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

The teacher must impress upon the students that if the established “rules of engagement” are violated by any member of the group (for example if one person dominates the dialogue or is not respectful of another member), the cogen group is collectively responsible for addressing the issue. This is the case even if the person who violates the rules is the teacher. To address the violation of the rules of engagement in a respectful manner and to ensure that no person feels outnumbered or alienated by the group, all dialogues within the cogen adhere strictly to the neoindigenous “one mic” philosophy of hip-hop/rap cyphers. For example, when rappers perform to and for each other in cyphers, they engage with a general understanding that no voice is privileged. Participants have equal opportunities to rap, and one person at a time holds the mic (whether an actual microphone or an imaginary one). Phrases like “one mic,” used in everyday neoindigenous interactions, establish for the students that the cogen is not an extension of the traditional classroom but a dynamic learning space that reimagines what happens in schools.