Pop Culture

After reading Jabari Mahiri’s article, Digital DJ-ing: Rhythms of Learning in an Urban School, I had quite the range of emotions, but my first thought is “for real� where was he able to do this project? I could see this project having many stumbling blocks along the way. My experience is that I would have to work my tail off to sell this project to administration. Not that I don’t think that this project isn’t important work, but as an ex-literacy coach who often had to deal with the bureaucracy found in schools today, I can tell you that I would have to present a lot more information than what the author has presented in his article to get a principal to okay this. Imagine for a moment that you are a young, bright, eager educator who has just read this article. You are excited about what you’ve read. You think that this project would match your students learning styles perfectly. With the article in hand, a bounce in your step and enthusiasm in great abundance, you enter your principal’s office. Excitedly you share your great idea and with great pride you lay the research article down in front of your principal to be greeted with a less than enthusiastic reply. These are the comments I imagine being said, “What standards does this project meet?� “How will this help your students to pass or do better for state testing requirements?� “How will this contribute to our mission of being a “five star� school?� “What specific reading/writing strategies will be implemented?� “How does this match and align with the current curriculum guidelines?� As you get ready to leave your principal encourages you to continue with the project, but you just need to do a few “small� tasks: 1) come back when you have all the issue addressed in written form that he can present to the school board 2) talk with all the other teachers within your grade level and see if they are on board with this, because all teachers in the grade level need to be on the same page everyday and 3) meet with the literacy coach to verify how the standards, strategies and skills are being addressed within this project , needless to say, you place the article in the top drawer of your desk and leave it for another day (or lifetime).

The article did a nice job of conveying the social and personal significance of this project, I appreciate that the author looked to the students first. He looked to their interests and knowledge and respected that. Self selected projects, themes and interests are highly motivating, especially with this age group. I am confident that the students enjoyed what they were doing. I could probably even argue that the students did have positive gains in many academic areas. However, the schools today revolve around results and test scores. For example, in my current position I instruct pre-student teachers. I have recently had to meet with a number of principals that we work with to allow my students to teach social studies. The schools, scared to death of state tests and test scores, are reverting to only teaching what is on the test. I had to carefully work with these schools and my students to ensure that first and foremost they are always teaching reading and writing and if by chance the pupils learn history, mapping, or world cultures, well that’s just a bonus. I am not saying that I agree with what is happening, but I have to model for my students how to navigate the current system. I don’t want my students, future teachers, to roll over to current mandates and bureaucracy. I want them to know how to manipulate the system in order to: 1) do what is best for kids 2) to challenge the status quo. Mahiri’s down fall from an administrator’s point of view is he did not convey concretely how this project was meaningful to kids, teachers or the community. Even though he did address how core themes in their projects were addressed and was a part of the meaning making process, he needed to provide hard facts.

My advice for Mahiri would be to first of all, address how technology is supporting teaching and learning. This could help guide current teachers in the field navigate and support the use of not only technology but also pop culture within their classrooms. The article did speak to how technology is often misused in schools and often does not enhance instruction, but I felt he didn’t spend enough time addressing how teaching and learning were supported. It seemed to be all about the technology. Secondly, help teachers out a bit by helping them link technology and pop culture to state standards and NCLB. Teachers are very skilled and knowledgeable people, they could do this on their own, they just don’t have the time. If you want teacher to adopt what your current findings give them the tools to do it.

That being said, I do want you to understand that I do support and encourage the use of pop culture and music within the classroom. As a literacy teacher you don’t have to look too hard to find the rationale for teaching hip hop music in an elementary classroom. The steady beat, rhythm and rhyme represented in hip hop helps to illustrate the rhythms found in language. Until a child is able to intuitively understand these rhythms and rhymes within their language they will struggle with reading and writing. According to Goswami, U. in Journal of Research in Reading, 22(3), 217-240, “A rich language environment in the classroom that allows the child to reflect on phonological similarities and differences between words would contribute to the child's reading skills development.� Hip hop is an excellent tool for pointing out phonological similarities and differences between words as well as just a fun way to review material. What a great way to invite students to synthesize what they’ve learned and present to others at the end of a unit/lesson. The upbeat tempo and rhyming words help others remember and connect with the content as well as present material in a new and fun way. This approach is often modeled and used within my classroom. An approach that I plan to “steal� from this course is looking at how popular culture/music views and presents the role of the teacher. I often ask my students to reflect on their traditional view of a teacher and how that view impacts their teaching. A component that I hadn’t thought of before this class is the impact of popular culture on forming these views. Asking my students to reflect on the impact of popular culture and music on their image of a teacher could help pre-student teachers notice and name preconceived notions about teachers, teaching and learning.