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Scott Horton, physical education teacher at Truman Middle School, teaches students the Pac-Man during a recent class. Mr. Horton teaches the dance unit before the Valentine's Day dance.

Let’s suppose that after freeing a small Midwestern town to dance in “Footloose,” Kevin Bacon’s character kept on dancing. But then what? What would have happened when the bills came due and the wife wanted his feet to settle.

Maybe, just maybe, the Kevin Bacon of “Footloose” would have taken some inspiration from a couple of gym teachers at Truman Middle School.

Step into the gym on a Tuesday morning, first period, and tennis shoes attached to slouchy jeans step and touch across the tile floor.

“... And then you touch the right foot again,” says Scott Horton from the front of the gym. “It’s just step, touch ... then we slide to the side.”

For two weeks of the year, Mr. Horton and the other P.E. teachers at Truman teach dances they hope each student will use for a lifetime — and at the school dances. Five or six years ago, dances at Truman were typical junior high cattle herds, with students hugging the walls or dancing what Mr. Horton calls the penguin, slowly shuffling back and forth.

And so, Mr. Horton remembers, “I said, all right, let’s just fix it.”

Mr. Horton’s parents met on the dance floor at a USO dance, and after marrying, he and his wife took up dance classes, too. Teaching the students to dance, he hoped, would help get them on the floor at school dances, at weddings and throughout their lives. And, it turns out, a dance unit was part of the curriculum seldom used.

Before school dances, Mr. Horton gets with the DJ and makes sure every other song is one the kids know.

“Used to be you’d have 20 percent of the kids dancing,” says Principal Beery Johnson. “Now you have 80 percent of kids dancing.”

They stick to what P.E. teacher Marilyn Beck calls the old school dances, listed on a dusty chalkboard in the back of the gym: the electric slide, the chicken dance, the swing, the hustle, the YMCA. But there’s also the Hip-Hop Booty Call, and, naturally, Footloose.

“ ... They’re not as old school as square dancing,” Ms. Beck says. “Would you rather be square dancing?”

Often, the boys would rather not dance at all, and getting them over that hump, Mr. Johnson says, is what makes his gym teachers good.

“He’s the greatest gym teacher in Missouri,” eighth-grader Anthony Kretzer says of Mr. Horton.

In fact, last year Mr. Horton won Physical Education Teacher of the Year from the Missouri Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. He thinks the dancing had something to do with it.

“He’s pretty cool,” says eighth-grader Katie Watson. “He knows how to dance and stuff.”

And maybe, someday, kids around the country will be dancing in their P.E. classes, too. Mr. Horton has taught other teachers in the state how to conduct the two-week session, and he’s been visited by people from area schools. But for now, his attention is on a gym full of eighth graders, shuffling through Kevin Bacon’s moves.

“Doin’ good,” Mr. Horton says. “Let’s get ready for the turn.”

He adds the Pac-Man step, toes and heels making Vs and As across the floor.

He adds the heel slap.

He puts it all together, and soon, to music, everybody’s cutting footloose.

Lifestyles reporter Kristen Hare can be reached

at kristenhare@npgco.com.