This blog contains comments from EDUCATORS who find themselves on the front lines of a war that has been waged against public education across this nation since the landmark decision in 1954 of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka. Herein are the thoughts of Educators who serve young people across America today. While the daily challenges to increase student achievement have been discussed in circles across this nation, few of those voices include those who are the true soldiers in this battle to educate young people.
The lessons taught to students, present and past and their reactions to various assignments, can serve as a mini-lesson for those adults who are responsible for raising children. We are particularly concerned with those students who are being raised in one of the many poor and segregated urban centers across this nation. This blog serves as an authentic assessment of where our young people are in relation to what is expected of them and it will enable the reader to visit the urban classroom to gain insight into....THE CHRONICLES OF AN URBAN EDUCATOR....
My long-term goals are for my students to connect literature to life, but knowing how limited their experiences outside of the stereotypical urban drama are (crime, unemployment, lack of education), it becomes difficult for an educator to find positive connections for students to relate to. However, I was determined to teach poetry, the use of rhyme schemes, stanzas, and sound devices. Therefore, I decided to connect this with the music they are accustomed to listening to - rap and hip/ hop. Many of my students only think of rap music as lyrics without poetic merit, yet some rappers (i.e. Eminem, Li’l Wayne, and a few others) are very crafty in weaving together (mostly non sense) with poetic structure.
When I presented my students with an excerpt from “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe as an example of poetry that utilizes all of the elements I needed them to understand, I was literally staring into a sea of blank faces. When I played a portion of “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, however, (had to use the CD because the children were not going to catch on by “reading” the lyrics) faces lit up like Christmas trees. After another ten to fifteen minutes of explaining how both examples exemplified the lesson, the pistons started to fire and my students finally “got it.”
In the past I have taken days even a week to teach a lesson on poetry, but this year, I decided to do the lesson in one day and chance the outcome. The result? Beautiful two stanza poems created by the students with rhyme scheme and the use of at least two sound devices. “Ah- Ha”, right? Wrong! Because the problem with this is the student is learning by receiving quick bursts of information, and if they can’t retain what they have learned over the course of a fifty five minute period, how much do you think will be retained over the course of an entire school year?
Over the course of 4 years, how much do students really retain?
