Hip hop has been making its way into schools for some time now (both in the US and abroad). Brian Mooney did it last year, even prompting a visit from Kendrick Lamar to his classroom, which you can read more about here and here, as well as on his blog. And long before, Tomas Alvarez III, a social worker in Oakland, California started one of the first programs called Beats Rhymes and Life at Berkeley High School in 2004. Based on a club he launched as part of his dissertation research, Ian Levy has developed a program at New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science II in the Bronx as part of an expanding education movement to harness the widespread appeal of hip-hop music and culture to promote academic and social goals.
“Hip-hop education is everywhere,” said Christopher Emdin, an associate professor of science education at Teachers College at Columbia University who moderates a weekly chat group on Twitter called #HipHopEd and, along with the artist GZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, sponsors an annual competition for students to rap about science. “There is no school in an urban area that does not know about hip-hop, or that has not experimented with it.”
Read the full article here and check out Mr. Levy’s Donors Choose page here.
