Pop Culture in Urban Teaching

Duncan Andrade

Kelly Briner
Reaction: I think its interesting that this article is referencing studies or citing
academic/scholarly articles in an attempt to understand todays popular culture and
relate it to pedagogy when the author is using in an attempt to facilitate their
understanding is, in some cases, close to fifty years old.
This was just my initial reaction.
Connection: The article just feelsdated. It says really basic things like cultures
present in classrooms and under examination here should be seen as additive,
rather than as zero sum. Its as if the author assumes that people can only be a
participant of one single culture. This is why its important to not use dated sources
as a foundation of your research, because even with good intentions, its easy to
come off as unaware of the current time. For someone less versed in an
understanding of culture, Im sure this type of black/white clarification is helpful.
Reaction: The article references how some educational theorists have become
critical of cultures relevance in education by saying that culture is a hindrance to
learning, culture as an impediment to learning (Hull, Rose, Fraser, & Castellano,
1991; McDermott & Varenne, 1995; Valdes, 1996). This is almost comical and just
another reason you dont use research from dated academia 20 years ago when
trying to figure out if a component of contemporary youth is important or not.
Todays high school and middle school students were not even born by the time
these articles were published, yet theyre practically deciding whats important to
their education?
Application: A major point of the article is investigating how students are spending
their time. What are they investing themselves in and how are they investing
themselves in those areas? Those answers are simply available if the educator talks
with their students. I am horrified by the idea that teachers do not take the time to
talk to their students. Especially in grade school, where the teacher sees those
students 5 days out of the week. In college its understandable, but to not get to
know students who you see every day is a travesty.
Application: Get to know your students.