Hip Hop in the Classroom: Light Some Fires!
Posted Mar 30 2006
Students whose classroom teachers use hip hop in their courses are more likely to gain an initial interest in classroom activities. Andrea Shanklin, a professor at Howard Community College in Columbia Maryland, spent a sabbatical researching the positive effects of implementing hip hop in the classroom. As a result of her research, she created a full curriculum for a course based completely around hip hop. Shanklin notes many reasons why hip hop serves as an immediate hook for students. She explains that even though not all students personally listen to hip hop, due to its current importance in society, most every student can relate to it: “The words and themes of our students can clearly be located in their music. And while I realize that the music that many of them listen to is just as diverse as the students that make up our classes, it is evident by some of our students’ language, attitude, and dress that hip-hop shapes their reality.” Shanklin hits the current culture of hip hop right on the head, and is far from alone in recognizing its possibilities with today’s youth.
Daniel D. Zarazua holds a Master’s degree in secondary education and dual Bachelor’s degrees in United States history and American culture. He has taught various subjects, been a writing consultant for youth, and has led many workshops with students. He is also a DJ and has an incredible wealth of knowledge regarding the relationship between hip hop and our culture. Zarazua has created entire curriculums (like Shanklin and many others) that tap into the cultural importance of the hip hop phenomenon while also igniting interest in English skills such as reading, writing, and poetry.
Zarazua knows that there are many advantages to using hip hop in the classroom. He says that hip hop gives “an accessible reference point for students as they see people like them… who speak about things they can relate to, in a manner that they often understand.” Zarazua has used hip hop songs in his classrooms to facilitate multiple aspects of the "creative process," including the use of literary devices such as simile, metaphor, alliteration, and homonyms. This helps students to identify these devices in more traditional texts as well. Zarazua agrees that using hip hop also helps with reading literature and facilitating the writing process. "We've studied how creating a song is similar to writing an essay -- there's a theme, conclusion, etc. While they're not exactly the same, there is a process, including revisions."
Of course, not everyone agrees with using hip hop in today’s classrooms. Michelle Malkin is an accomplished journalist, Fox News contributor, and conservative. In June of 2004, Malkin posted an article on her website and on www.vdare.com titled “2 lazy 2 teach,” where she complained of a Massachusetts schoolteacher using slain rapper 2pac’s poetry in her teachings. Malkin states that “These educators, and I use that term as loosely as gangster rappers wear their pants, are clearly more interested in appearing cool than in inculcating a refined literary sense in students.” She claims that it is presumptuous to think that inner-city kids can only get fired up when presented with literary work like 2pac’s, and to assume so is racist. Malkin may bring up a good argument that using hip hop can be questionable, but she is missing the point.
Even Zarazua, who occasionally uses hip hop as a hook in classrooms, can acknowledge the disadvantages. First and foremost, many people think of hip hop as what is more popularly known as rap. “Their concerns are valid considering images put out there by [artists] 50 Cent, Lil' Jon, etc. Content and language are always a concern,” says Zarazua. If critics like Malkin only think of overly-commercialized artists like 50 Cent, they are missing the proactive hip hoppers (such as artists like Atmosphere or The Roots) that discuss issues like the danger of objectifying women, today’s politics, and morality. It isn’t all just gun fights and “bling.” And for those artists that do present skewed visions of what life should be (women in bikinis, Hummers, and drugs), Zarazua uses these videos and songs as a vehicle to discuss gender roles, misrepresentation of women, and realistic goals. He is also quite careful to provide only edited versions of everything he uses, and everything is checked by administration first.
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