Our group's presentation is about social awareness in the classroom. My specific part of this project is exploring how to bring social awareness and students' outside culture into all disciplines within the school. For example, I read an article where 'at-risk' teen mothers brought hip hop into their English class. They reflected in journals first.
Ayanna said, "Hip hop is more than music. It's also about dress. And hip hop is a cultural dance that started among young African Americans who expressed their feelings through their body movements. Hip hop makes me feel inspired. When I was a kid I'd make up dances and it was so inspiring. I'd express myself in a hard core way that wasn't dangerous."
This got the students thinking about their lives and how hip hop in particular fits into their real lives outside the classroom. Then they created their own verses to a hip hop song like Eminmen's Stan and Usher's "Confessions". The author of the article believes this allowed them to look at their lives through a social lens and apply songs to their lives. They were able to "promote change in their own lives as well as change in society" by seeing what aspects of the lyrics they did and did not like.
An interesting aspect of the article was to allow students to draw "on their 'real' voice by writing". They were bridging the gap between their real lives outside the classroom and their structured lives inside the classroom. So often teachers try to encourage students to leave what is bothering them from their outside life at the door and focus on school work. That is hard for adults to do, let alone adolescents, especially middle schoolers. This was a great example of a way to bring life into the classroom and apply skills they are learning to real world examples. These teen mothers are going to need an outlet for frustration. They have a difficult life ahead of them and using these writing skills in a practical manner such as keeping a diary may help them get through some tough times.
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I almost feel that I can better comment on this now that I've actually SEEN your presentation.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, major props to the idea of building a curriculum that incorporates a student's personal experience into his or her learning experience. For far too long teachers have assumed that a student's experiences have no value in an instructional setting, and that a school exists as something of an island of instruction outside reality. The main problem with that idea is that it ignores aspects of the "hidden" curriculum that students learn simply by living.
I'd also like to applaud the idea of keeping a diary. The problem I usually find with asking some of the kids I tutor to do this is that many of them see writing as an effeminate activity that reduces their masculinity (but that's a point for a different blog), but once they actually try it, it's truly a freeing experience.