{"id":12331,"date":"2024-09-26T14:22:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T14:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/26\/choreographing-the-fun-in-math\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T09:22:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T13:22:30","slug":"choreographing-the-fun-in-math","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/26\/choreographing-the-fun-in-math\/","title":{"rendered":"Choreographing the fun in math"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

Raeanna Deloge \u201925 fuses study of mathematics and dance<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Raeanna Deloge ’25, right, in Dance Composition.\nAt the ripe age of 6, Raeanna Deloge ’25 was certain.<\/p>\nIt was career day at school, and she replicated a classic teacher outfit, donning a button-down shirt, vest, and skirt, accessorizing with a ruler to complete the ensemble. At that moment, Deloge knew she wanted to be a teacher.<\/p>\nNow, Deloge is on her way to making that dream reality. She is the first, and currently only, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/academics\/undergraduate\/programs\/major\/mathematics-education\/\" aria-label=\"major in math education\">mathematics education<\/a> major at Clark, and hopes to teach algebra — her favorite kind of math — to middle schoolers.<\/p>\n“Middle school is a unique age because students are old enough to understand a lot about the world and a lot about themselves, but they still have so much to learn,” says Deloge, who has applied to pursue a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/academics\/graduate\/programs\/masters\/teaching\/\" aria-label=\"MAT program\">Master of Arts in Teaching<\/a> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/academics\/accelerated-ba-masters-programs\/\" aria-label=\"accelerated degree program\">4+1 Accelerated Master’s Degree Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n“If I could spend the rest of my life teaching algebra, I think I’d be fully happy,” she adds. “There’s something satisfying about going through all these steps to get a concrete solution.”<\/p>\nThe energy and enthusiasm of her middle school math teacher got Deloge hooked on the subject. Class assignments were much more engaging than a typical worksheet. Deloge fondly remembers a lesson on graph transformations in which students started by printing cartoon characters on a small grid and then scaled up the size, drawing 6-foot-tall versions of the character on massive paper. She wants to replicate this kind of creativity in her own classroom.<\/p>\nDeloge is used to fielding the question, “Why math?” Some aspiring teachers hesitate to pursue the subject.<\/p>\n“A lot of people didn’t have great experiences learning math growing up because the subject is usually very rigid,” she says. “If I can find ways to make math interesting for students, hopefully more people will want to be math teachers.”\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"is-layout-flex wp-container-7 wp-block-columns no-gap photo-row\">\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\" style=\"flex-basis: 50%\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium-large wp-image-60656\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024_Dance_Composition009-420x280-2.jpg\" alt=\"dancers in studio\" width=\"420\" height=\"280\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"is-layout-flow wp-block-column\" style=\"flex-basis: 50%\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium-large wp-image-60653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024_Dance_Composition054-420x280-2.jpg\" alt=\"dancer in front of window\" width=\"420\" height=\"280\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\nShe intends to go beyond explaining the common real-life applications for math, such as fractions in baking or addition at the grocery store check-out.<\/p>\n“There’s a lot of math in other fields, especially biology, chemistry, even the social sciences, which frequently use surveys,” she says. “I want to find ways to show that math does exist in the real world, but in ways that will be relevant to whatever students want to go into someday.”<\/p>\nDeloge sees math applied in seemingly unusual places, like in classes for her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/academics\/undergraduate\/programs\/majors-minors\/theatre-arts\/\" aria-label=\"minor in dance\">dance minor<\/a>.<\/p>\n“Dance and math overlap more than you think,” she says. “Dance has counts and formations. If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty of it, understanding alignment and geometry can play a role in dance, which I think is really cool.”<\/p>\nIt works the other way around, too.<\/p>\n“Dance offers creativity that I can blend into how I view math,” she says. “Dance is incredibly open-ended in the sense that many kinds of movement can be viewed as dance. My understanding is that dance and math have multiple lenses. Yes, you can follow a basic formula and get a solution, but you can also go at it 47 other ways and still get that same solution at the end of the day.”<\/p>\nDeloge primarily studies under dance Professor Audra Carabetta and practices ballet, tap, modern, jazz, and contemporary. She’s been dancing since she was a toddler.<\/p>\nOn campus, Deloge serves as club treasurer for <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.clarku.edu\/organization\/dancesociety\" aria-label=\"club info\">Dance Society<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.clarku.edu\/organization\/hhc\" aria-label=\"club info\">Hip Hop Collabo<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.clarku.edu\/organization\/daim\" aria-label=\"club info\">Diversity and Inclusion in Mathematics<\/a>. She’s also a competition team choreographer at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freeformdanceacademy.com\/\" aria-label=\"club info\">Freeform Dance Academy<\/a> in Westminster, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n<a class=\"filled-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/academics\/undergraduate\/programs\/major\/mathematics-education\/\" aria-label=\"major in math education\">Major in mathematics education<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raeanna Deloge \u201925 fuses study of mathematics and dance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12332,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"#525250","story_headerImg":12332,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[225,223],"displayed_author":[237],"featured":[],"topic":[250,294,343,301,282,119,121],"class_list":["post-12331","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-humanities","category-clark-community","displayed_author-melissa-hanson","topic-arts","topic-education","topic-major-in-mathematics","topic-mathematics","topic-mathematics-and-computer-science-department","topic-student-life","topic-undergraduate-students"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Choreographing the fun in math | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/26\/choreographing-the-fun-in-math\/\" \/>\n<meta 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