Imagining a world of learning through music and love

About the Authors

How does this project relate to your own educational experience?

Hector Morales

4th year Sociology major

I grew up in Los Angeles in the Adams-Normandie area and attended a low-income charter school in South Central. In my k-12 education experince, I learned many facts that were not relevant to my experiences nor did it reflect the type of community that I am familar with. I did not have the opportunity to learn more about Hip Hop or topics that connected with me until college. One thing that I wish I could have learned during my k-12 years is the ability to connect my own experiences to academic activites like poetry and essay writing. Through this project we hope to recognize and acknowledge the importance of having students love their community by having their cultue be reflected in academics to foster continous learning.

Sindy De La Rosa

4th year Education major concentration in Community Leadership, Social Justice, and Policy

I grew up in the Inland Empire in Rialto Ca attending mostly low-income schools and predominantly Latinx. My educational experience, like many others attending schools with similar demographics as mine share my experience. Growing up in communities with heavy gang violence and poor resources, it was even harder to be able to relate to the curriculum being taught in classrooms. This mostly had to with the fact that my lived experiences and realities weren't being reflected in the classroom. Looking back I realized I hardly learned how to think critically or question what I was learning. What we aim to address in our project through this website is to emphasize the importance of empowering students through cultural relevancy and application of critical consciousness through love and Hip Hop.

Why should we care about

Love and Hip Hop?

Our topic is centered around highlighting the development of critical consciousness in schools by using Hip Hop and Love as a gateway to academic motivation and achievement for marginalized students. Our project is an attempt to explain how implementing the pedagogy of love and the pedagogy of hip hop as one in the classroom can support the development of critical consciousness.
The pedagogy of love is understanding love as a driving political force. It is described to counter oppressive dehumanizing institutions that have historically disempowered the epistemologies of communities of color contributing to helplessness.
Educators will have the tools to deliberately activate the critical consciousness and empowerment in students to create future change makers in the classroom through love and music. It is impossible to show love and respect for students without engaging in ways that reflect their world.
By using culturally relevant hip hop pedagogy and through the practice of building humanizing relationships in the classroom through the pedagogy of love, we hope to reimagine learning.

Addressing Concepts in the Classroom

What is Critical Consciousness?

Critical Consciousness is the ability to recognize and analyze systems and institutions of inequity, how they perpetuate social injustices, and how we can strive to take actions against these systems. The development of critical consciousness in schools specifically can serve as a gateway to academic motivation and achievements for marginalized students.

Critical consciousness becomes an essential skill for students as it develops:

critical analysis- knowledge about systems and structure that create and sustain inequity
sense of agency- sense of power to uplift and empower marginalized communities and student
critical action- take action against the oppressive and discriminatory conditions

In education it is defined by scholar Paulo Freire as the ability to "intervene in reality in order to change it". It is used as the analysis and understanding that is inclusive of the relationships between power, privilege, domination, and oppression.

What is Culturally Relevant Pedagogy?

Culturally relevant or responsive pedagogy is grounded in teachers' displaying cultural competence or skill at teaching in a cross-cultural or multicultural setting. The main principles of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in the classroom include: Identity Development, Equity and Excellence, Developmental Appropriateness, Teaching the Whole Child, Student-Teacher Relationships, and Manage Student Emotions.

Application of CRP in the classroom:

Students are engaged in class material because they are empowered by seeing their culture being reflected in academic practices.
A curriculum or a unit that incorporates Hip Hop in a mainstream poetry lesson allows students to make meaningful connections through creative writing (Morrell & Duncan-Andrade).

What is Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy?

Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy (CHHP) is used as a culturally relevant and sustaining practice that centers the lived experiences of students instead of using deficit frameworks. CHHP challenges dominant forms of hegemonic and authoritarian teaching practices by using CHHP to identify, examine, and critically analyze issues in their community. It allows for teachers to use their knowledge of hip hop as a tool for social justice in the classroom.

By using CHHP in the classroom it allows for youth participatory action by centralizing race and oppression and challenging academia.
It can be used to discuss the experiences of students of color by highlighting the richness in the experiential knowledge of students of color, and lastly having a transdisciplinary approach.

What is Pedagogy of Love?

The Pedagogy of Love is a term coined by Paulo Freire, defined as to assuage the suffering of the oppressed but also focused on waking the people to fight for justice to reivent the world. Pedagogy of love in practice can create a sentimental exchange between students and teachers, but also an intentional spritual act of consciousness that cemreges from social experiences.

The pedgaogy of love is used to create conditions for students to engage in the experiences of seeing themselves as creative people capable of love.
Educational practices powered by radical love can create conditions where students can critically explore and enhance their individual expression in the classrooom

For Hip Hop and the Pedagogy of Love, students can bring their knowledge to express themselves through lessons that support the development of critical consciousness. Love emerges from social participation and political commitment to the transformation of our lives. When love is embedded in practices (like hip hop) it allows for students to pursue their desires, interests and full potential.

What are the relationships between these concepts?

Critical Hip Hop pedagogy, the Pedagogy of Love, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and the skill of fostering a critical consciousness are all concepts that are necessary to empower students.

The Pedagogy of Love humanizes teaching by having the student's culture be a source of empowerment.
By using the pedagogy of love as a source of empowerment, it serves to disrupt the authoritarian teaching practice that is normally used in classrooms.
Culturally Responsive teaching is then used to disrupt the deficit perspective in curriculum and teaching that affects students of color.
Once combining Critical Hip Hop pedagogy and cultural relevancy, students are engaged to think critically through music and lyrical analysis to critique social, economic, and political circumstances .
Students are motivated in the classroom using Hip hop, because it is a form of popular culture. Hip Hop music has roots as a politicizing force aimed at critically analyzing power structures.
Using Hip Hop in the classroom is intentional. Educators are showing their students in the classroom that they come from communities of strength and aid students in growing a deep love for social justice, while awakening their critical consciousness.

Model of Different Levels of Oppression

The image displayed above is a visual from the "Diversity Toolkit: A Guide to Discussing Identity, Power and Privilege" created by the School of Social Work at USC. This image will be used to help us understand how different individuals experience different levels of oppression. We use this model through our analyses of different Hip Hop songs in the next section.

Click on the button below for more information

USC Diversity Tool kit website

Opression and discrimination occurs at different levels as shown in the visual to the left. These levels are reinforced by societal/cultural norms, institutional biases, interpersonal interactions and individual practices and beliefs.

Below are examples of each individual level:

- Individual — feelings, beliefs, values.
- Interpersonal — actions, behaviors and language.
- Institutional — legal system, education system, public policy, hiring practices, media images.
- Societal/Cultural — collective ideas about what is “right.”

Praxis: Explaining How Songs Discuss Oppression And Discrimination

I Love Myself "i"

by Kendrick Lamar

This is a song of empowerment and communal uplift for urban communities affected by violence, poverty, and opposition to the "mainstream" and deficit perspective society has on these communities. The lyrics give contexts of harsh realities of an individual/interpersonal experience. This song can be used to discuss how feelings, values, beliefs, and behaviors are affected by internalized societal oppression.

Pig Feet

by Denzel Curry

A song that critiques police law enforcement and brutality against brown and black communities. Students can listen to this song and analyze the lyrics that speak about social injustices against particular groups. This song can be used to explain the societal/cultural forms of oppression and discrimination that many brown and black students experience.

They Schoolz

by Dead Prez

This song criticizes how the educational system does not support the experiences of black and brown communities. The song lyrics talk about teachers telling students "white man lies," meaning oppression and subordination preventing students from gaining critical thinking skills. This song can be used to describe opposition to institutional oppression as a form of a counter narrative source against the master narrative that schools impose on vulnerable communities of color.

Praxis as a form of Liberation

These songs can be utilized and discussed in the classroom to understand the ongoing issues and acts of discrimination that students face.
By incorporating these songs, students from communities of strength can learn to love their culture by seeing it in practice through class activities/discussions.

This website can be used as a resource for educators, teachers, parents, students etc. to include as a form of social justice centered curriculum through the use of music in the classroom or educational setting.

CONCLUSION

Overall, this project is meant to demonstrate how Hip Hop pedagogy and Pedagogy of Love can both work together to foster critical consciousness in the classroom for students that from culturally rich and strong communities. We did this by looking at how a handful of songs can be used in the classroom, which can help students understand the complex and ongoing issues that persist in their everyday lives. By doing this it can motivate students to participate in class activities such as poetry that incorporates Hip Hop elements and Love for one's culture. It is important to acknowledge the students experience and expertise through Love and Hip Hop because it set's the student for success to hone in on critical thinking skills.

References

Akom, A. A. (2009). Critical hip hop pedagogy as a form of liberatory praxis. Equity & Excellence in Education, 42(1), 52-66.

Darder, A. (2017). Pedagogy of love: Embodying our humanity. The critical pedagogy reader, 95-109.

Graves, D. A., Kelly, L. L., & McArthur, S. A. (2020). Introduction: Teaching for Critical Consciousness at the Intersection of Critical Media Literacy and Hip Hop Education. The International Journal of Critical Media Literacy, 2(1), 1-8.

McLaren, P. (2015). Critical pedagogy: A look at the major concepts. Critical Quest.

Morrell, E., & Duncan-Andrade, J. M. (2002). Promoting academic literacy with urban youth through engaging hip-hop culture. English journal, 88-92.

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