1. Tom Penn wrote:

Very good segment; it is always great to hear Dr. Dyson’s voice.

However, in the interest of full disclosure, shouldn’t Dr. Dyson have told his listeners that Marc Lamont Hill was once one of his his teaching assistants while both educators taught at University of Pennsylvania?

2. Marc Lamont Hill wrote:

Why?

3. DCI74 wrote:

Good interview Marc, it reminds me of the many conversations I’ve had about hip hop in the classroom with my colleagues.

Full disclosure, what are you talking about Tom? It’s not like they are running for office. I know a lot of guests personally that I have on my show but I don’t feel any obligation to let the listeners know unless it’s relevant to the topic of discussion. The topic is not the influences of former teaching assistants, it’s about hip hop pedagogy in the classroom. What would have been added to the conversation or its reception by the listening audience by stating Marc used to be Dyson’s teaching assistant?

4. Tom Penn wrote:

The purpose of the interview is to promote the sale of the book. There is an underlying commercial component to any media interview surrounding the release of a book and an appearance by its author.

I’m sure that Dr. Dyson does not give ever author who requests time on his show to plug his new tome an interview does he? In many instances, I have seen on television or heard on radio the host explain to his audience that there is/was a prior business relationship between the host and the interviewee. I was expecting Dr. Dyson to do so. He chose not to; his prerogative I assume.

5. Clif Soulo wrote:

Well it sounds like your assuming Tom Penn, and we not what that makes people look like right?

on another note, here is a great interview of Michael Eric Dyson with Davey D and Dyson is dropping some serious critiques of Prez. Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0mEzQMQd5s

6. Logic wrote:

Great interview. You answered my question that I had (from the Mumia review) about motivation to learn when hip-hop is absent from the classroom. I definitely think that our kids need to understand that we have to operate in two realities, ours and theirs. And to be successful in life, whatever that may mean, we have to be able to engage the public discourse effectively, as well as our primary.

Remember, we have to work twice as hard to get half as much.

7. Eric Jackson wrote:

I didn’t have much success when I tried to incorporate hip hop in an activity for my Biology class. I was a brand new teacher so maybe I could have done things better with getting this going. Before doing this activity, I noticed that whenever I entered the class, some of the young Black men in the class would be in the back of the room rapping. Biology is a subject that requires a great deal of memory, so I wanted to give these students an opportunity to learn the material and express themselves in a way that seemed easy for them. None of these guys stepped up to the plate. I finally got up and out rhymed them. Also a young Black girl in the class got up and out rhymed those fellas as well.

Hip Hop though it is economically successful has got to clean up it’s act. The sexually explicit lyrics in many of the songs describe in vivid detail exactly what the guy will do to his love interest (and these are played on the radio and BET). These songs dominate mainstream hip hop and I feel that if rap is going to be used in education it must first be a good role model for kids (outside of education). These songs also involve a lot of bragging about how much money they make and how many girls they can get with it. If you have a friend, and everytime you saw that friend, he was constantly bragging, how long will you stay around him? The subject matter covered in hip hop for many mainstream artists (the chart makers) are miniscule compared to that of other popular music.

8. Eric Jackson wrote:

Hello Marc,

After just seeing this video, I now realize that educators should not wait until mainstream hip hop gets its act together. Maybe those who are doing positive things with rap can change hip hop’s mainstream consciousness.

“Hip-hop as teaching tool ”

A mother uses hip-hop to teach her special-needs child. CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield explains.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2009/05/30/whitfield.hip.hop.baby.cnn