If "We" Ruled the World, Imagine That: The HEART of Ethnic Studies and Hip-Hop Pedagogy

• In Event: You Know How We Do It: Hip-Hop Pedagogy in the Classroom, Counseling, and Life

Abstract

Epic lyrics, epic beat, and epic meaning; when Nas and Lauryn HIll’s “If I ruled the world,” became a hit, it became the anthem to many, especially those of us who were educators with an Ethnic Studies background and teachers who were in the classrooms with racially marginalized students from low-income neighborhoods. The image of us, teachers having the power to “free” students who we see as our “sons” and daughters and to be allowed to love them as our own, was neo-revolutionary. And then we returned to our jobs.

We returned to the argument between imagination and complacency, between teaching to the test instead of teaching about justice, between feeding the mind versus the HEART, and sadly, the paycheck often won. This paper utilizes a dialogic approach (Freire, 1970) that puts Ethnic Studies and educational scholars in conversation with hip hop scholars about pedagogy that is necessary to address the historical and current traumas that students of color carry with them as they enter into our classrooms. This paper is focused on presenting the H.E.A.R.T (Healing, Empathy, Appreciation, Responsiveness, and Trust) of where Ethnic Studies and Hip Hop meet. Drawing from the history and research that shows that Ethnic Studies works to boost academic achievement (Hu-Dehart, 1993; Dee & Penner, 2017) of students of color, this paper proposes a discussion on what we can learn from both Ethnic Studies and Hip Hop on how to better serve all students, specially those who are predetermined to be “at-risk” of failure or poor achievement.

Authors

• Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, San Francisco State University

• Gabriel delaCruz, Stihl, Inc