December, you’ve been told and I guess you agree that despite your interpretation the reality is that the ‘code’ words you refer to don’t translate into "non white"at least not this time. Why can’t you just admit that?
Now you’re guessing what the words meant to the person who used them?
C’mon.
Name-calling? I said the statement was racist, not you, december. You may have made a racist statement unintentionally. The preconceptions you place on your interpretation of the article may have given you the wrong idea, but it seems that, based on Eva Luna’s information, your interpretation was wrong.
Because it’s something they might be able to identify with? Because it’s something they like? I don’t claim to know. My return question would be, why not? (And no, you haven’t answered it yet).
It should have been obvious that I was doing that all along. I used those words to prove that the cite supported a certain point. Nathurally, what they meant to the writer was always the key aspect.
I’m not convinced that I was wrong about what those words were intended to mean. What’s your evidence that I’m wrong?
I have a question for you, december:
If “urban”, “inner-city” students were being educated with classical music, would it also be racially divisive? If surburban kids were being educated with rap music, would it be racially divisive.
I was educated in racially diverse schools. In middle school I remembered my sister’s science class had to create a rap song for “Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species…”. I was SOOOO jealous because it seemed like so much fun. I mean, the song they came up with was pretty clever and cute. It was much more exciting than saying “King Philip came over for good supper” over and over again, like we did in my class.
Kids in suffering schools need experimental techniques because obviously the status quo is not working. I doubt these kids will have rap for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so calm down. If rapping gets kids more exciting about school and learning, it can’t be a bad thing.
Because those are the kids who will get the least support at home and will benefit most by outreach using popular music (which is, coincidentally rap and hip-hop at this time).
You started off with a pretty dumb claim–that rap and hip-hop were not good music and that they were bad “role models” (whatever that means). This is a pretty good indicator that you really don’t know the subject on which you are pontificating. You then (incorrectly) linked that demonstration of ignorance to racial issues. Now you want to whine that there is “name calling” because you inappropriately introduced race into your presentation.
Sorry. No sympathy in this quarter.
You then go on to complain about “experimentation” all the while championing the “experiment” of vouchers. Rank hypocrisy.
Are you able to actually discuss these much vaunted “better ways” to teach? Or are the better ways so vague and particular to specific instances that you can only wave in the general direction of a book and claim “it’s in there, somewhere”?
It’s pretty normal to use “urban” and “poor” as euphemisms for “black”. E.g.,
The Times of London says “urban” is the popular euphemism for black.
When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor by William Julius Wilson is primarily about poor blacks.
Here Glenn Loury implies that “the ghetto poor” is a euphemism, for “poor black communities.”
monstro, I appreciate your input. I only have one quibble. You wrote, “Kids in suffering schools need experimental techniques because obviously the status quo is not working.” I would say, rather, “Kids in suffering schools need different techniques because obviously the status quo is not working.” Since there are different techniques that have been shown to work, those should be used.
tomndebb the idea that rap and hip hop are not good role models was in the original cite.
But, even without that cite, didn’t you already know about the controversy over some of these lyrics?
You are using a London paper as an authority on current U.S. urban usage?
And again, just because a euphemism is common doesn’t mean it’s appropriate in this particular instance.
Also, there is plenty of non-profane rap and hip-hop. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve got a De La Soul album at home with a takeoff on a Schoolhouse Rock tune: it’s called “Three is a Magic Number.” Nothing profane or risque whatsoever in that song.
Even “profane” rappers have produced works of art that even the decembers of the world could “dig”. See Tupac Shukar’s “Mama”. IMHO, it’s one of the best rap songs ever, and it still keeps it real.
I do agree that divisive educational methods should be avoided, but I think the OP misconstrues the market and popularity of something that is actually a very sophisticated art-form.
E. anecdotally G.: I’m middle-class, white, pretty well educated, in my mid '30s, and from England, and I have at least 20 hip-hop and rap CDs on my shelf, which include Public Enemy, Eminem, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Dr Dre, 50 Cent (and from Europe MS Solaar, The Streets, Urban Species, and MC Buzz B) [no apologies for my largely Old Skool tastes… I did say I’m in my 30s after all].
I suspect that the gangsta rap element of my collection is the misconception with which I think december may be tarring all of the art-form, due surely to lack of comprehension.
If I had children and was looking for a popular medium with which to educate them, I think rap would be an ideal method. Certainly more preferable to Barney or the Tellytubbies.
Surely all educational innovations are experimental?
The article clearly contrasts the preconceived notions of some (unidentified and unquantified) teachers against the teachers involved in the new methods. Those preconceptions would seem to be similar to yours, in which they confuse the message of a limited number of gangsta performers with the entire form of hip-hop. The article says nothing to the effect that gansta would be included, only that they would build teaching plans that involved the percussive beat and linguistic games involved in the creation of hip-hop music. From there you leaped to the conclusions both that the music was bad (which it clearly is not), and that any use of hip-hop was an inclusion of gangsta. Unwarranted assumption in both cases.
FWIW my speech therapist friend, the one who has taught kids in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago for several years now, concurs with my analysis that rap is a perfectly viable method of teaching kids who are difficult to reach with standard techniques, and she’d do it in a heartbeat. She says it’s even more true for her LD and autistic kids; they respond better in general to less intellelctualized formats, such as rhythm, than they do to regular cognitive-type stuff designed for more analytical kids.
[bdecember, ** it occurs to me now that in the interest of intellectually honest evaluation, I’d like to know how much of your OP was your own idea vs. that of whatever columnist brought the Trib article to your attention in the first place. Care to share your source?
(Oh, and have you read the book you recommended, or did the columnist cite it, too?)
The article cited in the OP was on lucianne.com, a message board whose mostly-conservative members post articles of interest and then discuss them. The posters on that site were dubious of the value of this approach to education.
I own the book, although I’m not quite sure where it is at the moment.
Just weighing in with my 2 cents here:
I’m all about setting stuff I have to remember to music. Either that or I do “chunking” – breaking long strings of information down into manageable bits.
What’s wrong with kids setting their history lessons to music? Which do you remember quicker off the top of your head: your ATM pin number or the lyrics to a song they played 20 years ago at your prom? The lyrics, of course. Why? Because the brain stores them differently.
I think students should be able to write a formal report/essay/analysis or whatnot, of course, but does education have to be nothing but traditional?
Wouldn’t it be awful if teachers came up with fun, creative ways to get kids to learn and the kids actually got EXCITED about what they were learning?
I learned the state captials through a rap song in elementary school, and I can still recall about 80% of them, so it has to have some benefits.
You may be right. Actually, ISTM the article is not that clear about how widely rap and hip-hop would be used. My impression is that the proponents themselves don’t have specific guidelines. Rather, they are generally encouraging the use of rap and hip-hop wherever feasible.
Nobody would object to using rap tunes as education aids. But, if that were all they were doing, it wouldn’t be written up as a new teaching method. We don’t say that the ABCs are taught by the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star method.” My impression from the article is that the proponents want rap spelling, rap clothing, and rap words, and rap essays.
Why choose rap among innumerable possible innovations? E.g., Cuisenaire rods are considererd a godsend by some teachers. Why not experiment with Cuisenaire rods before trying rap? My guess is that the people chose rap because it’s something they’re familiar with.
The book I cited points out that inner city schools that work find ways to have committed teachers, parental involvement, and discipline. It isn’t easy to accomplish these things within public education’s legal and labor structure, but the successful principals found a way. It would be difficult to get changes in law and administrative procedures that will make these things more feasible, but we have to do it. It’s wishful thinking to imagine that putting kids in baggy pants and spelling a word “playaz” will fix the real problems.
I will agree that if the kids aren’t taught proper grammar and usage, then yes i would I have a problem with the program. One of the things that Sesame Street and the other shows did was insist on proper grammar and usage.
Unlike you however, I don’t autmatically assume, or imagine that misspelling words would be part of the lesson plan. As you’ve been told over and over and choose to ignore over and over, all RAP is not the same. All Rappers don’t grab their johnson, oil their six-pack and smile gold, the same way all southern rockers aren’t Klansmen.
Enough with the stereotyping and frankly, that’s all your complains ultimately come to. Your Conservative friends once saw on the news a Rapper who scared him or got their daughters hot…so RAP is now bad.
“putting kids in baggy pants and spelling a word “playaz”…” First…I’m guessing what you mean of course, those “kids” already are wearing baggy pants, as that’s the fashion. They don’t need any help from educators on that front. Secondly they already speak that way. Popular culture, which once again isn’t “black” culture, but American culture, already has more of a hold on those kids then any 72 coloured sticks ever will.
You keep refering to the ‘trapings’ of RAP, however they (and I’m assuming here) are talking about using the methods. I didn’t see anyone mentioning putting a cap in a niggaz ass…as form of detention. Do you agree that it is more than possible to use the essence of RAP as an educational tool?
I’ll even provide a site to help you:
Music for learning
Cite? Which teachers and why…? Did class size matter, are they expensive, were the teachers trained? Why did you chose this and not something else? It appears to be a favorite tool of homeschoolers…not the same as an “urban” pubic school is it?
I wonder, did you chose this only because it originated in Europe, where all things are good?
Your last sentence answers your first question, and quite appropriately: they are using material that is familiar to both the teachers and the children that requires minimal “extra training” to apply to a multitude of subjects.
Conversely, Cuisenaire Rods are limited in their application and are probably already in most of the classrooms where the kids are failing. (My son was taught with Cuisenaire Rods and learned just about nothing from them.) While there are one or two limited applications for the C-Rods, the Rap format can be used to teach addition. subtraction, and multiplication tables (the rote stuff that is the essential side skill to making math work) where C-Rods do not. In addition, any rules or lists can be taught with Rap in math, English, History, Social Science, Natural Science, etc. where the C-Rods have no application.
So, against a ready-to-hand tool of general applicability, you offer as an alternative, a limited (if nice) tool of limited applicability and greater cost (although, I suspect that the cost has already been borne and the rods are already in use in most locations).
Horrors! No! Had december been aware that the C-Rods originated in Europe, we would have already had a thread condeming the insidious importation of such subversive material to our shores. 
I didn’t know that Cuisenaire rods were used by home schoolers. I chose them as an example in part because they do require training. It’s a lot easier for UCLA prof Duncan-Andrade to recommend Rap than it would be for him to master and teach the use Cuisenaire rods and hundreds of other approaches that have actually worked.
I think we more-or-less agree, Holmes. If I had merely assumed that words would be misspelled and that kids would be put in baggy pants, then I would be using a racist stereotype. But, the headline of the cited article used the spelling “playaz.” And the article said, “Some wore trousers so baggy the pant legs trailed behind as they walked.” Furthermore, the tone of the article made it clear that the reporter and the people she interviewed approve of this approach. I mentioned those racist stereotypes because I object to them, just as you do.