TAKES A HIP-HOP NATION: A Three-Year Study on Professional Development in the Hip-Hop Education Field

May 1, 2015

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Authored by:!

Martha Diaz

Raymond Codrington

Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz

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525 W. 120th Street | Box 75 | New York, NY 10027

iume.tc.columbia.edu

2014

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NATIONAL REPORT

TAKES A HIP-HOP NATION:

A Three-Year Study on Professional Development in the Hip-Hop Education Field

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© 2015 Hip-Hop Education Center. All rights reserved. You may make copies of and distribute this work for non- commer-cial educational and scholarly purposes. For any other uses, including the making of derivative works, permission must be obtained from the Hip-Hop Education Center, unless fair use exceptions to copyright law apply.

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Prepared by Martha Diaz, Raymond Codrington, PhD and Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz, PhD in collaboration with Ernest Morrell, PhD, Daniel Banks, PhD, Moira Pirsch, Casey Wong, Moises Lopez, and the Hip-Hop Education Think Tank Committee Members: Carla Becker, Rolando Brown, Brad Cunningham, Dr. Sameena Eidoo, Dr. Elliot Gann, Dr. Himanee Gupta-Carlsen, Rob Jackson, Jen Johnson, Mandy Lau, Sean McPherson, Don C. Sawyer III, PhD, Sam Seidel, and David Stovall, PhD.

Funding Support: Nathan Cummings Foundation

The authors would like to acknowledge the many people and academic partners who helped make this report possible. Many thanks to the Hip-Hop Education Center staff, who held it down and made it possible to execute three successful events. Special thanks to Casey Wong, Think Tank Manager, Moira Pirsch, Think Tank Coordinator, Moises Lopez, International Research Manager, and Carlos Rodriguez, Hip-Hop Scholar-In-Residence (2010-2012). To our Think Tank Committee Members who devoted their time, shared their knowledge, and invested their own money and resources. This report would not be possible without them. We thank Steinhardt’s Metropolitan Center at New York University, Teachers College Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Columbia University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for partnering up with us and extending the academic support needed for this project.

We are very appreciative to Maurine Knighton, Brandi Stewart, and the entire team at the Nathan Cummings Foundation for providing the funding and support to launch this ambitious longitudi-nal study. Without their core support this project would not exist. We also want to thank our ad-visory board and friends for sharing their wisdom and undeniable support. A very special thanks to the community at-large that participated in the Think Tank activities. The communication process with the community allowed us to learn, firsthand, about the underlying concerns and needs that are often left out in education reform efforts.

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A B O U T T H I S P U B L I C A T I O N

The purpose of this report is to document and synthesize the process and outcomes of three Hip-Hop Education Think Tank convenings that occurred over a three-year period from (2010-2013). This longitudinal study was conducted by the Hip-Hop Education Center to increase the under-standing of the challenges, needs, and potential of the field of hip-hop education. A key objective of the research is to identify best practices and models that can be adopted by the field. Our goal is to professionalize the field of hip-hop education by establishing a framework for teaching and learning standards. Our objective is to guide and advise teaching artists, educators, scholars, ad-ministrators, policymakers and funders on how to best use resources, improve outcomes, and scale and/or replicate best models and practices. This white paper provides recommendations for next steps and ideas on ways to create tools for the field. Our approach is to work with the com-munity of stakeholders to build the field from within, at the grassroots level, while simultaneous-ly engaging emerging and senior educators, policy makers and other interested parties as we in-form the education field at-large. The analysis and viewpoints conveyed herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of supporters and the entire field of hip-hop education.

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C O N T E N T

Acknowledgements

About this Publication

Preface: ………………………………………………….……….. 6

Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………. 7

Chapter 2: Research………………….……………………….…. 8

Chapter 3: Think Tank Committees…….….…………..………. 10

Chapter 4: Think Tank III Summary…….….…………………. 11

Chapter 5: Outcomes/Recommendations………………………. 12

Chapter 6: Post-Think Tank Survey……………………………. 16

Chapter 7: Social Media…………………………………….…… 17

Chapter 8: Archives and Collections..…..…………………..…… 18

Chapter 9: Conclusion……………………………………………. 19

References…………………………………………………………. 20

Appendix A - Staff/Advisers/Committee Members…..…………. 21

Appendix B - DEF Committee Glossary List….………………… 25

Appendix C - Tweets…………………………………………….… 26

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PREFACE

It’s the oldest story ever told. Underdogs achieving against the longest odds. It’s the story of hip-hop. Kids forgotten and abandoned by everyone, making something from nothing, finding their voices, and in that process, allowing everyone in the world the ability to find their voices. Since that time hip-hop has come to say what has needed to be said—it has articulated a stand against the politics of abandonment and the politics of containment. It has given us the deepest of pleasures and the deepest of insights. It has made those who were once invisible visible. Hip-hop has also said a lot that didn’t need to be said. It has further amplified values of con-sumerist accumulation and capitalist exploitation. It has reinforced hegemonic oppression and marginalization. Hip-hop is a global commodity culture, displacing radical movements and helping to privatize the world. But it also remains a lived local culture around the world, capable of inciting political and aesthetic uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, France, Sweden, Serbia, Brazil, Venezuela, Indonesia, South Korea, everywhere.

Hip-hop is contradictory. And it may be because hip-hop did not begin with a manifesto. It did not begin as a political movement. It began as a way for abandoned young people to say, WE ARE HERE. It began as a way to express a love for life in all its complexities. That’s why some-times it may look ideologically confused, it might look like total chaos. But it is also why we are still talking about it now, 40 years later, with the whole world watching. Hip-hop is an infinitely flexible form. Its call-and-response function is also actually a correction function. What’s ratchet can always suddenly become conscious and what’s conscious can al-ways suddenly be ratchet. The seeds of transformation always lie in its lurch toward another “death.” Hip-hop is about the power to be born anew.

That’s a lot of why we love it. Why we still project onto it our highest ideals. Why we use it to convey our best ideas. We may all be crazy for that, but we know what many in power do not: we know that cultural change always precedes political change. And this is why we cannot stop be-lieving in hip-hop. Hip-hop education is simply the next natural evolution in hip-hop knowledge. As educators and children of hip-hop, we understand hip-hop knowledge is so high it can’t be gotten over, it’s so low it can’t be gotten under, so wide it can’t be gotten around. We just have to plunge ourselves and our students into it. And so we start from gratitude and humility.

In this 40th year of hip-hop, we give thanks to the pioneers, the first voices of hip-hop.

-JEFF CHANG, THINK TANK III | NOVEMBER 10, 2013

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C H A P T E R 1: I N T R O D U C T I O N

As both an intervention and solution, the Hip-Hop Education Center (HHEC) builds upon the forty years of hip-hop history, activism, and entertainment industry to engage and educate youth and adults by professionalizing the field of hip-hop education. Against this backdrop, media pro-ducer, educator, community organizer, archivist, curator, and social entrepreneur Martha Diaz launched the HHEC in 2010 to respond to the lack of research and evaluation data that illustrates the praxis and impact of hip-hop-based education. Prior to this, Diaz was the Executive Director of the Hip-Hop Association, where she galvanized and cultivated filmmakers, teaching artists and educators through the production of the H2O International Film Festival and H2ED Educa-tion Summit, both the largest event of its kind. With a decade of work experience in the hip-hop entertainment industry and ten years working in the non-profit community building sector, Diaz embarked on a new a mission to standardize and propagate the best of the hip-hop education movement.

In order to understand the wide scope and impression of the hip-hop education field, we provide an overview of hip-hop culture We use the term hip-hop culture because it embodies artistic ex1 -pression, social justice, human rights objectives and the enterprising/innovative spirit that forms the identity and the do it y/ourself mindset of the community. For the purpose of this research paper, we will define hip-hop’s main artistic elements as DJing/Beat-making, B-boying/Break Dancing, MCing/Rapping, Aerosol Art/Writing, and Style/Fashion. In addition The Fifth Element — Knowledge of Self and Community, coined by the Godfather of hip-hop Afrika Bambaataa, reinforces the purpose and value of the artistic disciplines as a tool for self education, healing, legacy building, and service to the community.

Hence, the HHEC serves as a way to empower and engage socially and economically marginal-ized youth and advance and professionalize the field of hip-hop education as it informs the larger education reform movement. Since the HHEC’s formation, over thirty volunteer researchers, scholars, students, activist, and artists have supported its development and growth including, Raymond Codrington and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, whom are the co-editors of this report. The HHEC is an organizing body that centralizes the hip-hop education movement and provides the research and tools to optimize the resources available.

In 2011, Diaz conducted the first national scan to identify hip-hop-based programs and initiatives. The research identified hundreds of educators, teaching artists, scholars, social work2 -ers, and youth workers who were actively engaging and using hip-hop culture in K-12, after

The World IS Yours: A Brief History of Hip-Hop Education. October 2011. https://www.academia.edu/1088920/1

The_World_IS_Yours_A_Brief_History_of_Hip-Hop_Education Accessed on March 1, 2015

Re-Imagining Teaching and Learning: A Snapshot of Hip-Hop Education. October 2011. https://www.academia.e2 -du/1088898/Re-imagining_Teaching_and_Learning_A_snapshot_of_Hip-Hop_Education Accessed on March 1, 2015.

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school programs, and institutions of higher learning. Over three hundred hip-hop-based educa-tion programs used hip-hop to teach a subject, serve as a “hook” to teach a lesson, or as an acad-emic subject itself, vocation, or art form. Teachers from all backgrounds were integrating it into their curricula as a liberatory, critical, and culturally relevant and responsive pedagogical tool. Moreover, the research noted that the use of hip-hop facilitates the teaching of essential life skills such as critical and creative thinking, debate, media literacy, collaboration, and peer-to-peer me-diation -- all of which support the emotional, physical, cognitive, artistic, and civic development of young people.

There are now entire high schools that are utilizing hip-hop-based education and pedagogies in an effort to transform students’ lives and their communities. More pointedly, there are award-winning hip-hop after-school programs, summer camps, and supplemental correctional education programs that help youth cope with peer pressure, trauma, and identity formation. Motivated by the same concerns, a broad range of non-profit, for-profit and government agencies that are designed to advance education, increase employment, decrease juvenile incarceration and recidi-vism, and improve environmental and health outcomes among underserved and marginalized communities, now populate the national landscape. These initiatives employ a range of strategies to accomplish their goals, including the use of standardized hip-hop-based curricula and testing modules, student exchange-programs, professional development workshops and seminars, media projects, social enterprise ventures, and the creation of new on-and-offline educational platforms.

The hip-hop education field represents one of the most innovative and exciting educational movements of the 21st century. The HHEC is the first institution to distill research, conduct evaluation and training, and archive relevant hip-hop education related resources. The HHEC aims to provide educators with pedagogical tools and capacity to create new approaches to teach-ing that can be applied in a number of educational settings. In addition, the HHEC identifies promising, research-supported models and practices that are improving educational outcomes for students in the following areas: STE(A)M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathe-matics), social and emotional learning, academic literacy, and high school graduation rates.

C H A P T E R 2: R E S E A R C H

Hip-Hop Education Think Tank Initiative

In 2011, the HHEC launched a three-part Think Tank series to further investigate, organize, ana-lyze, and facilitate the evolution of Hip-Hop education. HHEC developed the Think Tank initia-tive with thought leaders and practitioners who are artists, scholars, educators, youth, community leaders, administrators, business professionals, policymakers, and experts from civic and gov-ernment institutions, and the private sector.

The main goal of the Think Tank is to engage a range of constituencies that are using hip-hop for educational purposes and to produce and disseminate research findings, tools, and best practices

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to the wider field of education. The HHEC invited 75 individuals to participate in Think Tank I.

For the HHEC, the Hip-Hop Education Think Tank provided the research and affirmation that pointed to the needs and desires of the community. Gathering stakeholders from across the Unit-ed States afforded us examples of local and regional case studies. For Think Tank II, “Laying the Foundation: Defining the Field, Establishing Goals, and Creating Standards,” the HHEC invited 75 individuals to participate. There was a call for papers, which yielded four papers from acade-mics and practitioners representing institutions ranging from Columbia University in New York City to the Blanshard Secondary School in Vancouver, Canada:

1) Dr. Velma LaPoint from Washington D.C.—“A Systematic Review of Hip Hop Related Courses and Doctoral Dissertations at Howard University, Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, and Howard University’s Peer Institutions”

2) Brad Cunningham from Victoria, Canada — “Throwing the Book Away: Incorporating Hip-Hop into a High School English Classroom”

3) Dr. Sameena Eidoo from Toronto, Canada —“ ‘I guarantee I will spark the brain that will change the world.’ Counter-stories of youth political learning and transformation through Hip Hop”

4) Vaughn Watson from New York City — “Remixing Participatory and Social Justice-Ori-ented Methodologies: Toward Frameworks for Civic Imaginaries and Possibilities in Working with Youth”

Dr. Velma LaPoint, Brad Cunningham, and Dr. Sameena Eidoo would each expand their partici-pation as part of one of the four committees that presented during the Think Tank III.

Documentation and Evaluation

It is critical for the HHEC to document and illustrate the impact of hip-hop education in order to galvanize support and secure resources. The HHEC must also evaluate its initiatives to ensure that goals are consistently met. We measure our outcomes through the methodology of surveys, testimonials, and accessing the strength of strategic partnerships that we have developed. The Think Tank series was video-recorded and the testimonials of the participants and presenters were collected. The series is currently being digitized, archived, and can be accessed via the on-line Hip-Hop Education Channel. This white paper is one of several publications the HHEC in-tends to publish on the forthcoming virtual HHEC Center website to share our findings and doc-ument our research and programmatic products.

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C H A P T E R 3: T H I N K T A N K C O M M I T T E E S

At Think Tank II, committees were formed by leaders of the hip-hop education movement. In-vigorated and excited to continue the work of building the field, the committee members worked over the course of a year to address the key issues from an inquiry and action based perspective. From this vantage point committee members, developed recommendations related to the HHEC. Four working committees focused on ways to cultivate and address the needs of the field. The committees were organized by content area and tasks in the following way:

■ Defining, Explicating, and Framing Committee (DEF) This committee worked toward defining hip-hop education by examining: (1) core elements of hip-hop; (2) social justice praxis in formal and non-formal educational contexts, and (3) previous conceptualizations of critical hip-hop pedagogy. The committee also considered the challenges of capturing the rapidly evolving nature of hip-hop culture for educational purposes. In addition, the committee grappled with issues of authority, power and privilege in relation to defining hip-hop education.

■ Teaching Certificate Committee (TCC) With the growing landscape of pre-service teaching education models across the U.S. and beyond, this committee put forth efforts to find a suitable model for a hip-hop education teaching certificate. The committee explored dozens of models, primarily focusing on four certificate types: 1) A traditional pre-service teaching; 2) A year-long teacher residency; 3) An alternate certification program; and 4) A community and academic based hybrid.

■ Marketing, Publicity, and Communication Committee (MPC) This committee explored the vital need in today’s society for institutions like the HHEC to have an international presence not only in social media but also in electronic outlets. The committee also identified ways to develop a broader public profile for the HHEC among institutions and organizations involved in this work.

■ International Research Committee (IRC) This committee brought together the work of over twenty-five practitioners representing thirteen countries. The work of this committee was aimed at high-lighting the work of HHEC’s partners across the globe. Currently, the HHEC is conducting a scan of the international hip-hop education programs that exist. Our objective is to recognize and honor hip-hop-based education organizations and programs in the world by providing a platform to share and network.

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C H A P T E R 4: T H I N K T A N K I I I S U M M A R Y

Think Tank III Summary

The Hip-Hop Education Think Tank III was the final convening of a three-part series presented by the Hip-Hop Education Center, in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture - New York Public Library, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education - Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, and Human De-velopment, New York University, and the Institute for Urban and Minority Education, Teachers College - Columbia University.

Timeline and Activities

The Think Tank III took place over two days on November 9-10, 2013 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York. The Think Tank activities involved: keynote speakers, panel discussions, breakout sessions, and lightning rounds of ten minute multimedia presentations. The program also included performances by award winning artists, film screenings and three pop-up exhibits. In all, nearly one hundred scholars, teaching artists, and pioneers pre-sented at one of the most significant and prestigious Black research institutions in the United States. The Think Tank III was hosted and facilitated by Dr. Daniel Banks, Co-Director, DNA-WORKS and Faculty, M.A. in Applied Theatre, CUNY, and Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University Professor.

Demographics

The Think Tank III attendees were made up of a diverse group of hip-hop education-based practitioners and theorists. These professionals work with students from elementary to higher education institutions who represent a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. Attendees repre-sented sixteen states from across the continental United States. Washington D.C., New York City, Oakland, and Chicago were the cities most represented from the United States. International rep-resentatives represented six continents, including Brazil, Senegal, China, Australia, Canada, Spain, The Netherlands, Japan, and Mexico. While the first Think Tank meetings were closed to invited guests and held at New York University and Columbia University’s Teachers College, the final Think Tank was opened to the public. The attendance steadily grew through the Think Tank series as demand for representation at the events increased. Over the two days, six-hundred peo-ple attended the final convening.

Funding/Earned-Income

The HHEC did not create the Think Tank as an earned-income initiative. The money raised was used to produce the convening and invite experts and scholars. The HHEC partnered with Stein-hardt School’s Metropolitan Center at New York University, New York University’s Center for Multicultural Education and Programs, Teachers College Institute for Urban and Minority Edu-

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cation, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for in-kind and monetary sup-port. These partners raised $20,000 for the production of Think Tank III. The Schomburg Center contributed $10,000 and provided the HHEC with the space, technical equipment and support, and administrative staff. The Nathan Cummings Foundation (NCF) donated $5,000 to offset admissions fees and provide travel stipends to presenters. NCF is the founding foundation part-ner that embraced and cultivated the development of the Hip-Hop Education Center’s research and scholarship since its genesis. The HHEC raised an additional $5,000 in earned-income through admission tickets and book sales. By comparison, the previous two Think Tanks cost half of the amount to produce.

C H A P T E R 5: O U T C O M E S / R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S

Through a series of surveys, discussions and volunteer opportunities, scholars, artists, educators, and students from ten countries (including the U.S. - sixteen states and Washington, D.C.) self-selected to participate in the Think Tank committees. The committees had four to twelve mem-bers, who met monthly for ten months in person and via video conference prior to the Think Tank III convening. Moira Pirsch (Committee Coordinator), Moises Lopez (Manager of the In-ternational Research Committee), and Casey Wong (Think Tank Manager) coordinated the com-mittees. Each committee completed a number of tasks including identifying and analyzing exist-ing research, educational models and resources as well as compiling and presenting their in-sights, observations and research finding during Think Tank III. Outcomes included: 1) Estab-lishing an innovative model for professional collaboration across geographical distance that cen-tered around technologies utilized by hip-hop practitioners, including Twitter chats, video con-ferencing, digital storytelling, and shared documents; 2) A collaborative document to chart and format the language, content, pedagogy and broader identifying characteristics and qualities of hip-hop education; and 3) Establishing a dedicated community of professionals well-versed in exploring the nuances of the field of hip-hop education and recommendations for further work.

Committee Outcomes of Think Tank III

1) Defining, Explicating, and Framing Committee (DEF) The committee created a working document that discusses the challenges of capturing the ever-evolving nature of hip-hop culture in a set of definitions for educational purposes. The DEF Committee also addressed the issues of authority, specifically, who has the power and privilege to define and redefine hip-hop culture for educational policy and practice. The committee identi-fied thirteen terms that articulate core elements of hip-hop culture and critical hip-hop pedagogy, and eight terms articulating key pedagogical/practitioner roles in hip-hop culture and education. This joint process of naming the cultural context of our work and its methodologies underscores the importance of equitable relationship-building between hip-hop educators and practitioners in universities, colleges, schools, and communities. These terms appear in the glossary section at the end of the report.

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2) Teaching Certificate Committee (TCC) The TCC operated from two primary assumptions: 1) The Think Tank and similar events across the world are a testament to the amazing work already being done in hip-hop education; and 2) The assumption that establishing a hip-hop education teaching certificate could further profes-sionalize and validate the field of hip-hop education by associating it with a Research-I institu-tion, thus providing a central location for educators to learn together. Over the course of several months, the committee researched and identified various teaching certificate models including: 1) The traditional pre-service teaching model of Manhattanville College (Manhattanville Col-lege, 2014); 2) Urban teacher residencies including the innovative teaching residency models of Spoken Word Teacher Certification at Goldsmith University in London and Concordia College in Chicago (Antrobus, 2012; National Literacy Trust, 2013); 3) Alternative certification programs like Teach for America; and 4) Community-based week-long hip-hop educators’ training pro-grams at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, New York University, and Skyline College, as well as trainings offered by Youth Speaks, Urban Word NYC, and Words Beats and Life. For each model, the committee outlined the components, outcomes, challenges, and limitations.

3) Marketing, Publicity, and Communication Committee (MPC) The members came up with marketing campaigns and branding ideas for the collective to con-duct cross-promotions. Committee members reviewed social media tools available, and success-ful campaigns that brought awareness to critical issues.

4) International Research Committee (IRC) A total of twenty five international hip-hop educators, artists, and activists participated in HHEC’s Think Tank III conference. The international delegates participated in an all-day pre-conference at Herbert H. Lehman College on November 8, 2013. The 2013 First Annual Hip-Hop History Month Celebration: Elements of Culture Hip-Hop Educational Summit, was sponsored by the Department of African and African American Studies, the Universal Zulu Nation, and Class Action Student Group of Lehman College. The International Research Committee members participated in a series of hip-hop education-based workshops, roundtable discussions, and networking sessions that allowed for direct, personal engagements with a diversity of practitioners from all over the world. The goal of the pre-conference was to hold a roundtable discussion to enhance understanding, address gaps, problems, and obstacles in accelerating progress toward a hip-hop education international census. The roundtable dialogue defined the global challenges and opportunities faced by international hip-hop Educators. The roundtable involved informal discussions exploring the international hip-hop education census progress since 2012, and proposed future goals.

Six international hip-hop representatives from across the globe were selected to participate on a panel discussion at Think Tank III conference. The global panel discussion showcased a snapshot of hip-hop education developments and current innovations in the following countries/ regions: Australia, Brazil, China, Senegal, Mexico, and the Netherlands. The overall goal of this panel, organized by Moises Lopez, International Research Committee Manager, was to discuss key

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global and regional issues engaging local hip-hop educators and other diverse stakeholders in developing collaborations around the world. During the panel we celebrated the launch of our global hip-hop census highlighting the impact of integrating worldwide hip-hop education initia-tives in our future research. The international panel discussion was delivered by - Aruna Ver-meulen (Co-Founder & Director, Hip Hop Huis / B-girl - Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Carlos Davalos (Co-Founder and Current Host of Scratchamama / Associate Professor in the Depart-ment of Communication, Universidad Iberoamericana - Mexico City, Mexico), Fou Malade (co-founder of the youth grassroots political movement Y’En A Mare (“Enough is Enough”) - Senegal), Marcio Santos (Secretariat State of São Paulo, São Paulo Government / Special Advi-sor for the Hip Hop Project - São Paulo, Brazil), Charlie Thomson (Music Industry College Bris-bane Hip-Hop artist and teacher - Brisbane, Australia) and Golden Huang Jinyang (Hip-Hop Scholar - People’s Republic of China).

Topics included: ■ Policy shaping the future of global hip-hop education initiatives ■ Global awareness of the link between hip-hop education and poverty-stricken

communities ■ Researching and reporting for sustainable development ■ International Census strategies and goals

Committee Recommendations:

This section provides a list of recommendations that came out of the Think Tank III committees:

■ Defining the Field - Recommendations included the creation of an open-source platform that highlights the range of hip-hop related materials including curricula, organizations, institutions and more. While there are many facets to hip-hop, we encourage practitioners to creatively define hip-hop education for themselves, and promote a critical hip-hop pedagogy that challenges oppressive structures and processes. Recommendations also included dedicating further resources to conduct longitudinal research and evaluations to help us define clear understandings of hip-hop terminology.

■ Accreditation/Teaching Certificate - Recommendations are rooted in the assumption that providing some type of accreditation for hip-hop education will provide an opportunity for individuals to advance their careers and the caliber of scholarship on hip-hop educa-tion. To be sure, the committee fielded and generated many questions about whether it was wise to create such a certificate and partnership with an academic institution. Some individuals expressed the concern that if the standardizing of hip-hop education results in the silencing of particular voices within the hip-hop community and alignment with an elite educational institution alienates individuals from the hip-hop community, there may be reasons not to standardize. While codifying and institutionalizing a discipline as revo-lutionary and creative as hip-hop education presents unique challenges and concerns, the

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committee believes that the lack of a recognized credential results in a shortage of bar-gaining power for qualified educators as well as a missed opportunity for educators to share their scholarship and best practices in the field.

The committee affirmed the need for professional development training for pre-service and in-service teachers and teaching artists toward establishing a high standard for hip-hop education. Consequently, in moving forward the committee recommended to contin-ue to review additional pre-existing teacher certification models while entertaining the possibility of creating a hybrid model that combined best practices. The committee also encouraged the development of a pilot teacher certification program to be housed at a single host institution or organized as collaborative effort between multiple institutions. The committee provided preliminary recommendations for the pillars and suggested out-comes of a teaching certification program, the components of which are derived from ex-isting models, tailored to different tracks for practitioners and non-practitioners, and cus-tomized to suit our communities and preserve the integrity of hip-hop education.

■ Marketing the Field - Recommendations included the creation of an open, Virtual Center that acts as a go-to source for information related to hip-hop education. Such a project would highlight the work of practitioners across the world and models for community connections in this work. Also, the committee recommended coordinating an in-ternational tour to cities where a local organizer has been identified as a practitioner in-terested in serving as a representative of the Hip-Hop Education Center. This individual would organize workshops that share standards and innovations between that local com-munity and others around the world.

■ International Research - Recommendations included the continued building of a database of contacts and information that captures the content and geographic diversity of practi-tioners and organizations in the US and abroad. The committee recognized that, as a worldwide initiative, hip-hop education might need support beyond what is currently available at the HHEC. In particular, international committee members suggested con-ducting transnational research focusing on the intersection of hip-hop education initia-tives, both in the U.S., as well as internationally. Committee members will continue to collect local data, monitor the implementation of hip-hop education efforts, and assist with conducting global hip-hop literature reviews. In addition, the development of a tool-kit was discussed that would include a comprehensive set of resources on the topic of global youth hip-hop participation, including a tool to map multiple entry points into young people’s involvement in international decision-making. The toolkit will be de-signed for organizers and community members to build concrete research skills that can be applied to actual research projects on which they are working within their hip-hop or-ganization. It was proposed that it be created with specific input from world hip-hop leaders/partners for the purpose of furthering a revolutionary agenda towards social change.

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C H A P T E R 5: P O S T T H I N K T A N K S U R V E Y

Post Think Tank Survey

As a way to evaluate our work and to make sure we are reaching our benchmarks, the HHEC dis-tributed a post Think Tank III Survey. The survey helped us identify the most effective compo-nents of the program and to learn more about the participants.

We learned that 52% of the participants taught in colleges/universities, and only 12% taught in community colleges. Less than 15% of the participants taught in prisons, juvenile correctional facilities and summer camps. Over 30% of participants taught in K-12, and 20% taught in after-school programs. We found an overlap of participants teaching in colleges/universities and par-ticipants teaching in community-based organizations. These educators were often teaching in both spaces and were working with teaching artists. More research needs to happen to under-stand this relationship between educators and institutions.

The hip-hop element most frequently taught was the Fifth Element -- Knowledge of Self and the Community. This element is often connected to history, social justice, human rights, and social-emotional learning. The next most popular element was spoken word and MCing, followed by the visual element of graffiti a.k.a. aerosol art, DJing, and b-boying a.k.a. break dancing. Over 50% of the participants included entrepreneurship in their curricula. They created CD’s, T-shirts, caps, and other merchandise and products.

We were pleased to find out that the participants rated the Think Tank programs between good and excellent. Ninety-six percent of the participants found the Think Tank “helpful”, “inspiring”, and “informative”. Participants recommended that we include more of the pioneers, emerging artists, and youth. They suggested live-streaming for future events, and more hands-on work-shops after the lightning rounds. Participants recommended a better venue with more/bigger breakout rooms. Many participants said there should have been more publicity of the event, and asked that we post online a recap of Think Tank with media clips.

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C H A P T E R 6: S O C I A L M E D I A

Post seminar measures on social media

We partnered up with the #HipHopEd collective to reach as many as possible Twitter followers to engage and exchange information with participants in the Think Tank, and those following the movement from afar. #HipHopEd provided us with analytical tools and statistics so we can mea-sure our impact. Below are some highlights that are useful in understanding our constituents’ use of social media. We also disseminated our information through our Facebook page and Tumblr blog. Together with the Schomburg Center, New York University Metropolitan Center, Teachers College Institute for Urban and Minority Education, and the #HipHopEd social media collective, we engaged over 500,000 students, educators, researchers, artists, and scholars. We were also trending on Twitter during conversation high points during the Think Tank. Please review Appendix C to review some sample Tweets.

#HipHopEd

11/09/2013 6:30AM – 11/10/2013 10:28PM

Tweets: 1,088

Timeline Deliveries: 1,659,631

· Timeline deliveries represent the total possible number of times someone could have viewed a particular message. We use the follower count of the original tweeter and add the followers of any re-tweeters to generate the total number of timeline deliveries for each and every hashtagged tweet.**

Contributors: 243

· Contributors are all the people who tweet with a particular hashtag. Everyone who tweets or re-tweets a message with a particular hashtag is counted as a contributor.**

Reach: 535,880

· Reach is the number of unique individuals who received timeline deliveries* of hashtagged messages. Because the same users may receive multiple timeline deliveries, measuring reach as well as deliveries allows you to better understand the true spread of your message.**

Tweeters Platform:

· Desktop: 38%

· Mobile: 56%

· Both: 1%

· Unknown: 5%

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C H A P T E R 7: A R C H I V E S A N D C O L L E C T I O N S

Documenting a Movement

The HHEC has made it a goal to preserve hip-hop culture and the hip-hop education movement in order to understand our past and plan the future. The HHEC has documented and archived all three Think Tank convenings to make it accessible to the wider community. The HHEC is devel-oping a robust multimedia gallery of video clips, photographs, artwork, research papers, and es-says that will be part of the HHEC’s 3.0 website launch in the fall of 2015.

Since the HHEC was founded in 2010, it has included archiving as part of its mission. HHEC has archived over 2,500 items that include educational books, curricula, music, movies, apparel, and flyers. In 2013, the HHEC donated 435 hip-hop media items to the Schomburg Center’s Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division. The H2O (Hip-Hop Odyssey) collection also includes ephemeral materials, such as posters and fliers that filmmakers created to market and promote their projects. HHEC inherited the media derived from the H2O International Film Festival (2002-2008) archive when the Hip-Hop Association dissolved in 2010. HHEC also donated over one-hundred hip-hop magazines, including international periodicals, to the Schomburg Center’s Jean Blackwell Hudson Research and Reference Division.

The HHEC invited Katherine Reagan and Ben Ortiz of the Cornell University’s Hip Hop Collec-tion, Khalid el-Hakim of the Black History 101 Mobile Museum, and Gerald Watson and DJ 2Tones of the Shaolin Jazz Project to create pop-exhibits during Think Tank III. The HHEC also invited participants of Think Tank III to donate an educational artifact to the archive that repre-sents their organization or individual work in the community. The cultural material collected in-cluded posters, flyers, music, apparel, curricula, educational music, scholarly papers, and books from around the United States and abroad. The HHEC understands the educational and cultural value of this collection as it correlates to the development of the field and therefore will work with preservations institutions to develop a robust collection on hip-hop education.

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C H A P T E R 8: C O N C L U S I O N

The HHEC began with the express mission of engaging, supporting, and publicizing education efforts that embraced hip-hop. We felt such an intervention represented a critical strategy in reaching some of the most marginalized youth. Given the disparities in education outcomes, es-pecially with youth of color, we recognized an opportunity to develop youth-focused approaches to learning and teaching that were collaboratively developed and took into account the students cultural reference points.

Through three Think Tank meetings we worked to develop cross-disciplinary discussions around hip-hop education that attracted a range of educators, practitioners, scholars, and activists from around the country as well as from different parts of the world. Throughout, we continued to dis-cover the need to create opportunities for critical thought and networking around hip-hop educa-tion. Through research, gatherings, and publications we identified best practices that represented the most promising and effective approaches to hip-hop education. We also continue to refine the concepts and practices related hip-hop pedagogy which remains an evolving aspect of the work.

We view our work as helping to build the field of hip-hop education by providing a critical space for the discussion of issues that confront the field. We also seek to help connect people and orga-nizations to each other and the wider debates in hip-hop education. Our attempts at field building focus on conducting research and disseminating results, identifying best practices as well as con-vening key stakeholders across disciplines. The Think Tank series is our seminal work that ad-dresses these content and strategic areas.

In a broader sense, our work has focused on the professional development of educators, students of education, and teaching artists. We have identified 75 individuals and organizations that are most eligible for capacity building and impact in the field [Appendix D]. By contributing to the establishment of standards around teaching and Hip-Hop pedagogy, the HHEC is poised to be actively involved in the professionalization of the field through the certification of a generation of progressively-minded teachers who will become versed in hip-hop pedagogy. Rather than representing “quality control” in regards to teacher certification, we see our role as active participants in collaborating with anchor institutions -- in this case Teachers College, Columbia University -- in defining the field’s best practices around learning, teaching, student engagement, and improved outcomes. Dr. Ernest Morrell, Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME), is our main adviser and thought partner. The IUME staff and graduate students serve as a brain-trust that allows for us to pilot and refine new approaches to teaching and learning while anticipating new trends and ways to engage hip-hop pedagogy. In our next stage of field-building, we will work with IUME to facilitate the creation of a manifesto to establish the values and objectives of the hip-hop education community. While the work continues to emerge and professionalize, we feel that our efforts demonstrate an early key maturity phase within the field. We are excited to see what the next level of “evolvement” will bring and we hope you will join us.

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R E F E R E N C E S

Antrobus, R. (2012, September 21). MA in Spoken Word at Goldsmith University. Shapes and Disfigurements of Raymond Antrobus. Retrieved from: http://raymondantrobus.blogspot.com/2012/09/ma-in-spoken-word-at-goldsmith-uni.htm.

Cunningham, B. (2012). Lecture conducted from Columbia University, NY, NY. Throwing the Book Away: Incorporating Hip-Hop into a High School English Classroom.

Eidoo, S. (2012, November). " 'I guarantee I will spark the brain that will change the world.' Counter-stories of youth political learning and transformation through Hip Hop” Think Tank II. Lecture conducted from Columbia University, NY, NY.

LaPoint, V. (2012). A Systematic Review of Hip Hop Related Courses and Doctoral Dissertations at Howard University, Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, and Howard University’s Peer Institutions. Think Tank II. Lecture conducted from Columbia Univer-sity, NY, NY.

Manhattanville College (2014). Graduate catalog 2014-2015. Retrieved from: http://www1.mville.edu/catalog/2014-2015/soe_graduate/

National Literacy Trust (2013). Spoken Word Educator programme for 2013-2014. Retrieved from: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0001/6346/Spoken_Word_Educator_programme_-for_2013-14.pdf.

Noguera, P., Fergus, E. and Diaz, M. (2011). Reimagining Teaching and Learning: A Snapshot on Hip-Hop Education. Metropolitan Center. New York University, NY, NY.

Watson, V. (2012). Remixing Participatory and Social Justice-Oriented Methodologies: Toward Frameworks for Civic Imaginaries and Possibilities in Working with Youth. Think Tank II. Lec-ture conducted from Columbia University, NY, NY.

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APPENDIX A

Staff and Advisory Board

The HHEC staff and board of advisors have three decades of experience in the field of education, entertainment and technology industry, and entrepreneurship.

Staff

■ Martha Diaz - Founding Director / Co-Principal Investigator ■ Dr. Raymond Codrington - Co-Director / Co-Principal Investigator ■ Casey Wong - Think Tank Manager and Development Associate ■ Moira Pirsch - Think Tank Committee Coordinator ■ Moises Lopez - International Research Committee Manager ■ Black Robb - Documentarian and Media Producer

Advisory Board Members

The HHEC has an advisory board made up of leaders in the field of education and Hip-Hop culture that play a role in contributing and fostering the field:

■ Daniel Banks, PhD - Co-Director of DNAWORKS, Founder of Hip-Hop Theater Initia-tive, Faculty in the M.A. of Applied Theatre, CUNY.

■ Christopher Emdin, PhD - Co-Director of the Center for Health Equity and Urban Science Education - Teachers College - Columbia University and Founder of #HipHopEd

■ Edward Fergus, PhD - Associate Professor, Administration, Leadership, and Technology - Steinhardt School - New York University

■ David Kirkland, PhD - Associate Professor of English Education, Teaching and Learning, - Steinhardt School - New York University

■ Irma McClaurin, PhD - Principal McClaurin Solutions ■ Ernest Morrell, PhD - Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at

Teachers College - Columbia University ■ Khalil Muhammad, PhD - Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black

Culture ■ Pedro Noguera, PhD - Metropolitan Center for Urban and Minority Education- Steinhardt

School - New York University ■ Katherine Reagan - Assistant Director for Collections in Cornell Library's Division of

Rare and Manuscript Collections and Director of the Hip-Hop Collection ■ Marcella Runell-Hall, PhD - Co-Director of the Center for Spiritual Life - New York

University ■ Ralph Vacca, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Architect at Kognito Interactive

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Committee Members

Defining the Field (DEF) Committee

■ Brad Cunningham - Educator and Scholar - Victoria, British Columbia, Canada ■ Sameena Eidoo, PhD - Scholar & Educator / HHEC Def Committee -Toronto, Canada ■ Himanee Gupta-Carlsen, PhD - Assistant Professor and Area Coordinator, Historical

Studies, SUNY Empire State College - Saratoga, NY ■ Rob Jackson - Blue Black of the Unspoken Heard /Teaching Artist – Washington, D.C.

Don C. Sawyer III, PhD - Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Quinnipiac University – Hamden, CT

■ David Stovall, PhD - Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago – Chicago, IL

Teacher Certification Committee

■ Carla Becker - Doctoral Candidate in Music Education at Teachers College, Columbia University - New York, NY

■ Jen Johnson - Founder, Hip-Hop Debate / PhD Candidate, Columbia University Teachers College – New York, NY

■ Sean McPherson - Adjunct Instructor / Assistant Coordinator, Hip-Hop Studies - McNally Smith College of Music - St Paul, MN

■ Sam Seidel - Hip-Hop Scholar-in-Residence, Teachers College Columbia University - New York, NY

Marketing, Publicity and Communications Committee

■ Rolando Brown - Co-Founder, MVMT / Advisory Board, HHEC - New York, NY ■ Elliot Gann, PhD - Founder, Today's Future Sound - Oakland, CA ■ Mandy Lau - Educator, Rock The School Bells - San Jose, CA

International Research Committee

■ Amanda Parris - Founder of Lost Lyrics - Toronto, Canada ■ Anna Oravcova - Charles University, Department of Sociology, Graduate Student -

Prague, Czech Republic ■ Ariel Fernandez-Diaz - Co-Founder Hip-Hop Festival Cuba - Habana, Cuba/New York ■ Aruna Vermeulen - Founder of Hip-Hop Huis, - Rotterdam, Netherlands ■ Audrey Noeltner, Ahmed Bourouaid - Co-Director of 1,2,3 Rap Association - Paris,

France ■ Bwette Daniel Gilbert - Founder of the Ugandan Hip-Hop Archivist, - Uganda ■ Carlos Davalos - Hip-Hop Radio DJ Scratchamama 90.9 FM Mexico City - D.F., Mexico ■ Charlie Thomson - Music Industry College Brisbane Hip-Hop artist and teacher -

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Brisbane, Australia ■ Cida Costa - Doctoral student at the University of Sao Paulo - Sao Paulo, Brazil ■ Cristiane Correia Dias - Founder of Eclipse Breakdance Crew - Sao Paulo, Brazil ■ Damon Anderson - Executive Director of the international humanitarian organization ID

Identifying Discourse Inc. - Morocco ■ Don Popo - Founder of Familia Ayara - Bogota, Colombia ■ Fou “Malal” Malade - Senegalese author, composer, and rapper - Dakar, Senegal ■ Golden Huang Jinyang - Hip-Hop researcher at Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific

Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong - Hong Kong, China ■ Harold Hejazi - Founder of Quake of the Cans Project - Victoria, Canada ■ Ian Solomon-Kawall (KMT) - Hip-Hop Researcher - United Kingdom ■ Jarrett Martineau - Cree/Dene scholar at the University of Victoria - Canada ■ Kang’ethe Ngigi (MC Kah) - Co-Founder of Maono Cultural Group - Nairobi, Kenya ■ Mandeep Sethi - Emcee + Filmmaker, - India/California ■ Marcio Santos - Secretary of Culture, Specialist for Hip-Hop Projects - Sao Paulo, Brazil ■ Marlon Burgess - New York University - South Africa ■ Mary Fogarty, PhD - Assistant professor, Department of Dance York University, Toronto,

Canada ■ Miki Noda and Keiko Tanaka - Co-Founders of 5th Element Non-Profit - Japan ■ Nicole Binggeli - Co-Founder of Street Style Lab - Sweden/New York ■ Olad Aden - Founder of Gangway Beatz and The Bronx-Berlin Connection - Berlin,

Germany ■ Timo Sadovnik - Founder, Chairman, of Four Elements - Vienna, Austria ■ Toni C - Award winning Brazil Hip-Hop author - Sao Paulo, Brazil ■ Valerie Hwang - New York University student researcher - Japan

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APPENDIX B

Track List of Terms and Concepts

Presented by The “Def” Committee at the Hip Hop Education Center’s Think Tank III.

In no shape or form should this attempt at listing terms and concepts be considered definitive or final. We are not engaged in an exercise to exclude those who engage hip-hop as a context in K-12 classrooms and community spaces. Instead, this list is shared as a living document and an invitation to collaborate with the “Def” Committee as we continue to develop definitions and descriptions to these (and possibly new) terms and concepts. As a group of concerned community scholar-educators, the following document should be considered reflective of a collective effort to address how the following terms are actively utilized in our pedagogical practices with young people inside and outside of classrooms. As people who engage the multiple dimensions of hip-hop to facilitate and develop skills, we are committed to suspend any assumed “expertise” to enter a process centered in action and reflection with our students.

Many of us have taken the idea of “sampling” as a metaphor for being a hip-hop educator. On the one hand, we encourage students to pursue their own learning through sample, as hip-hop does in its artistic practices. We value the knowledge and experiences that students bring to our classrooms and we work with them to explore how their different learnings might work and not-work in their quests for self-wisdom. We invite them to view different classroom, reading, community-based, and other learning practices as a pool of resources that they sample, that they consider and either reject or accept or innovate on, based on what they are seeking to learn. Similarly, we engage in sampling in terms of the knowledge practices inherent in the institutional cultures of the campuses or departments or school buildings where we work. We examine what exists, we innovate to create new learning experiences, and we pursue self-growth through exploration, questioning, and acceptance, rejection or modifications of existing norms. As we sample, our goal is not to disrespect the ideas that came before us but to build on them to create something new.

Key Educational Concepts

■ Education Curriculum Sampling ■ Culturally Relevant and Responsive Pedagogy ■ Constructionist Pedagogy ■ Critical Race Theory and Critical Pedagogy

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Knowledge Within Hip-Hop

■ Oppositional Consciousness ■ Critical Hip-Hop Pedagogy ■ Hip-Hop Curriculum ■ The Five Elements ■ Cipher/Cypher Battle ■ Building

The Five Elements of Hip-Hop

■ B-Boying/B-Girling ■ Emceeing (rapping/hosting) ■ DJing ■ Graffiti (writing/visual arts) ■ Fifth Element (Knowledge of Self and the Community)

Roles within Hip-Hop Education

■ Hip-Hop Peer Review ■ Hip-Hop Teaching Artist ■ Hip-Hop Scholar ■ Hip-Hop Therapist ■ Hip-Hop Educator ■ Hip-Hop Community Builder ■ Hip-Hop Political Activist ■ Hip-Hop Entrepreneur/Social Entrepreneur

Hip-Hop Education Across the Curriculum from K-12 to Post-Secondary

■ Critical Thinking ■ Personal is Political ■ Knowledge as Dialogue ■ Citizenship and Civic Engagement

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APPENDIX C

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