Hip Hop Stories and Pedagogy Trudy Mercadal-Sabbagh Department of ...
Source: web.mit.edu
Topic: Hip Hop
Sort Desciption: In what kind of context can Hip Hop pedagogy be truly effective and ... efforts, Hip Hop pedagogy can engage models of action oriented research (Small, ...
Content Inside: 1 Hip Hop Stories and Pedagogy Trudy Mercadal-Sabbagh Department of Communication Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida 2 The state of American education legitimizes some ways of knowledge while marginalizing others. It is modeled on white middle-class logic as its referent, which “silences subordinate voices” and disavows those life experiences that do not fit the mold. Giroux calls for us to reconsider education, to engage in understanding it as a way of life in which learning is a collective activity (Giroux, 1992, p, 14). The purpose of this essay is to argue for more holistic and alternative community-based educational programs, as well as offer pedagogical models through which to reach minority students providing them with space for an emancipating learning experience. Hip Hop, according Tricia Rose’s definition, is an Afrodiasporic music genre born in 1970’s New York, offers a bridge between non-traditional ways of knowing and traditional curricula. In Rose’s words, Music and cultural critics praise rap’s role as an educational tool, point out that black women rappers are rare examples of aggressive pro-women lyricists, and defend rap’s ghetto stories as real life reflections that should draw attention to the burning problems of racism and economic oppression (1994, p. 1) Following the model of Freire’s theories on pedagogy, then, I argue that Hip Hop provides a space for the instructor to engage in a collaborative learning experience with the students, in a constantly dynamic shared process. In Freire’s view (as interpreted by Giroux), “the educator must assume a standpoint from which to read the word and the world” (p. 121). I understand that the educator’s standpoint should be (and/or include), inasmuch as it is possible, the standpoint of the students. 3 The possibility for effective learning, social justice and transformation, however, outweigh the possible downsides, such as very real issues of violence, m ...
pedagogy,
trudy mercadal sabbagh