Response to at least TWO Classmates

Help me study for my Writing class. I’m stuck and don’t understand.

• Your response to your classmate should be 150-200 words long and be more than “I agree” or “I like what you said.” Engage in conversation!

Discussion one;

Loves main argument is that we are “murdering” the hopes of African American kids and kids who learn through hip hop. Hip hop sensibility is what Love called it and she said that it has predictors that lead to success in the future. Some of the predictors for success was having grit, optimism, social and emotional intelligence, improvisation, and curiosity. These all sounded like hip hop in Love’s eyes. These kids are placed in special education classes and kicked out of their classes for being disruptive but in their heads, they are creating beats. Even worse, some of these kids are getting killed on the streets. Teachers need to figure out a way on how to communicate efficiently and teach them in a matter where both parties are happy and learning. Also, she wants to state that these children will not thrive in a place where there is racism, bigotry, and hate are present. And unfortunately, that has been the United States since before 1776. Love’s firsthand experience with the kids and seeing how they learn through the use of hip hop makes her a perfect candidate to be talking about this topic. Hip hop should be seen as more than just thug music, it’s actually beautiful.

The three specific details that support her thesis is when she compared the success predictors to hip hop with the first being having social and emotional intelligence. Love stated, “Rapping requires social and emotional intelligence to know when to go and have to be actively listening”. When specifically, in a rap circle, you must be paying attention and listening to what is being said. In response, you add on to the rap song. This takes having social and emotional intelligence to know when it is appropriate. Love also said “Hip hop is grit. Being African American is based off grit”. Grit is exactly what African Americans have been through in the past couple of years. They know what it takes to have the whole world against you but the will power to keep moving. Lastly, she talks about improvisation. A group of freestyle rappers had their brains analyzed and what was found was amazing. “These freestyle rappers’ frontal cortex was moving at amazing speeds”. The frontal cortex oversees motor functions, problem solving, spontaneity, memory and many more. This means that kids are sitting in classrooms everyday with ability to do this but will never access it because teachers do not have the means to correctly educate them.

I think her audience is teachers and fellow educators. But it is not limited to them. Love is calling out anyone in a position of authority who directly work with children under certain limitations. Anyone that could potentially make an impact in these children’s lives. For example, police officers, lunch workers, bus drivers, camp counselors and many more. I think her purpose is to make a call to fellow educators to engage in a different way of teaching. Love wants educators to be open minded and try to see things from a different perspective than their own. That way they can teach these kids instead of turning them away. Unfortunately, due to societal norms, these children will be constantly pushed into special education classes and out of schools because of being misinterpreted. Thousands of kids are lacking access to potentially unlocking this hidden gem in their brains but because of the lack of recognition of these abilities, they will never. All in all, Love wants people to start looking at hip hop differently. Maybe to try even incorporating it in teaching or communicating with students. Education should not be a one size fits all because it is not. Our country is so diverse that there is no possible way that everyone learns the same.

My biggest AHA moment from Love’s speech is that at this school where there are placing emphasis on culture and education and they are seeing nothing but successful rates. I find that extremely fascinating and important. It is showing results and we should absolutely follow suit due to all the current events. It stuck with me because Love brought up Treyvon Martin and his murder. He was using all his emotional and social intelligence to try to avoid this person and yet he was murdered in cold blood. This was an important case to me because he was found with only skittles in his pocket. Skittles being a representation to me of his youthfulness and all that was potentially lost. All because of his “thuggish, hip hop appearance”. He was only a child fighting for his life and maybe if he had been given different opportunities, maybe through hip hop, he could have been potentially saved. This case also began a waterfall affect leading to 2020. In the United States, in 2020, an African American person has been killed everyday by police officers. All of this is due to racism, hate and bigotry and in this country, under a certain leadership, it has become perfectly okay.

Love’s claims connect with the Ted talk made by Angela Lee Duckworth. Duckworth claimed in her Ted talk that Grit was passion and perseverance for your long-term goals. It was also the stamina and sticking to the future. Grit was the constant effort you put to get to where you want to be. That is exactly what hip hop is. Every person who dreams about becoming a rapper will definitely have to stick to their dream and be constantly put through the ringer. All in hopes of maybe, potentially making it big. They must have grit or else, at the first no they get, they will become discouraged. Love’s speech also reminded me and connected to First Generation. Dontay to be more specific. I felt like he was probably just a kid who needed a different approach to education and when he realized he needed help, and he went out and obtained it, he began to do better. He ended up graduating from college when he could of easily have fallen back into the pre molded stereotype. Overall, I felt like Love connected to all of the readings we have done with education and even in my current book, ‘Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?’ by Beverly Tatum.

Discussion two:

Question 1

The main argument is hip-hop culture amongst elementary students and how it connects them. Dr. Love claims how children who learn through Hip-hop culture are overlooked and therefore don’t know any other way to express themselves or gain information. She further claims that despite being ignored as a different means to learning for some students, Hip-hop culture connects the black American students without them even knowing it. It was demonstrated to the audience when she mentioned a scenario where dancers and rappers know when their turn to rap or dance even if they are not familiar with one another. Dr. Love called this social and emotional intelligence where a student with zero background or training to music can be so gifted and original that they can use any unconventional rap music and turn it into something spectacular.

Question 2

The key factors that support Dr. Love’s argument are social and emotional intelligence, Improvisation, and Grit.

Social and emotional intelligence. A student who has no experience whatsoever of producing music, let alone education, can be creative and original. Because of this God-given intelligence, they can rap music from drum sticks, their mouth to produce beats and words from their heads without preparation or even thinking about it. This is incredible because the music they have created came from the spur of the moment, which end up being original. These students can do this because of how they learn and how they see the world, and that is through hip-hop culture. Scary Regina called this Hip-hop sensibility where students can know what to do without even thinking.

Grit. This is when a student exhibits courage and action to achieve their desired goal despite their difficulties that they may face and can make it a reality in the end.

Improvising. Students can come up with ideas and make it a success without so much as preparation. Dr. Love mentions a study where they experimented on these students, and they were able to find out that their pre-frontal lobe is what helped them achieve their goal without even thinking about it. The pre-frontal lobe was where emotion, language, and motivation were developed for these individuals.

Question 3

Dr. Love’s audience seems to be parents and teachers who are also prominent influencers to students and their curricular activities. Dr. Bettina Love’s mission is to educate her audience to be more involved and supportive of their children or students to engage in different activities that help them grasp school learning. Her mission is to educate her audience on how Hip-hop brings together students who don’t know each other and of different backgrounds and joins them together through dance or rap music. She further adds that hip-hop culture is embedded in African American’s DNA since it came to be trough many past generations. Because hip-hop has been commercialized and corrupted, society has deemed hip-hop culture unfit for academic purposes. Therefore, Dr. Love claims that this has made students lack motivation and drive to pursue what they identify with because they were told it is not good enough. Yet, many black Americans have been able to use that same hip-hop culture to make money out of it.

Question 4

My aha moment was when Dr. Bettina Love mentioned how we, as guardians and society have crush students’ dreams and talents. Without even knowing it just because their culture does not relate to what they are supposed to learn in school. Another aha moment was when Dr. Love mentioned that student learning differently does not mean that they are flawed. She gave an example of how a school named Kindezi used this different hip-hop culture to produce the most performing student in fifth grade just because the school put the student’s culture first above all else. I think my aha moment was vital to me because I did not believe for a moment that we were crushing our kids by not allowing them to embrace the culture that is in their DNA. Yet, we are supposed to guide and understand them despite their apparent differences to grasp ideas. I also think that believing in our children, showing them the right path while embracing their hip-hop culture does more good than harm. Finally, let us refrain from being too closed-minded regarding student learning different from what we are used to because embracing their originality is what enables them to be creative.

Question 5

Dr. Love’s claim on how students who identify with hip-hop are ignored or are not taken seriously connects with my previous video, pedagogy of the oppressed. This is where just like her claim that students who see the world through hip-hop culture are ignored, the oppressed video’s pedagogy shows us how the oppressor is trying to condition the oppressed to follow a set of rules. This pedagogy of the oppressed video enabled us to see how those who accepted the set conditions were accepted into the group of the oppressors but were not allowed to share their insights on how things were done else they would be kicked out. Therefore, Dr. Love’s video on how students are shunned for viewing the world differently through hip-hop culture relates to the oppressor’s pedagogy where the oppressed are shunned and ignored for not following the rules that are set forth by the oppressors.