Professional Organization Reflection

           I had the special opportunity to attend the Promising Practices Conference held at RIC back in November.  Sadly, the two sessions I attended did not offer much useful information for me.  They seemed interesting when I signed up, but did not follow through.  The keynote speaker, however, provided me with a wealth of knowledge and brought up things which had not crossed my mind before that point.  Dr. Emdin gave a wonderful address about hip-hop education and stale pedagogical practices.

            Dr. Emdin spoke about his idea about hip-hop education and how it could revolutionize the education system as we know it.  It is all about the reversal and upheaval of typical teaching indoctrination.  He believes that this upheaval is necessary because current pedagogical practices do not focus on student culture and that is detrimental to learning.  The speaker claimed that reality pedagogy (student-centered learning) is not culturally relative pedagogy.  The former is a theory which claims that student cultures are the same across-the-board.  Dr. Emdin claims that each classroom will have a specific culture and the teacher must use that to help students learn.  The only way to fix the educational system is to fix the foundation (culturally relevant pedagogy), not just throw on a fresh coat of paint (adding technology).  He finished his speech by stating that education has not changed over the last 150 years, it has simply been painted over and called new. 

            Honestly, I think Dr. Emdin’s ideas are radical, scary, and absolutely necessary.  As educators, our first priority should be the students sitting in front of us.  If they have a certain way of doing things to help them learn and express that learning, we should learn to embrace those methods.  The speaker talked about students who use hip-hop as a primary means of communicating their knowledge.  One student he mentioned actually used hip-hop to orally present his knowledge on Newton’s Laws of Thermodynamics.  The speaker encouraged teachers to allow students to learn in a way which they know.  Instead of telling them to write papers, let them express their knowledge and help them turn it into papers later. 

            This idea is outstanding.  My sister, for instance, would always draw intricate sketches in her notebooks along with her notes.  Some teachers would reprimand her for “not paying attention.”  Those were the same teachers who failed to notice that her drawings said everything her notes did and more.  She remembered things by drawing, not by taking verbatim notes.  I believe this idea is very similar to Dr. Emdin’s.  As long as students are learning, why does the process matter?  Why does it matter if students want to rap or draw their final project instead of writing it?  Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying thesis statements and syntax are not important.  I am saying, however, that they should not take priority over students understanding the material.  I think I will use this information to help me become a better teacher.  I am interested to see how students learn and I want to incorporate that into my teaching.