What is the book all about?
Ernest Morrell is an educator and researcher that worked with our urban youth. He composed a study to find creative ways to reach our ever growing diverse population within the classroom setting. He conducted his research within two different schools; North Bay High and South Bay High. North Bay High is a large multicultural school with low academic self-esteem. The educators had given up on trying to help these students realize their academic potential because they did not have the tools or determination to relate to these students. On the other hand, South Bay High is an average sized multicultural school with high academic scores. Unfortunately, the scores at South Bay show, “…huge disparities in achievement between students according to ethnic and socioeconomic background” (14). Ernest Morrell explains his experience of bringing popular culture into the classroom and watching the academic confidence rise throughout North Bay and the achievement gap shrink at South Bay.
The first section discusses what popular culture is and why it must be included in our classrooms. There are hidden messages everywhere we go. A person cannot walk down the street without being bombarded or even sit in their room listening to music or watching tv without being told how to feel about a topic or what to buy. It happens so often that it is almost impossible to separate a unique want or idea from the interference of popular culture and the media. Some people are even unaware of how the media affects their decisions, especially our youth. It is important to make our youth aware of the impact the media has so that they can become aware of their own decisions.
In the Second section, Morrell paints a pictures of what it looks like to include popular culture in the classroom. He mentions how he included popular music, film and television, mass media, and sports into the classroom with astonishing achievement of critical thinking. Considering that hip-hop has swept over the nation and become a money market industry, he includes it into his classroom. He discusses a research project that gets students motivated to learn and think critically as well as a presentation. Then he goes onto to discuss how he links classical texts with film and had students analyze the two by themes to attack those higher order thinking skills. He had students questioning the messages in mass media and got students reading and writing with sports.
The last section encourages other educators to take a risk and how to overcome skepticism of inclusion. Sometimes teachers need to be willing to take a risk and teach something that is unfamiliar like popular culture. Some of our educators need to realize that it is ok if we incorporate something not yet categorized or analyzed. Unfortunately, though, many of our educators disregard popular culture in the classroom because they label it as inappropriate. Think back to when you were young and the music, clothes, or even words you liked did not conform to the expectations of elders. Popular culture is always going to be critically looked at and questioned because it is not yet understood. At the same time, the curriculum includes a vast majority of our human weaknesses that are deemed appropriate, so why not the weaknesses of the popular culture? There are many possibilities to get students thinking critically about the world that will grasp their attention better when we include themes related to popular culture. If we are going to capture learning in our classroom and create an understanding relationship with students then we need to encourage our students to explore the impacts of popular culture without creating a negative outlook.
