated that it is important to excite the imagination of kids in order to tap their natural talents, potential and curiosity. The Math kit that is provided to students in schools is a tool that is used to provide the means to teach concepts from the grades 5 – 9 curriculum.

He mentioned that the four elements of Hip-Hop are DJing, Mcing (Emceeing), Breakdancing and Graffiti. DJing is used in order to empower students to mix creatively. The Math kit includes Pioneer DJ Turntable, Laptop with Rekordbox software preloaded, two DJ Headphones, whiteboard with marker, additional cords, and hardware and 35 lesson curriculum which are preloaded.

Joseph is a doer and has a passion for helping young people find their purpose. There are several testimonials from principals and teachers who can attest to the success of the MTM program with their students at the website.