While I appreciate all the interest (from both inside our ENG 311 class and from outside visitors), I feel like a clarification to my blog is necessary because there seems to be some confusion. I DO NOT advocate the use of ALL hip-hop in classrooms. The majority of hip-hop is not appropriate! I agree wholeheartedly! The whole point of this blog is to acknowledge the good and bad aspects of this genre, not solely rag on the negative portions of hip-hop. Think of it as “the glass is half full” type of philosophy. Certain artists and aspects of hip-hop (specifically the rap portion of the industry) are known to be vulgar and degrading, which I thought I had clearly mentioned in my past posts, but apparently I needed to be slightly more specific.
In the article I read for today’s post, I was please to discover that Michigan State University has already implemented some of the ideas (that is, integrating hip-hop to some degree in the classroom) that I have expressed here in my blog. To help students like Christina McGuffie, professors at Michigan State brought hip-hop in to aid her in the transition from high school to college education. McGuffie, a senior at MSU, says, “The teachers and the environment made it really hard for us to learn and get anything accomplished,” the said the criminal justice major. “Teachers spent most of their time throwing (students) out of the classroom, writing them up.” The type of classroom she describes is typical of many inner-city classrooms (as well as many rural ones) because students just do not pay attention to the teacher, or respect the teacher. Whether the student can actually pay attention, or whether they simply choose not to is another matter altogether. McGuffie and her collaborators have been working (using a hip-hop influence) with a group of artists known as Detroit Summer to increase the link between inner city classrooms in Detroit and Lansing. She and the artists hope that this will encourage a greater number of inner city students to consider a college education and not drop out before finishing high school. The high school students are offered help in writing resumes and filling out college applications, and shown that college IS AN OPTION that they can choose. This is key.
This directly relates to our class because we are constantly learning about finding ways to create excitement in our students’ learning while in high school. In addition, we also hope that if they can be motivated and excited about their work in high school that they will take that excitement to the next level and attend a college or university. So, I say that if hip-hop excites kids and gets them into what they’re reading or writing, USE IT- in moderation and in an appropriate manner, of course.
