Posted on 02/29/2004 7:37:20 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
SYRACUSE, NY--Can Queen Latifah help high school students understand the writings of Karl Marx?
Can Sean "P. Diddy" Combs help them appreciate the work of towering historical figures like Galileo, Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci?
The Syracuse school district thinks they can. The district has sent a 12-page packet to each teacher at its four high schools that suggests ways to incorporate hip-hop performers and their work into their teaching.
The packet, put together by two teachers and the district's coordinators of fine arts and social studies, is intended to harness the energy the March 10 Hip-Hop Summit is generating and use it to boost students' interest in traditional academic subjects. Organizers say the summit will bring in performers to talk about the positive aspects of hip-hop and encourage young people to get involved in their communities
"A lot of times you make a correlation for the student that makes learning real," said Carol Terry, coordinator of fine arts. "It’s calling on their prior knowledge. You draw on what they know and you teach from there."
What many Syracuse students know best — and appreciate most — is hip-hop.
"We probably respect rappers more than the people that we see every day," Corcoran 10th-grader Mike Davis said. "We see that they went beyond what they were given in life."
The packet encourages teachers to discuss hip-hop as a musical and cultural phenomenon, but it also suggests using the genre to engage students in other areas. Some of the suggestions create some odd pairings.
Global history students are asked to compare Marx’s theory of a utopian society with Queen Latifah’s view that rappers should hold each other to high ethical standards. Another assignment asks them to compare Renaissance and Reformation figures like DaVinci, Michelangelo, Galileo and Martin Luther with hip-hop individuals of the past 30 years. The suggested tie- in: both the Renaissance and the hip-hop movement stressed non- conformity and free thinking.
Cynthia Kirby,
vice president of the Syracuse school board and chair of its curriculum committee, said that although some of the ideas seem odd initially, they can help students become more engaged in their course material.
"I don’t think it’s inappropriate," said Kirby, who opposed bringing the Hip-Hop Summit to Syracuse because of the negative messages in some hip-hop lyrics. "I think at any point in time popular culture does inform people about the world."
Teachers are not required to use the packets. Students interviewed at Corcoran High School Thursday said few of their teachers have dealt with hip-hop in their classrooms so far.
One teacher who has is Carrianne Gifford, who helped put together the district packet. Gifford, a 26-year-old hip-hop fan, has been active in talking up the summit and trying to incorporate hip-hop into her foreign language teaching.
Thursday, she discussed hip- hop culture with her Spanish I class at Corcoran and talked about the Hispanic influence on the genre. She played brief excerpts of songs from a dozen of her own hip-hop CDs that contained the Spanish language or references. For homework, her students had to translate eight sentences — such as "I communicate with hip-hop music" into Spanish.
Gifford and
Rhiannon Bell, a 24-year-old English teacher at Corcoran, say the district has presented teachers with a golden opportunity to establish a deeper connection with their students.
"This is the first time in a long time that we’ve been able to bridge the gap between what happens in school and what happens in their lives outside of school," Bell said.
They said that while some of the suggestions in the information packet may seem to be a stretch, the idea of approaching students on their own terms is crucial.
Bell had students look at hip- hop lyrics as part of their study of Romeo and Juliet. She showed them lyrics in a song by Ludacris, for example, that uses figurative language to get a point across. Bell pointed out that Shakespeare uses a rich, non-literal language whose meaning may not be immediately apparent but is worth exploring.
"It’s a way to make a connection to these kids," she said. "Sometimes that one little quote can grab their attention for the next 80 minutes."
That some students identify strongly with hip-hop music was apparent in Gifford’s class. She handed out a worksheet asking them "What does hip-hop mean to you?"
"Hip-hop means inspiration to me," Mike Davis wrote. "It’s like a greater outlook on life."
"When you go through struggles and stuff it’s like it gives you that extra push you need in the day," wrote Cameron Grovner, another 10th-grader.
Lillie Rastegar,
first vice president of the Syracuse Teachers Association, said it is up to individual teachers whether they want to use the curriculum packet or to talk about hip-hop in their classrooms.
Syracuse is not the only district trying to use the popularity of hip-hop to increase students’ motivation. Although observers say it’s not a widespread movement, some teachers across the country are using hip-hop lyrics to introduce children to poetry or are making up raps to help kids learn the alphabet or memorize multiplication tables.
Shuaib Meacham , an education professor at the University of Delaware, has been bringing hip-hop into schools in that state to get children more engaged in poetry. He recently received a $50,000 grant from the National Academy of Education to study other ways to use hip-hop in the classroom.
At Harvard University, the W.E.B. DuBois Institute has established the Hip-Hop Archive as a resource for all things hip- hop. It lists about 50 courses about hip-hop being taught in colleges nationwide.
Wonderful.....
Say what????
Oh this is just so precious and priceless.
Oh man what trash.
The one sentence(deeeep)student responses should give one pause. Mental-pause. This dime a rhyme fling a ding dong string me a long song C-rap is just another way for people to "make themselves" feel significant. They feel unique or exclusive because most people will confronted with C-rap lift their foot and walk around it, giving it "respect". People who actually listen to lyrics, play musical instruments or prefer to express humanity beyond the confines of crayon in the box gutter mentality, won't truly appreciate C-rap's uniqueness.
Visualize stepping barefooted into blue C-rap, green C-rap and now red C-rap. Now,honestly, were you impressed with the variations of the C-rap? Did any one color of C-rap inspire you to embrace the C-rap with your toes? No? Ahh, you are not far from the path of enlightenment. Just be careful where you step.
Well, dip me in detergent, but if this isn't racism I don't know what is. It implies that "minority" student are too "challenged" (a.k.a. stupid/inherently inferior) to be be taught, to learn, to study, to master, and to reply in the Queen's English. You don't dumb-down to people you consider your equals.
They would be better off presenting their students with the tools for actual learning and decent culture instead of decadent lyricists and shlock culture.
It's stories like this which makes you weep for America!
Great, the only thing they'll be able to say in Spanish is "I'm going to bust a cap in your ass".
This whole thing is basically throwing up the white flag on public education. The kids won't learn math, so we'll teach them about hip-hop instead. Then, in 10-20 years when (or should I say if ) they graduate, they'll be complaining about 'the man' keeping them down because the only thing they're qualified to do is flip burgers. If these kids are going to have any kind of future, they need a school system that is going to teach them at a high school level, not a bunch of cheap gimmicks. If these kids can't relate to anything other than hip-hop then they are in DEEP trouble. Their inability to learn otherwise is a problem that needs to be solved, not pandered to!
I never had to have my teachers teach everything in terms of video games to get me to learn! My literature teachers never said "Alright, we're going to teach you Shakespear in terms of Dragon Ball Z because that's the only way we can get you to care." What is the message that this is really sending to these kids? "You're too stupid to learn like a kid in private school?" The lower the standards that you hold these kids too the lower the standards they'll adhere to.
cumnin suNe too a skewl neEr ewe
This article lost me on the very first line.
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