Urban Word Workshop

Name of Event: PREEMPTIVE EDUCATION: Language, Identity & Power- Urban Word NYC's Annual Mentor, Teacher, Educator & Community Activist Training

Organizer and Location: Urban Word---NYU

Amount of Hours at the Event: 7 hours

Reflection:

The event that I attended was a conference sponsored by Urban Word and Steinhardt. The event addressed how to teach youth through hip-hop. After all we all know that throughout the years hip-hop has become tremendously popular. Furthermore, for students living in urban settings, hip-hop culture is extremely relevant. For, the heart of hip-hop culture lies in urban settings.

Throughout the day various different workshops were held that each addressed different aspects of hip-hop and how to use it in the classroom. The first workshop I attended discussed hip-hop curriculum with Marcella Runell Hall and Kersha Smith. Marcella discussed the book she worked on called Critical Education and Hip-Hop Culture. This book provides lesson plans and resources for teachers to use to implement hip-hop into their classrooms. She explained hip-hop curriculum as collaborative, complex and challenging, rooted in current events, uses media and arts, fluid and dynamic, interdisciplinary, engaging, and authentic. All of these qualities are things that I hope my classroom will have. I was surprised to find that I could use hip hop to provide this to my students. At the same time I questioned how feasible this would be in an elementary classroom. I talked to Marcella during the workshop and we discussed how many hip-hop artists have written children’s books that could be used. Though this is definitely a helpful suggestion we also discussed that the material just needs to be scaffolded with the student’s level. For hip-hop curriculum is just as powerful for young students.

In the next workshop I learned just how to do this. In the workshop “Where Hip Hop Lives” Orisanmi Burton showed us how I could take hip-hop lyrics and deconstruct them to teach a variety of different lessons such as history, writing, and social justice. The song we used was a Mos Def song called Black on Both Sides. The lyrics were appropriate for all aged children. One of the lines read, “Speech is my hammer, bang the world into shape.” Just with this line you could do a whole lesson on metaphors as well as the power of words and how we use them to change things in the world. Students could find something in their community that they want to change and describe how they could change it using speech or words. Again, this is only one line from the entire three page song. If you wanted you could base an entire unit around the lyrics because it was so rich in material.

The next workshop I attended was the NYCoRE information session. In this workshop run by Edwyn, we discussed similar topics from class. The main question was how we teach social justice education. Though the information was somewhat familiar it was interesting to hear other teacher’s views, especially teachers who are just starting. It was also nice to see that these teachers who have been in the field for a bit were looking to create a strong change in their classrooms.

The final workshop of the conference was titled “Conscious Women Rock the Page.” Four women, Jennifer Calderon, Elisha Miranda, Sofia Quintero, and Marcella Runell Hall discussed the role of females in hip-hop as well as in minorities. Jennifer Calderon or JLove was the most interesting out of all the speakers. JLove wrote a book about growing up white but being completely obsessed with hip-hop culture. I think we so often label hip-hop as a “black” or “Latino”, but in reality it has the power to reach everyone. JLove made me realize that even though people represented in hip-hop culture are not necessarily from my background I can still discuss its topics and how I feel influenced by it. At the same time it is important not to assume that because your students are from a particular background they will have a connection to hip-hop. You have to know your students in order to teach them effectively.

Overall, I found the conference to be an incredible experience. It truly showed how to reach students through a means that is relatable to them. There were so many stories told throughout the conference about how teaching through hip-hop engaged students in an incredible way. The content of hip-hop curriculum can be directly tied to social justice education because there are so many songs that deal with the problems and challenges within communities. These songs can be used as not only a way of presenting these issues to the students, but also as an example of how to build awareness in the community. If students could enter social justice issues through hip-hop I feel that it would have an incredibly powerful affect on their lives.