Why would I invite an ex-gangster to teach with me in my classroom?

Because I'm not one. The reason I would invite an ex-gangster to teach with me is because I've never been property of the government, I didn't have 10 foster moms, I wasn't abused and thrown away, I haven't gang banged and I didn't have to bounce back from a negative childhood of crime, hatred and pain. I can empathize and try to understand, but I will never fully relate to my student's inner thoughts and deepest secrets...I just didn't live it.

I'm me and I'm one hundered percent raw and real in front of my students and they love me for it. I expose my flaws and my insides and I don't pretend to be someone I'm not. I want my students to practise authenticity too.  This is why I struggled with grasping how to teach the concepts and skills of hip hop and use it to deliver my message.  I redid my classroom and bought the dj equiptment...then what? I'm not a rapper and I'm not a lyrical or visual artist. I don't live the hip hop culture and I wasn't even sure I understood the concept of what I was doing.  What is hip hop? How was I possibly going to pull this off without loosing my authenticity?

my classroom

my studio

I was at my lake cabin this summer and my son had a few friends over.  I walked into my garage and there's this kid, and he's rapping...and he's exceptionally good.  I was immediately drawn to him, mesmorized by his words...the first thing out of my mouth after I shook his hand was, "I think I just found what I didn't know I was searching for".  Long story short, Jay-Jay, a.k.a J-Dub is straight from the streets of Los Vegas and spoke to me immediately about spreading a positive message through lyrics to kids who grew up like him. I know oppurtunity when it presents itself and I immediately brought him on board...right there in my cabin garage.

 J-Dub made his first appearance in my class this week.  He brought with him, Dave, aka Ministry Kid, an ex-gangster, local musician, lyricist, manger, and respected DJ.  Two individuals deeply immersed in our local Hip Hop scene and willing to spread my message of positivity and inspriration through education  and music.  My little voice just got way cooler and much LOUDER.

Through meeting with J-Dub and Ministry Kid, I am starting to see my role in this whole project a little bit clearer.  Hip Hop is an individualized perception of how one sees the world.  It's about telling your story and then redefining yourself to become the person that you truly want to be without being ridiculed for it. Hip Hop is finding your voice, it's about confidence and peer support and positive energy.  It's letting the confident person inside you come out and encouraging others to do the same.  I've seen the new appreciation for language and words that my students all of a sudden have in the face of hiphop.  My non-readers are studying poetry books and reading dictionaries trying to gain a broader understanding of the English language and practising word play, using metaphors.

Let's pause and think about this for a second...my anti-education alternate students are practising metaphors and writing poetry as a hobby. It's extraordinary. This is higher level thinking people. 

The best lyricists are language geniuses.  All of a sudden its super cool to use big words and sound educated when you talk? Genius! Hip Hop is motivational speaking put to a beat. Sure Hip Hop can be negative, like anything else, but with a positive spin and positive leaders, it becomes life changing and inpirational. If my alternate students can preach positivity and talk about changing their lives when they put it to a beat, then my voice just got even LOUDER. 

J-Dub (left) and Ministry Kid

J-Dub shared some of his newset lyrics and beats with my students and he didn't swear once. Apparently it's a choice!  It was interesting that noone in the room had ever met J-Dub, but all of them pulled out their phones to record when he started to spit his rhymes. These kids put rappers on pedestals, and as a teacher I need to embrace that.

One girl commented that we need his CD for our weight room since we often struggle with finding clean rap to pump.  All the kids laughed at this, huge smiles, the hurting cheeks kinda smiles. My students were held captive for a full hour while my guests rapped and preached about supporting eachother to find our voices and speak out against the negativity in which they live. They also touched on all of the avenues available through the Hip Hop world for job employment, and promised on going connections with people in the industry...video editing, fashion design, make-up, film, music, and art. This is what the new era of teaching is all about.  It's about humbling ourselves and admitting we don't know everything.  It's about partnering up with the leading experts in the community to get back to the idea that it takes a community to raise a child.  I am currently looking into numerous other partnerships. 

These Hip Hop boys talked about starting up a sober and positive "bars and beats night" in the school where students could come to free-style in a supportive and encouraging environment with a pass the mic approach. They are going to join me as educators in my classroom every two weeks to keep me on track.  They are going to teach how to count bars and make beats, how to write from your heart, use educated language, and rhyme to your own rhythm. They are going to give us the skills of hip hop and the courage to come out of our heads and rap our thoughts in a song. Girls who I didnt even know were interested in singing raised their hands when they asked about any female vocalists.  I saw true happiness in my students, but most importantly, I saw hope.

Ahhhhh...okay, now I'm starting to get it.  I don't have to become a rap artist or a dj to teach Hip Hop...I already am Hip Hop.  I inspire and I motivate, I tell my perception and my story and I'm raw. I encourage, and I create feeling.  Now it's time to step out of my box and put my inspiration to a beat...if my students 

are going to do it then I will too!  It's super scary!

Our little Education Centre in Chilliwack is carving a new name for itself. It's just the beginning, but this positive Hip Hop culture may just blow up! Watch out Chilliwack...

We are about to implement negative vibe elimination,  reaching out against descrimination through inspirational lyrical creation ...

Now go back and rap that last line I just made up...now rap it into a mic in front of your peers...now listen to your peers cheering you on and telling you how awesome it was, now feel the positive energy...lol, now that's what I'm talking about. 

 

Hip Hop Genius

I only last a couple of years before I start going stir crazy. I need change, I demand change, and I thrive off of it. Like many people I'm sure, when I repeat the same thing over and over, no matter what it is, I start to feel depressive thoughts set in. At the onset of Christmas break this school year, I was literally beating my forehead on my office wall. I didn't want to go into work. No matter what I did, the situation stayed the same. The kids kept getting beaten up by their parents, by their peers, and by society... no matter what I did. My program was awesome, but it was stagnent. They were sucking my positive energy dry. My thought was, "How long can I possibly keep this up before I malfunction? Heart attack? Emotional breakdown? Stress related organ failure?" I was actually having thoughts of leaving teaching all together. I needed change. Luckily, my principal is innovative and constantly revolving as well. In the last six months he recognized my need to redefine myself and my program, and he made me an offer.

My principal introduced me to the world of Hip Hop Genius. Not that I'm a stranger to rap music. I remember quite clearly blasting 'Too Short', 'Spice 1', 'Scarface' and 'Snoop Dogg' loudly from my brand new little black Hyundai all souped up with 20 inch subs, tweeters and a massive amp. I remember drinking, speeding and singing my super naive heart out to the overly degrading lyrics. I didnt give a $#%& back then, and the lyrics I sang let people know that. Today, these are the exact same artists and lyrics that I tell my students to turn off or turn down when I walk into the classroom. Now these rap songs annoy me. I physically feel the insults that are being thrown at women and the negativity that is intertiwned into every verse. As a person, I swear all the time, but I cringe at language that is thrown around in the rap songs. I feel negative and I just want it off.

So now, all of a sudden, I am being challenged to take a look at the world of hip hop through an entirely different lense. Hip Hop Genius is a culture, it's a way of life that encourages creating something out of nothing. It has been mainstreamed and commercialized straight out of the inner city ghettos where kids have had to fight their way to freedom. The message embedded into the hip hop genius culture is that you can make it out no matter what dire circumstances you were born into. I understand why the students that I teach would embrace this hip hop lifestyle. Alot of the rap lyrics do tell my students' own personal stories, they can identify with the negativity, and they love the endless alludence to quick money. How else are they going to make big money? Certainly not working a minimum wage job.

My plan is to take the highschool curriculum and intertwine it with the hip hop world. I want to expose the artists for who they are (and there are ALOT of great positive rap artists) and get the students to understand that the music they listen to is truly defining them. My students are consistently ranting about the 'crooked' government, anarchy, conspiracies and zombie apocalypses...they don't understand that the lyrics they are blasting into their brains all day (while I try to teach) is societal brainwashing at its finest. I want to teach them to use this musical avenue to express and to come to a deeper personal understanding of themselves. The difference is, instead of an essay, a powerpoint, or a fill in the blank questionaire...they will be rapping. Not only just creating the lyrics, but also mixing the beats to accompany them.

Hip Hop infused teaching is not only tapping into their interests, but it is also encouraging them to get out of their own heads. Rap creation is the current school curriculum concepts expressed through journaling, poetry, creative writing, art and music. Hip Hop is expression. It's brilliant really....if it's done tastefully. I have to make this work within the framework of the positive bubble that I teach in. I will never sacrifice my positivity or my famous classroom vibe. I want to take the fun side of hip hop, the poetic side, the personal side, and use it as a teaching tool... without letting in the degrading harshness that engulfs a lot of the rap music world. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against swear words...but only if they are used in the right way, to reinforce. Of course I will let my students use fuck in their rap music....if their lyrics are meaningful and thought provoked. I am highly sensitive to negativity, when I'm around it my body actually tenses up without me realizing it. The kids will learn quite quickly what is, and what is not acceptable.

I love the whole idea of this. I love that I will be using an avenue that my students identify with and are inolved in each and every day, with or without school influence. I love that I can show them a way to take their thoughts and feelings and open them up to the world. I love that I can teach them to identify which lyrics are poisoning their minds and which lyrics are making them stronger. I can teach them to take control and rap their way to a brighter and more positive future. They can change for the better ...and they will.

I have renovated my classroom to feel like a coffee shop sitting in a back alley way. Graffiti will be encouraged. My office has become a recording studio. I have innovative, creative young artists from Chilliwack and Vancouver who have offered to help me begin this journey. I have amazing new mixing and recording equiptment that I have to begin to understand, and I have an entire curriculum overhaul to be made. I am in my element again.... I feel free.

Let's just let our jail system fix it.

On June 13th, 2014, five students in my classroom will graduate from my program and enter the adult world. Every single one of these 5 boys have recently began to emphasize their need to stay in school. They have started panicking. When they leave me in June they have to begin life without the support of their class family. I have been their role model, their positive energy flow, and their stand in parent for years. They are scared of what it means to function without me. This is a legitimate fear as it actually seems like functioning healthily and legally after graduating from my Empowered Program just doesn't happen, or at least it hasn't happened yet. Every single one of my graduates is addicted to drugs or selling them. All of them tried hard for the first few months after graduation, but failed to get a job. The sad part is that every single one of them would happily trade their lives now to come back to the classroom and be supported, and feel successful. This is the complete and devastating truth.


This month I watched this incredible downward spiral unravel before my eyes. A student I recently graduated was coming by the class every single day. He would grab a computer, apply for jobs online, then he would grab resumes and leave hopeful that this was his lucky day. Hopeful that by nightfall, he would have a job. I would encourage him and praise him for his efforts each morning. At first he accepted my kind words, he would smile and step out of the room with a bounce in his step, full of hope. Then slowly he started to doubt that he would ever be hired. His positive hope turned to negative self-talk. He said he didnt think he was smart enough or looked good enough to be hired. He said he had trouble talking to the managers. He needed more help than I could give him. I have a classroom full of students that need me.

Then I noticed that he stopped pulling out the computer. He was still coming around the school in the morning, but he stopped talking about his job hunt. It didnt take us long to figure out he was dealing drugs to the other studnets. It's just too easy. Drugs are rampant in the lives of these kids. This student already spoke the language of the streets, he had the cliental and the product at his fingertips. He needed money and now he has cash in his pocket. Too easy. There are too many for me to consistently support into adulthood.

One parent writes, "My son has struggled through school, right from elementary with no success....his confidence was at an all time low and I let him quit school...he has started Stacey's program and his confidence went from 0-10...he now knows he isnt stupid...his self-worth and attitude have changed from night to day" Another one writes, "My son didn't get out of bed for two years and now his depression and anger are gone, thank-you". Another foster parent writes, "Thank-you so much for saving my child". A text message I received two days ago from a parent of a new student of mine reads, "I am so thank-ful that you have helped my son finally like to go to school. He was definitely not getting much positive reinforcement in the past". I could write pages of parent and guardian quotes that all sound the same. The general message is that they are grateful their children are finally being recognized for their strengths and are finally happy to go to school.

As a post elementary system we are beginning to get the alternate school experience right. This is fantastic. I watch my students flourish before my eyes. While they are with me, I see their confidence build and I see them try to change their negative thoughts and language to positive. I see them start to believe in themselves. Even my student who was born and raised in a remote reserve hours from civilization. This student watched his entire family die. He watched his cousins homes be burned to the ground, he watched his sister learn to live without arms, he was pulled from the drunk driving accident that his parents parished in. He can't even sit in the front seat of my car for fear that people will look at his face. He is so broken, and even he is currently succeeding within the loving walls of my room. Even he is trying to change his thoughts. I watch him struggle with the anger inside of him every single day. He only just recently began to let me hug him. He will be gone in June. Gone to what? Gone where?

This is where we are falling short. We are working hard on these kids for only a snap shot of their time on earth. Why are there no serious alternative supports before middle school, and none after highschool? These students are constantly compared to mainstream students all through elementary school. They feel stupid, they feel different, and they struggle to fit in. By the time our alternate system gets a hold of them in grade 7 or 8, they have already formed their negative self-talk and their self confidence is at rock bottom. They have felt alone at school since kindergarten. Our alternate sites finally give these courageous individuals a chance to show what they can do. Who cares if it's not algebra or a freaking novel study. These guys don't want to go to university. These students just want to be unjudged and successful in their own lives.

A small, loving, supportive alternate school environment from kindergarten right through until graduation would make our jobs at the alternate highschool make a little more sense. Why can't there be a different plan for these guys right from the start? Full support, a seperate acheivable curriculum that actually prepares them for the life they are going to live. A place where the teachers teach love and positive thinking and where hugs are rampant. A place where there is no comparison and they feel special. Too much to ask? Then I guess a university program that supports them in their job hunts, whatever direction that may be, is also too much to ask. A few years of success is all we, as a society, is willing to give them. When they turn 18 they are kicked out of the school system, out of their group homes, out of their foster homes, and onto the street. The only true support system we have developed for these guys, after they leave me, is the jail system. That should fix them.

Our jail systems must be pumping out successful, empowered individuals by the second, or else we would have something else in place for them. Wouldnt we? Its enough to make me scream.

I delivered work this month to one of my students who is too drug addicted to come to school. He lives in a shed. He asked me for money, like he does everytime I visit him. I told him I don't carry cash, like I tell him every time I visit him. I gave him a brief counseling session. Then I asked him if he wanted to get clean...again. He got mad at me...again. Then I left. This is the extent of my contact with him. He has lost his family, he has lost his life. I believe this could have been prevented, our school system could have made a difference. He is actually a bright individual, he just isn't academically bright, so he thinks he's stupid and worthless. He thinks he is a worthless human being because he can't complete the math requirements that his age is "supposed" to be able to complete. He thinks he can't do life because he forgets where the punctuation marks go. We've been telling him he's not good enough from the start. We failed him.

Yes, we can continue to rant about the lack of parental guidance, and the neglectful upbringings. We can rage about abusive homes and drunk pregnant women. We can say it's their fault. We can continue to forget that it takes a community to raise a child. However, until we rememeber, we are truly failing a large portion of our society's children.

Oh ya, I forgot, we have our fantastic jail system to fix this for us. Thank-god!