NFeLementary keeping Metro Detroit students focused with football-themed lessons

Meeting students where they're at, even if that means bringing the gridiron to them. That's Mary Crippen's playbook for keeping her third graders engaged in her Miami classroom, and it's getting attention from some of the same NFL teams her students are getting to know pretty well.

Crippen spoke with CBS News Detroit's Jack Springgate to tell him why she's turned into somewhat of a Detroit Lions fan since her NFeLementary lessons took off on social media, and also why Detroit teachers are turning into fans of hers.

Well, it's no surprise Crippen saw a clear change in her students when she swapped out addition tables for Miami Dolphins box scores to teach math; it's how her mother got her and her siblings to stay focused on school growing up. 

Crippen is now sharing her game script with teachers across the country, including one here at the Advanced Technology Academy in Dearborn, where, in its first season, it's proving to be an X factor.

"They're so excited to come in here, and they don't realize they're learning half the time," said special education teacher Allyson Roberts.

How could you when a Dan Campbell press conference is a reading lesson, and math is figuring out how many yards are left until Sonic and Knuckles combine for 2,000 on the season? It's a solution as unique as her students.

"Their focus can be a little rough at times. A lot of my students have ADHD, and it takes some tweaking to do in special ed, and if NFL is what it's going to take to learn and to be engaged, I'll do it," Roberts said.

Roberts' students adopted actual NFL teams to represent them during the season, following the lead of Crippen's Miami classroom, where her lessons first went viral after one team in particular started to take notice.

"It started with your friends and our friends, the Detroit Lions, and that's why they're so near and dear to my heart," said Crippen.

"I told my girl, Maxine, the Detroit Lions were going to give her a little something something. Maxine is getting hooked up," she said in a social media video after her class received their first gift from an NFL team.

That first care package at the beginning of the 2024 season led to countless more from other NFL teams and millions of eyeballs on Crippen's unique approach.

"Seeing these kids light up and opening the bags and seeing the swag and seeing these teams write back, they feel important, and they feel valued," Crippen said.

Even as other NFL teams lobby to be drafted by Crippen's class next season, she stays humble by reminding herself about the true purpose of NFeLementary passed down to her from the originator, her mother.

"It's been taken to such an exciting level, but remembering the value of it and the reason behind it, it's for the kids, and it's to bring that learning to life, and to bring the standards to life, and to get them excited to come to school," Crippen said.

Crippen says the proof is in her students' test results, saying all 20 of them finished last year with proficient scores in both reading and math. She says that has everything to do with the community and culture her classroom has built around NFeLementary.