Spoken word poet Michael Cirelli kicked off an event series Monday that focuses on hip-hop as a means of engaging under served minority students with their educations.
The lecture was the first in the 15-week Getting Real II: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and Culture in the Classroom and Beyond series, which will explore the integration of spoken word and hip-hop culture in teaching and the development of students’ critical thinking.
Professor Gloria Ladson-Billings, a professor of Urban Education at UW–Madison, orchestrated Monday’s event, as well as the entire series. Her research explores the strategies and methods of teachers that she says work well with African-American students.
Ladson-Billings believes the achievement gap between white and minority public school students is propelled by educators’ limited expectations in the abilities of minority students.
“You can go to a school that is highly regarded but the teachers only expect certain things out of certain students,” she said. “My job is to connect up the artistry in hip-hop with the reality that kids are facing.”
Ladson-Billings said that using hip-hop in teaching is a way to “build kids’ sense of their own humanity through the arts,” she said, engaging kids “through the things that matter to them.”
Cirelli, a New York-based poet and director of the hip-hop inspired Urban Word writing program, led the audience in a close reading of a verse from rapper Aesop Rock’s song, Bazooka Tooth.
In an exercise meant to promote critical thinking and analysis, Cirelli acknowledged the flipside of using hip-hop as a teaching tool.
“[Hip-Hop] is misogynistic, homophobic and racist. It is those things, but it’s a lot of other things as well. You must be able to critique it as well,” he said. “As educators, we need to be equipped with the resources to talk about how this form [of teaching] will be critiqued.”
The on-going series, sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Initiatives and the Office of the Vice President of Diversity and Climate, is held Mondays at 7p.m. In 1101 Grainger Hall.
