Growing up I always loved listening to hip-hop music, but I didn’t really understand it as a genre until I started taking hip-hop dance classes. I think this speaks to the part in Petchauer’s (2015, p. 86) article that “hip-hop is fundamentally participatory” and requires people to do something whether it’s making graffiti art, music or dance. I danced both hip-hop and ballet and I really identified with the part of the article about the “crooked line” (p. 86) Hip-hop is truly a dance style that screams individuality whereas moves in ballet are more successful when the moves happen uniformly with people having similar body structure and dancing styles. Not to say there is anything wrong with ballet I love it just the same, however the individual aspect of hip-hop is why the genre fits so well with education and curriculum. As educators we can take what hip-hop teaches us about the sampling, layering, flow, graffiti, crooked line etc. and bring this into the curriculum. It is important to teach these concepts, perhaps do a hip-hop dance and music unit to start. Therefore, Students can be exposed to hip-hop through the arts and learn how the arts can translate to other subjects like math, science and language. Hip-hop in education gives students the chance to be expressive and would definitely engage all types of learners.
In my experience I have yet to move hip-hop education out of the arts. However through teaching hip-hop lessons in schools or at community centers one thing I do know is that as a dance form hip-hop really helps my students build their confidence and learn about movement at the same time. I would like to experiment with graffiti art and getting students to make their own hip-hop tracks based on science or social studies content.
In my experience I have yet to move hip-hop education out of the arts. However through teaching hip-hop lessons in schools or at community centers one thing I do know is that as a dance form hip-hop really helps my students build their confidence and learn about movement at the same time. I would like to experiment with graffiti art and getting students to make their own hip-hop tracks based on science or social studies content.
References
Emery Petchauer (2015) Starting with style: Toward a second wave of hip-hop education research and practice,” Urban Education, 50(1), 78–105.
Emery Petchauer (2015) Starting with style: Toward a second wave of hip-hop education research and practice,” Urban Education, 50(1), 78–105.