For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy)

by Christopher Emdin

Cogens are simple conversations between the teacher and their students with a goal of co-creating/generating plans of action for improving the classroom.2

the notion that only one MC (rapper) has the mic at a time easily aligns to the cogen requirement that only one person speaks at a time.

Cogens, in their purest form, are structured dialogues about the inner workings of the social field participants coinhabit.

Students who populate urban schools are generally beholden to a “pedagogy of poverty” that rewards them for being docile and punishes them for being overly vocal or expressive.

teachers often give students good grades for being “nice and quiet” at the expense of ensuring that they are learning.

For cogen sessions, particularly the first one, it is imperative that the teacher ensures that the initial group of students is not homogeneous.

research in education that shows that humor in the classroom creates less threatening social scenarios and makes students more comfortable communicating with the teacher.

Ideally, during the cogen, there is music playing in the backdrop (like in a rap cypher) that provides a rhythm to the conversation and creates a classroom ambiance that promotes dialogue.

have food available

only “one mic.”

the dialogue leads to a cogenerated/agreed upon plan of action that everyone who is a part of the dialogue must work toward when they return to the classroom.

The rules should be given to students in the most succinct version possible: • No voice is privileged over another, or, “Everybody eats, everybody speaks.” • One person speaks at a time; or “one mic.” • The cogen results in a plan of action for improving the classroom.

and easily answered one. Some examples of dialogue topics that are suitable for the first dialogue and that lend themselves to the initial engagement of all students are • suggestions of something the teacher can do within the first or last five minutes of the next class to either open or close the lesson; • identification of a good/positive practice that the teacher enacts in the classroom that he/she can do more often; and • identification of a practice all students in the cogen group can collectively do (including the teacher) to engage the students in the next class.

cogens meet regularly

Allowing the students to teach their own class became the solution for me, and is as great a strategy for black professors who teach white students in the Ivy League as it is for white folks who teach in the hood.

the optimal way for youth language and experience to be used as a teaching tool involves having the youth themselves do the teaching. For this to happen, students have to be seen as teachers. By this I mean that students in traditional K–12 schools have to be viewed as partners with the adults who are officially charged with the delivery of content and be seen/named/treated as fellow teachers or coteachers.

In fact, coteaching, despite its potential as a transformative

academic tool, has done little to close achievement gaps or make neoindigenous youth feel like part of the teaching and learning process.

I propose a reality pedagogy–based version of coteaching.

This may require positioning the traditional teacher as a student in the classroom. Coteaching within reality pedagogy involves the transfer of student/teacher roles so that everyone within the classroom can gain the opportunity to experience teaching and learning from the other’s perspective. Furthermore, it requires a redistribution of power in the classroom that returns to the essence of teaching—privileging the voice of the student.

their credentials and degrees are now given very little value when compared to the lived experiences of the students.

Coteaching is a natural outgrowth of the educational cypher. Ideally, coteaching is implemented in the classroom after a cycle of cogen sessions has taken place with a group of students.

a student once stood up in the class without being called on, walked to the front of the classroom, grabbed the marker from the teacher, and began teaching when she thought he was being ineffective. When situations like this happen, the reality pedagogue knows that it is the responsibility of the teacher to simply move out of the way and allow the student to teach. In another classroom in this traditional urban school, walking up to the front of the class and interrupting the teacher in this way would be considered threatening, disruptive, or disrespectful. However, when coteaching is established in the classroom, students are encouraged to take ownership of their learning process.

cogens focus on developing plans of action for improving the classroom, and coteaching involves the expansion of the role of the student to include that of teacher, cosmopolitanism, as it is enacted in reality pedagogy, focuses on developing deep connections among students across differences such as race, ethnicity, gender, and academic ability as they work to ensure that they move collectively toward being socially, emotionally, and physically present and committed to the classroom they share.

Nice summary of cogens, coteaching, cosmopolitanism.

cogens focus on developing plans of action for improving the classroom, and coteaching involves the expansion of the role of the student to include that of teacher, cosmopolitanism, as it is enacted in reality pedagogy, focuses on developing deep connections among students across differences such as race, ethnicity, gender, and academic ability as they work to ensure that they move collectively toward being socially, emotionally, and physically present and committed to the classroom they share.

CSS does cosmopolitanism and so now we are doing the rest. Were starting with cogens. After that let's move to coteaching.

teachers do at the end of the school year. They start speaking to students like they are people, and even ask their opinions about what the class should do in terms of trips and end-of-year celebrations. When this happens, glimmers of a cosmopolitan classroom naturally emerge. In response, the students react differently and the teacher begins to engage them on a new level.

goal for the teacher is to create a classroom environment where

collectiv...

celebration, and ca...

are present in the ...

Speaking the Students’ Language

utilizing call-and-response

reciting sayings that support collectively overcoming challenges,

using phrases that support being resilient in the face of both personal and ...

it is natural that the cosmopolitan educator uses hip-hop music as a tool to connect to youth, and as an archive of call-and-response phrases. For example, a classic hip-hop lyric like “Can I proceed?” followed by the response “Yes indeed” can positively transform classrooms. For example, if a teacher is delivering a lesson and stops to say, “Can I proceed?” and then waits for the entire class to respond with, “Yes indeed,” this allows the students to feel a connection to the teacher (because of his or her use of the phrase) and to see that the teacher is concerned with ensuring that all students understand what is being taught. The fact that the phrase is from hip-hop allows youth to see that neoindigenous culture is welcome in the classroom and the fact that the phrase is repeated by all, brings the entire class together under the banner of hip-hop. Another set of hip-hop call-and-response phrases that I have seen used in cosmopolitan classrooms are All for one followed by One for all, and I will not lose, followed by a repetition of the same phrase. All for one and One for all are used in cosmopolitan classrooms at times when a student is at the board solving a problem and feels like he or she needs help. The student who is solving the problem yells out, “All for one,” and anyone in the classroom who is willing to help responds by saying, “One for all.” The student who is having a tough time at the board then enlists the support of his or her peer. This process, where n...

cosmo duo

The process is based on the belief that if two students ensure that they are both supported academically, and if these duos exist among students across the classroom (particularly if they are students who traditionally underperform in school), the possibilities for a classroom where youth are deeply committed to each other’s learning are endless.

Let students know that those who are strong in content will have their test scores increased by the same number of points as their partner who is weaker in content. This next step in enacting the cosmo duos in the classroom focuses on giving grades and classroom credit for students who successfully help their peers do better academically. More specifically, if a student who had a test score of 55 on a test receives a grade of 65 after being partnered up with a peer who scored a 90 on the same test, the test score of the student with a 90 increases to 100.

it is important for youth to know and see that everyone can be an expert and/or need help as the class moves from one topic to another.

The implementation of cosmo duos stands in complete opposition to the traditional corporate classroom. The traditional classroom focuses on individual success and singular outcomes rather than on the more complex but communal aspects through which the neoindigenous measure success.

Cosmopolitanism, when understood and implemented in the classroom, looks to re-create the family structure one would find in a street gang but in a positive socioemotional context.

classroom handshake

Why appropriate the handshake. There are infinite other rituals that don’t carry that baggage that can be formed.

Sociologists describe

shared cultural knowledge as social capital.

there are three basic steps to fully learning about, and engaging with, students’ context.

The first involves being in the same social spaces with the neoindigenous, the second is engaging with the context, and the third is making connections between the out-of-school context and classroom teaching.

In the neoindigenous classroom, collective effervescence is reached when the joy of teaching matches the joy of learning and a truly cosmopolitan space is created.

Given the cultural divides between the neoindigenous and traditional schools, schooling becomes a stressor that the neoindigenous must endure, even though it inflicts tremendous symbolic violence on them.

This process helps us to reimagine how the neoindigenous learn.

There is a concerning "othering" by the author.

I suggest that educators implement a teaching and learning model that positions novices as no different from experts.

I like this!