A
panel of speakers more heavy on hip hop artists rather than academics
or experts discussed the American education system last Saturday at
an event organized by Wesleyan stuent Evan Okun. Titled “Exclusion
and It's Consequences," it was intended to “host brilliant
thinkers who are not granted 'legitimacy' within the field of
academia.” The panel featured Hip Hop artists M-1 and stic.man,
core members of the highly acclaimed rap collective Dead Prez,
Wesleyan Professor of Sociology Daniel Long, Wesleyan student
Chantaneice Kitt (Class of 2013), and Umi, a Wesleyan graduate also
associated with Dead Prez's rap collective.
While
it struck me as somewhat ironic that a conversation about inequality
in the educational system was held at an elite, private institute of
higher learning, I still found much of the discussion profound and
inspiring. To me, and this is only my opinion, it seemed to fall
short, however, of injecting much energy into the crowd of about 200
people that came to listen. The audience was subdued and clapped
politely at the end, with a minor showing of enthusiasm, but not much
sense of any take away action, at least that I could discern. It can
be assumed that there was a much greater showing of spirit at the
concert scheduled for later that night, which I didn't attend. The
concert was covered in the Wesleying blog (click
here) with much back and forth commenting about the irony that I
also sensed as well as other sarcastic dueling.
Another
attendee at the panel had a different perspective. On what felt to me
like a lack of enthusiasm, she thought that the silence was a sign
more of rapt attention than of disinterest. The fact that the
audience was quiet and that very few people left before the end,
which ran late, was a real sign of their respect and engagement, she
thought.
While
I enjoyed listening to the panelists' stories, experiences, and
ideas, I didn't hear anything unfamiliar or atypical. Disillusionment
and disenfranchisement seem to be the rule rather than the exception,
something everyone can relate to, so I didn't feel in any way jarred
or outraged as perhaps the title of the panel might suggest I should.
But maybe that is the point. But again in discussing my
reaction with another attendee, we had some disagreement as she noted
that “taking Columbus Day off the calendar
and not teaching European colonization as praiseworthy in schools is
revolutionary.” The thing is, I barely even registered that this
was discussed at all, it was only touched on indirectly in a passing
comment and was not presented in any focused way.
The panel began by way of a music video
of a song about school by Dead Prez and the first question asked was
about how funding was obtained to record that song.
M-1
answered by saying “your energy is your funding. Your
energy, your time, your creativity, and your resourcefulness are the
funding. Hip hop music was in a different place at that time,
relegated to an underground status.”
Each of the panelists then spent a few
moments explaining their background and reasons for being present.
Wesleyan Professor of Sociology Daniel Long spoke about the
school-to-prison pipeline and how the education system gives a false
appearance of diversity and meritocracy when those don't really
exist.
Umi,
a Wesleyan graduate, talked about growing up in Tuskegee Alabama and
about only knowing what he did not want out of life, as opposed to
knowing what he did want. He spoke of his years at Wesleyan as a time
of escape that allowed him to immerse himself in new experiences and
meet different kinds of people.
Stic.man
spoke about how he dropped out of high school and was proud of having
done so at the time,
because he thought of it as resisting the bullshit* he felt he was
being fed by the educational system. (I considered changing
this word to 'nonsense' but for the sake of journalistic integrity I
decided to use the terminology as stated, so as not to change the
tone.) He explained that he felt a lot of rage and frustration as a
teenager and that if he put any value on a high school diploma then
he felt he would be allowing the system to break him down, and he
would be legitimizing the system he felt was a bullshit system.
Whether he was describing a case of regular old youthful indignation,
or a heartfelt reaction to actual systematic injustices, I couldn't
really tell without knowing more particular details, though I suspect
it's probably a combination of both. But upon entry into the world
of adulthood, he says, he realized that schools don't have a monopoly
on bullshit, it's everywhere. He thought he was rebelling against
indoctrination but he got caught up in the same trap elsewhere. “It's
what we think we know that keeps us ignorant,” he concluded.
Chantaneice Kitt, a current Wesleyan
student from Harlem, spoke about her experiences in the New York City
school system and having gone from an extremely progressive
elementary school to being placed in a less than stellar junior high
school. In attempts to transfer to a better school, she struggled
through much bureaucracy and was faced with administrative
incompetence, and ultimately was unable to avoid attending the poorly
rated school. Still, she made her way to an exclusive preparatory
high school in CT and then to Wesleyan.
M-1 looked at school like a movie,
something to get through or watch passively, rather than something to
achieve. He spoke of becoming increasingly disinterested in sports
and academics, though at the time he didn't think about why. When he
got to Florida A&M University, by what he called a fluke, and
began actuarial studies he felt that the educational system was
trying to make people into drones. He gave an example of a the
business school requiring everyone to wear suits and ties every
Wednesday. He began to reject the educational system and cited
influences whose work he began studying in his quest to self educate:
George Jackson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Chuck D, KRS-One, Eldridge Cleaver,
Sonia Sanchez.
When asked by the moderator what
changes they would propose to revolutionize education, stic.man
responded first saying he'd have to overthrow that question because
we have to ask “What is a revolution? What is a system of
education? When you put education into a system, it's already dead.”
He spoke of being influenced by Bruce Lee's ideas opposing a
one-size-fits-all education. “Our perspective filters the reality.
To revolutionize the educational system, it is about educating
ourselves, and more about letting go of our notions than about
picking up more. There is no absolute, and we need to let go of our
preconceptions about what education is.”
M-1 said we're in “a revolutionary
upheaval right now. Revolution has been disarmed by being made to
seem ordinary.”
Wesleyan Professor Daniel Long spoke
about an experimental school program in Tucson Arizona that was very
successful and tailored to the student community's needs, but was
also seen as a threat to the status quo and because of this it was
eventually made illegal. The architects of the program were fired and
sued to the point of financial ruin. “How do we educate ourselves
without expunging the roots of who we are, in other words,
outclassing ourselves?” he asked.
Kitt said that popular models of
education get most of the available funding. She cited Geoffrey
Canada's model [Harlem
Children's Zone] as one that has been successful in working
within the existing system. Kitt said Canada's model is the same as
the Black Panther model but without the political element. Taking
away the political message and challenge, she explained, has allowed
the educational aspect to flourish.
“Who defines power? What power do you
have?” asked stic.man…
“Academia is a part of the real world because it shapes your
psychology. If you believe power exists 'over there', you're
helpless, you're hopeless. If you change your perspective and
definition of power, you're inspired. ... Where is the class on
integrity? Where is the class on discipline, creativity? It's not all
about terms and definitions.”
There was some discussion about
expansion of credentials, wherein a job that now requires a college
degree might have only required a high school diploma in the past.
In this sense, it was hypothesized, schools exist to maintain
privilege for the already elite. But recognizing our own power is so
important to achieving our highest potential and uniting
individuality with community, according to Umi. We should see
opportunities instead of obstacles, he said. We have to embrace our
fears and step outside of our comfort zone. Go beyond the campus,
take advantage of what the City of Middletown has to offer, not just
in terms of restaurants or activities, but in terms of meeting a wide
range of people.
Ultimately, though, we're all
responsible for our own choices, successes and failures. Obviously
there's room for improvement in education, but there are also many
elements that work well. Finding the right balance between
complacency and outrage, that is the hard part.
