Hip Hop High
Posted Mar 27 2006
Fight For the Right
This year may be the one in which the concept of using hip-hop in the classroom reaches critical mass. Many of its practitioners certainly think so, but proponents still face a tough slog in convincing school administrators that the music they hear derided by politicians and parents can be used to educate children.
Part of the blame for this opposition lies with popular culture, which has co-opted hip-hop and transformed it from a rebellious, largely positive form of youth expression in the late 1970s and early 1980s to the overly commercialized, multibillion-dollar juggernaut it is today. Our fickle society is in a phase in which the most popular hip-hop today is often the most misogynist, sexist, violent, and pandering to the basest human emotions.This bottom-scraping attitude doesn't help the educators who are trying to approach parents and administrators for permission to use hip-hop in the classroom.
"There are many misperceptions of hip-hop from academia and the community," says Sitomer. "They're quick to dismiss it; they don't see the rappers as talented artists. I had to fight the students to embrace classic poetry, and had to fight the [school] administration to embrace contemporary poetry. It was uphill on both fronts."
Morikawa agrees."It's hard for administrators to justify using hip-hop in the classroom with all the images you see out there," he says. "You're always going to have some people who are against it. But you have to help the students critically consume what they're seeing anyway."
But even the most controversial artists today offer educational opportunities -- when edited carefully. Daniel Zarazua, a teacher in Oakland, California, uses a unique approach to teaching with hip-hop. He takes those elements that are most maligned -- the over-the-top commercialism, sexism, and violence -- and strips away the bravado to show that the rap emperor has no clothes."I have the students write down ten goals they want to accomplish in their life," he says."Then we look at hip-hop magazines and music videos to see if their favorite hip-hop artists match up to their goals. If not,why not? If your goal is to go to college, and take care of your family, but this artist is telling you to buy a $3,000 watch and do alcohol, that doesn't match up."
Jeff Feinman, who runs the DJ Project, an afterschool program in San Francisco for students struggling in school, uses hip-hop to connect with the students, and, like Zarazua, he also forces them to critically examine the reality behind artists' braggadocio. "We look at what it means to be a pimp," he says."We look at who is hurt by that."
Most teachers who incorporate hip-hop into the classroom are careful to edit out sexist and violent language." I changed 'tattooed on your ass' to 'got a hall pass' once," says Fischer with a laugh. Once the lyrics are cleaned up, and songs "bleeped," the students can learn everything from math to grammar, using hip-hop as the way in.
A musical group in Tucson, Arizona, called the Funkamentals, even uses homemade hip-hop songs to teach the periodic table of the elements on their album Education By Any Means Necessary, which features lyrics such as "Your calcium level's cadmium cool like carbon-copy californium girls in a pool."
As educators continually strive to light a spark in their students, hip-hop fans see the music as a way for teachers to infuse their students with a desire to learn."Kids don't connect at school, for a number of reasons," says Feinman. "How can we use culture that speaks to the youth to get them excited to learn? We use hip-hop. It was the magnet.
"I teach in an inner-city high school," notes Sitomer. "My community is plagued by gangs, drugs, and guns.The kids who make good choices are those who read and write. Most of the kids do not." Sitomer, speaking on a phone in his classroom between school periods, breaks away for a moment to answer a student's question. Returning to the phone, he laughs briefly at a thought, then reveals it: "You don't have to be an aficionado of Biggie Smalls to use him to reach Langston Hughes."
-Eric Hellweg (ehellweg@earthlink.net) is a freelance writer based in Cambridge, Mass.
Word Play: English students embrace classical poetry with a boost from the language of the streets. Credit: Noah Webb
Yo! Keep up the good work!