The Remix I've Been Waiting For

Let me first start off by saying WOW. After reading Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: The remix, it felt as if I can put a name to what I always preach about in my education classes. Having culturally relevant pedagogy completely changes how you teach in your classrooms. How many times have you heard a classmate say when you were in school, "when are we ever going to use this? or how is this important?". This article is just what you need to understand what it means to teach RELEVANT material. The question is what is culturally relevant material and why must we implement this? According to the article, the key to culturally relevant pedagogy is collective empowerment. It, "reconstructs knowledge for students needs, providing relevant references empower students intellectually, socially and emotionally, and it validates students regardless of race, ethnicity, economic status, or their academic level. It "levels the playing field" if you will. (see what I did there) I believe the word validates is a key word in describing culturally relevant pedagogy. It creates an environment where students are able to resonate with the material and are present in the material. After reading the article I realized this connects to my practicum seminar in regards to what our responsibilities are as educators. We are responsible for our students to, "develop their literacy, numeracy, technological, social, and political skills to be active participants in society" (Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 15). If we want our students to be active participants in society, we must empower our students to recognize the "powerful voices of those who are generally overlooked in the texts and curriculum of American Education; [this] welcomes students' voices, demands their reflection, and pushes them towards the discovery of self" (Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 14). 

                             A way we can empower our students is by developing their critical literacy by connecting to relevant topics that they are able to connect with. This was a huge YES moment for me. The article refers to Ernest Morell and how they were able to connect a classic poem with a hip hop song which would then be analyzed, have a written analysis, response writing and composing (18).  I agree with this idea of pulling something that they are extremely familiar with and being able to show them the relevance of poetry and the role it plays in creating our current songs they hear on the radio. This is a great way to bring in different voices, and then connect it to an even larger level of how pop culture music affects their conceptions of themselves and their social world (18). There are so many voices that are left out of the curriculum that can be connected to many different pop culture references.

An example of this could be connected to the Colin Kapernick explosion after Nikes face of their new campaign is the 'disgraceful 49er's football player who dared to take a knee during the national anthem'. Encouraging students to look at the many different perspectives of all players involved including many different high schools who are participating in the movement of kneeling during the national anthem, can create an even larger conversation for example:

• Why is he kneeling?
• Are his actions patriotic?
• Why would Nike use this campaign as a political statement?
• Is Nike using this in an ethical way?
• Do you support his efforts? Why or why not?

The list goes on and on. But the main take away is that they are able to take something extremely relevant in their world and bring it into a more analytical, reflective and create a moment to have response writing on a topic that tackles the hard conversations of racism and police brutality we are facing in America. If you cannot tell by now, I completely resonated with these articles and annotated several times 'YES!'. Knowing your students backgrounds and being "culturally immersed" as they put it, changes the entire dynamic of your classroom and creates an open learning environment that becomes more student centered to their own benefit.