Teaching a Hip-hop Ecology
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Teaching a Hip-hop Ecology
Sociologist Michael J Cermak’s article, teaching a hip-hop ecology, discusses the author’s acquired knowledge while teaching environmental science with hip-hop in urban public high schools. This paper summarizes the article outlines the strong point of the author’s writing.
The author’s suggestion in the article is that formulating rap songs by students could in various ways aid in teaching about the environment. When the author was teaching about the environment, he formulated his tunes in raps and similarly told his students to formulate raps and poetry to show what they have learned in the classroom (Cermak, 2012). I agree with the author’s technique because it will be both entertaining and a process, students can enjoy their learning. Similarly, introducing rap and rhymes in learning proves to be removing boredom in classes completely.
The author realized an immense ignorance of the environmental concerns because his students could not explain plainly what global warming is or what greenhouse was, and they could not explain organic food (Cermak, 2012). This suggestion is proper because students ignore so many crucial details that could affect them directly, such as ignorance of the environmental subject, including its effects such as pollution.
One of his students influenced the author’s teaching method who questioned him even without raising his hand. For this reason, the author change and questions how people from different cultures and races produce various forms of environmental knowledge. Eventually, the author planned to bring in hip-hop, poetry, and Marvin Gaye to the classroom to spark new lessons on how nature, race, and social justice fit together. This method, I believe, is useful for learning about our environment. For example, Mos Def tries to awaken the listener’s knowledge on how our national resources are similar to our society points out that the legacy of slavery can pollute it. This point is outlined in Mos Def’s song in 1999, entitled New World Water.
The raps and songs by soul singers and hip hop emcees have strong, loud messages to the author’s students because they can speak and address the tensions between race and nature. Hence the author describes hip hop ecology as the broad practice of blending the dominant rational and scientific discourse on the environment with musical and lyrical forms (Cermak, 2012). I believe this is a significant discovery the author has outlined. Consequently, the author suggests that hip-hop ecology in classrooms can prove to emphasize the skill of lending disparate discourses into a synchronous whole.
The author agrees that hip-hop formulation would better prepare students to discuss in-depth social discussions of our science for minutes they spend alone in the classroom. The author furthermore built the songs into a more academic curriculum. The author’s songs were composed to contain assignments where the students will structure verses to complete the song according to what they had learned.
Creation of their narratives helped bridge more lasting and empowering actions such as setting up school gardens and hosting environmental clean-ups. In his article, Michael says that hip-hop ecology is more into adding songs to an ecological class and thus bringing environmental messages to urban youth of color (Cermak, 2012). The author further proposes the teaching method to be used in revolutionizing ecological crises that might occur at any time.
In conclusion, hip-hop ecology is a proper teaching technique in which students can learn more about their environment better. Thus, the author’s proposed method should be adopted to emit the ignorance present in our society.
References
Cermak, M. J. (2012). Teaching a hip-hop ecology. Contexts, 11(3), 76-79.