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Friday, May 12, 2006
Should Teachers Bring Hip-Hop Into the Classroom?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amber, welcome!
For those who missed it, this teacher, who describes herself as young and white working with students who are African-American, posted this under another topic.
“I am so frustrated when other educators encourage me to ‘bring their culture’ into the classroom. When the celebrated elements of a ‘culture’ encourage the degradation of women, promote an ‘all party, no responsibilities’ sensibility, and inflame a ‘nobody’s gonna tell me what to do’ attitude, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to allow that into my classroom. When your ‘culture,’ your ‘music,’ speech, and attitudes tear you down, I am not going to bring it into my classroom as a ‘technique.’ I’m sorry that you can’t sit in your seat an entire hour without needing to break out into a ‘booty dance.’
I’m sorry that you cannot or do not speak standard English. I’m sorry that the ‘education system’ has ushered you into high school without the ability to do more than functional reading and writing. I’m sorry that the person you are right now wouldn’t succeed in a challenging university environment. What I’m NOT going to do is act like these behaviors are part of your learning style, or are otherwise something to be coddled. In most universities, even two-year colleges, you are expected to sit through a lecture and communicate in an essay format, at the very least. ‘Creating opportunities’ for my students to fill up their classtime doing otherwise is dishonest and ineffectual, not to mention negligent.”
Thoughts?
