Sunday, December 6, 2009

Preemptive Education: Weekend Training Series

On Saturday, October, 3rd, 2009 I had the lovely opportunity of taking part in the weekend training series. I understand that this a while back so it will be a good testament to the ‘enduring understandings’ (wink wink) that I got from this workshop.

The morning started bright and early in the Silver building with several activities led by David Krikland. The first activity we did was called “Real Talk” where we were instructed to talk about two questions

1. Is the US enriched by language variation?

2. Should the US adopt an ‘official’ language policy?

The only catch to this was you could only use 2 syllables words when you spoke. Some one in the group was also designated to be the ‘police’ and call out anyone who used words that were more than 2 syllables. There was incredible change of pace in the way we talked, everyone talked a lot slower. Many people noted that although they felt restricted and limited it forced them to find new ways to convey their message. The change in confidence level also reflected the idea of constantly being policed.

David Kirkland did a beautiful ob of talking about the power of language as he says “Language can be used, and is used as a social/cultural/political currency for exchange of values, beliefs, disposition … It is also an essential part of who we are”.

We moved on to playing a game where we were randomly given coins and they were worth different values. The only two rules were; no talking and no cheating. We were given a couple of minutes to trade the coins before each person wrote up their scores on the board. We were divided into the three groups depending on our scores (low, medium, and high). After a few rounds of the game where the high group was able to make up some rules and the low groups were punished by standing up it was an activity to reflect some of the larger problems in our society today. The game took only a matter of minutes to complete but within in that small time frame there was a lot to be said. The game started out with no choices, you were either in the high, low, medium group and movement between these groups became progressively harder as the game went on. Although the high group did not create new rules that targeted any other group it systematically kept the low group oppressed. Interestingly enough it was the middle group that rarely got any attention. A lot of the participant caught on to the game really fast, we even had a girl who revolted and went to jail because she did not want to take part in the system. It was a good activity to remind educators how this system of oppression has manifested itself and how it is being perpetuated. I just wanted to put in a quote that David Kirkland used “To imagine new ways of being is to already begin to act differently upon the world.”

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In the breakout session I decided to participate in a workshop lead by Crystal Belle called “Between the Beats: Finding and Creating Stories in Hip-Hop Music”. As a high school teacher she showed us how she incorporated Hip Hop in to her English class and how it can be used as a powerful tool to self-reflect, spur conversation about social issues, as well as covering some key writing elements. Some of the songs she had us listening to were : All That I Got Is You (by Ghostface Killah and Mary J. Blige), Juicy (By Biggie Smalls) and Lost Ones (By Lauryn Hill). These were some of the essential questions she had us thinking about

1. Why is important for young people to tell their own stories?

2. How does my environment play a role in the development of my idenity?

3. What elements of storytelling can be discovered in Hip Hop music?

This is Crystal Belle blog: crystalbellepoet.blogspot.com
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The last session I took part in was a lecture by Marcella Runell Hall, “Foundation 2: Hip-Hop, Critical Pedagogy & Social Justice Education”. I knew Marcella prior to this training series through the Multicultural Center for Educations and Program (CMEP), and I had known about her work on Hip Hop Education but it was great to see her talk about one of her passion and hear about all of it again it more detail. Marcella gave us a Hip Hop 101 lesson by looking at its history, hip-hop culture, hip-hop generation, and really looking at how to use Hip Hop as the foundation for teaching Social Justice Education. Marcella addressed many issues that overlapped with what he have been discussing in class such as the different levels of oppression, individual, internal, institutional, conscious, and unconscious. But she talked about Critical Pedagogy, as the process with which can be looked as “habits to thoughts, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning … to understand the deep meaning ... and personal consequence”, she talked about teaching students to engage in the “why?” even though there might not be an answer.

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Here are some recommended reading ...

1. Education for Critical Consciousness (By Paoulo Frieie)
2. Critical Race Theory (By Richard Delgado)
3. Theater of the Oppressed (By Agusto Boal)



2 comments:

  1. I also attended this conference and don't want to repeat what others have said, but it was powerful and I highly recommend everyone going next year. I went to a seminar that taught us how to do "test prep" with high schoolers by having them create rap. One student performed a rap demonstrating an understanding of the SAT vocabulary word "inured." He defined the word and expressed what the word meant to him, which put the word in a social justice context. I was blown away. He talked about people becoming "inured" to all the murders that went on in his community.
    I was also impressed by the community of people this conference attracted. Everyone there was excited and enthusiastic about reaching out to people who had previously been ignored by the school system, and they were open to new ideas and experiences. It made a huge impression on me when I discovered someone who participated with me in one session actually presented in the next! I couldn't tell at all - he just became one of the group to learn more even though he was already a leader in the field of hip hop education. To me, that says a lot about the character of the people who are involved in this project.

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