Hip-Hop+in+the+Classroom

[|SAFE WEIGHT LOSS GUARANTEED]Question: Hip-Hop in the classroom. Can Hip-Hop be used as a learning tool in the classroom? Hip-Hop started in the early 1980’s with a positive message, and created a movement for inner-city youths to creatively express themselves. Over the Course of the 1980’s the lyrical content of Hip-Hop changed dramatically as “gangsta rap” depicted the real life violence in the streets. To this day the mainstream media tends to associate rap/hip-hop culture with: gangs, violence, drugs, and misogyny.

I wonder if the positive elements of Hip-Hop culture will ever be entirely realized by our Eurocentric society. Will a majority of educators ever get over the stigma of Hip-Hop consider using it in the classroom? Will educators realize there are two fundamentally different types of Hip-Hop: socially conscious Hip-Hop and commercially successful Hip-Hop; although, they do not have to be mutually exclusive, most of the time they are. Do young Hip-Hop fans of today actually understand why the movement was started in the south Bronx in the first place? Hip-Hop’s initial purpose was to promote social awareness and positive change within their communities.

I will begin my inquiry by first using a web search on Google. I plan to take full advantage of temple’s library and resources, now that I have a better understanding of them. I also plan to watch a documentary by Byron Hunt entitled “Hip-Hop: beyond beats and rhymes.”

I expect to learn a few things from the educational stand-point and how Hip-Hop has been incorporated into the classroom. I also expect to learn wheatear the Hip-Hop classes of today teach only about Hip-Hop culture itself; or if they use Hip-Hop to teach other subjects?

GREENLIGHTED. Read Marc Lamont Hill's most recent book about hip-hop in the classroom. Take a careful look at the sources he draws from in his own writing--- and pick some of the most interesting ones for your own work. Use Twitter to ask teachers who are using hip hop in Philly classrooms to identify themselves to you -- so you can visit a classroom and talk with kids yourself.