Disrupting the Miseducation of African American Youth: Kwame Shaka Opare at TEDxChesterRiver

my name is Kwame o Perry I'm a performing artist I have spent most of my life studying cultivating creating experimenting with choreographing performing teaching and learning dance I've traveled most of the world by way of my career in dance I have been part of a major Broadway cast for nearly seven years and I have traveled extensively and worked extensively as an independent artist in my travels I have been face to face with various sundry of people from all sorts and walks of life and I've also been in many situations some fascinating and delightful others not so much and all of the living that I had done or thought that I had done prior to 2007 nothing I'd imagined could have prepared me for the shock that I was to experience when I stepped into a ninth grade classroom at a Baltimore City High School in 2007 I began working with ninth graders at a Baltimore City School the ages were between 13 and 16 years old some 16 and a half I was hired as a dance instructor to help these students acquire their Maryland state arts credit which I was told was mandatory for them in order to graduate now I had been in many of classrooms and worked with plenty of young people throughout my career but that was usually set up through some kind of arts department or arts program that was already at the school this was my first time in a regular classroom three times a week eighth period the last period of of the day for a year my first day when I crossed the threshold of this classroom I was barreled over by what I can describe to you now was nothing short of straight bedlam and I mean a cacophony of madness the language the behavior the way that they interacted with each other and just the utter disregard for one another for themselves for the adult that was in the classroom and for the institution of learning you have to think to give you a point of reference for those of you who have not been in such an environment think Lord of the Flies meets boys in the hood ok you'll get at least half of that reference which is all you need to understand the kind of community that was happening inside of these classrooms and I kept thinking where the adults where the adults we're where the people that are supposed to be guiding these children and also I thought I'm supposed to teach these kids dance and so I set and I observed and I observed and I observed some more I let them go about doing anything and finally I said ok I get it now I understand these are your classroom rules and I start to lay them down now I was shocked it's just as much as they were shocked they were shocked by what I was going to say and I was shocked by their response to what I said first rule no cursing that just that just I mean this one girl can what do you mean mr. whatever-your-name-is that's just how some people talk what do you mean so no cursing no hitting no throwing of objects no leaving the classroom without some kind of discussion with me to let me know what's going on no groping of yourself or other people and so we started about a weekend I had given them some literature to read out loud you know you do the thing you give the book and you pass it around everybody reads a chapter or sorry a paragraph and I was astonished to find that these teenagers were reading on a level beneath that of a second grader in fact the first kid that I gave the book to to read he started in and I said well stop stop listen okay let's put the games aside a stop plan just read the passage and be serious and he looked at me and said I am being serious he was stumbling through sentences like reading was this extraordinary feat and so I'm thinking how how can this be how are they coming to me like this they have been in school for at least 10 years some more and Here I am a dance teacher in the eighth period in the ninth grade and you're coming to me and you can't read simple things that a second grader can read so I quickly realized that there was work to be done and I felt obligated to give these young people at least an opportunity to excel I was there in a capacity of a dance teacher but I needed to give them something that was far beyond just five six seven eight and so I discovered that I needed to give them the same thing that I had I needed to give them experience that life had given me including my education my formal education in the arts and in academics in order to awaken and unlock what I knew to be a sleeping giant of genius I would need to use both creativity and a relevant cultural history a relevant cultural history to give them ownership of what they were learning and make what was happening in the classroom matter to them it's important that you understand that most of these children these students these young teenagers have no idea where they are in the world literally they don't know where they are in the world they don't know where they came from they don't know how they got here they know their city they know the street that they live on but they don't know that just to the east of the Atlantic and on the other side of that Atlantic is their ancestral home they live their life and know most only about what's in a five mile radius of where they live they know nothing of the world or very little about the world outside of that and inside of that five mile radius they're far too often exist in abundance of poverty and despair so that's what they see that's what they see that's what they see that is what they're cognizant of as their life in their status as citizens of the world it's poverty and despair and then they come into the classroom and they get inundated with talk of people that do not look like them that have done great things to contribute to the greatness of America and the greatness of the world throughout history so we began to study these things all through African dance we study geography in the world we studied we delved into longitude and latitude we learned history we learned all of these things in each facet of knowledge inherently beget the next and the conversations and the questions and and the booth discussions began to flourish it always came back to the dance it always came back to the movement in their kinesthetic intelligence that was developing with the dance also went along to develop the other multiple intelligences that they needed to process various forms of information do the dance I discovered that I'm able to teach them to fish and not just give them a fish once they learn that what they catch and what they do with that fish is completely up to them and I'm really become just a facilitator in the middle of this thing helping guide them to find their history to find their connection to the world and find their personal history the importance is the relevance of culture specifically when you're dealing with young students of African descent dealing specifically with African culture and things that will immediately connect to them in traditional African pedagogy as I've studied through my travels throughout the Americas dealing with people that study this and as well as in Africa traditional African pedagogy includes dance music song points to teach lessons these children had never been exposed that but once I expose them to it their minds begin to flourish and wonderful things begin to happen we can teach them all day about George Washington but where's the connection we can teach them and deposit into them historical and cultural irrelevant material but where's the connection we need to teach these young students about a history that they had prior to slavery what they learn in schools is what they know that they can achieve - so they learned that the history starts of the world the contributions in the world start with slavery and comes forward so Black History Month talks about slavery Amon Luther King but nothing of what their people contributed to the world into civilizations long before and all the things that happened in Africa so once you begin to teach them that their minds begin to awaken you teach them about their marvelous history and you watch what happens teach them and tell them I tell them that their people have done wonderful things and that you too can do wonderful once you tell them the moment they realize that their people have done something is the moment they realize that they can do something and that's when you get them and once you get them you got them you understand and this doesn't matter your color your background your size oh you're gonna listen to you because look at your size they scared you no no no no it's not this is operating it's what's coming from him as a teaching artist and as a teacher you should have but as a teaching artist we bring passion persistence and that personal attachment to the classroom I expect excellence of them and there's nothing that tells me that they cannot excel and be the absolute best at whatever this thing is that I'm teaching them I have no doubt in my mind that that will happen so I tell them there's nothing that I see in you that tells me that you cannot achieve excellence there's nothing that I see in you that tells me that you cannot disrupt the status quo that you cannot disrupt all of the negative things that people say they expect from you and be triumphant we have to switch we have to change things up because right now in the education things aren't working so once you get them you got them they start to talk to you the conversation starts they start to give they start to receive they start to take ownership of their education and everything becomes different their purview of Education and everything that happens as far as the experience in school is shifts math is different now science is different now it's theirs it becomes theirs I approach the students with this expectation of excellence and I shy away from what the educational philosopher Paulo Freire calls the banking method and education we were just depositing deposit and deposit and depositing hoping to withdraw something at test time and it never works and the children are exercising their minds so I maintain that the arts are a way to subvert the status quo art are way to let them know that pop culture does not define your success you have a history of people that have contributed great things to the world and you are part of that story this is what they see when they walk into the classroom back to the poverty and despair piece so it's up to us and I'm not talking to just the teachers but the adults in the community it's up to us to offer the ones that come behind us something that they can use to let them know that they can't achieve that they can excel and that they're their life and their aspirations and their dreams and it goes don't have to just reach this ceiling and stop to be a great teacher is to be involved in subversive activity and I believe that dance and the arts in relevant cultural history and relevant curriculum not just to this one set of students or there's one demographic of people but across the board what are we afraid of what are we afraid of let's awake in the minds and let's explain the purview of these minority children of these students that all they learn about is people that don't look like them and what they contributed to the world and then let's share that across all the cultural and social lines so that we talk about the world that we want to have in the unity and the love and all of that good feel-good etalk but we have to do something from here and give the children and instilled that self-efficacy that allows them to excel so that being said I believe this very much about dance so when I walk into the classroom one of the first questions I ask them I don't care if it's pre-k or FERS post-grad it's a question that I might ask of you right now it's a very serious question it's not to be taken lightly and I asked that out of respect for the process you think about it before you answer can you count to four it's not a trick question can you count to four let me hear it let's try that again and I again ask you to please think before you answer let me hear it okay so why did you count together just now why because what I directed you to do that okay so right now already I'm in a classroom I just met you people and I'm giving you something that is allowing you to work together immediately and fill your power immediately you just counted the four together because I just gave you a little push let's try it again one two ready yeah okay good this next question is even more serious than the first and I encourage you to look around because we are community of learners and educators I encourage you to look around if you need support do you know your left from your right yes everybody raise their right hand please right hand down left hand up left hand up right hand down okay put it down just making sure you got feet down there take your right foot and stomp it on the floor take your left foot stomp it on the floor okay okay that's good that's good you all know Oprah Winfrey right everybody's familiar with Oprah Winfrey thank you well like the Oprah show I've left something under your cheers under your seats so official Washington College issue dance Department sanctioned kinaesthetic thinking caps go ahead and put them all go ahead and put them on go ahead put them on okay now to help some of you mm can aesthetically challenged rhythmically challenge people's self proclaimed I'm sure there's a loop with a strap go ahead and strap it over pull it back through cut this velcro then there are two screws here just two small turns good now shake your head make sure it's on tight good very nice there's a song that we sing it's an old folk song it's from Ghana and it's sung in Nigeria in the Miss we're because the mixture is Ghana language some guy named language and some Nigerian language and it's about self efficacy it's about a boy named Kofi and Kofi it's August saying that you are a strong male you are someone that can achieve this thing no matter how difficult or large it may seem with the proper methods and a proper support you can achieve this thing I'm going to teach you the song right now and you're going to sing it to me and then a few of you will stop me outside and show me how well did you have it that's the ownership this is what the students do so when I tie a historical fact to that when I tie some social cultural facts to that now I remember they're remembering that with all these other things and then the mind is exploding things of working so you're gonna repeat after me chair chair cool a chair chair cool a good the problem is you respond gonna clap listen to it like this catch it lay okay there's a little hesitation it's okay all right catch it live huh Nexus J Chico FISA uh-huh J Chico FISA Lola I can hear your feet a Chico pizza Kofi Salonga no no no no no Kofi Salonga there it lights on I could see all y'all man let's recap little formative assessment chair chick lit Jericho FISA go fee Salonga okay okay still get those they aren't okay all right gotcha langa gotcha Langa here's the problem because you're sitting down I can't see how low you're getting so I think we should probably stand up let's subvert the status quo let's stand up you've been sitting all day here we go Church it blue Jericho FISA Kofi Salonga katachi langa okay good good good good good is the is the congressman still here did he leave the Congress okay I was told by my graduate studies advisor at College Park mixer what's his name again the congressman yeah mr. Gilchrist I forgot sorry make sure you get mr. Gilchrist dancing okay I was looking for me so we got a chick Oh FISA and we got Kofi so long let's start from the top get it lit sachiko FISA Kofi Salonga gotcha Lanka hey I been there okay now which way we're going to go remember earlier when I asked you about the left and the right thing so if I'm facing you and I'm going so we going lose what is this there you go okay just making sure catch it flip Church echo FISA Kofi Salonga gotcha Lanka boom I did there who my dinners you can you really really can so I'm telling you you can you really really can all right here we go boom I didn't de boom I didn't date here we go then the kumkum identity is like the wild card near my daughter implant you know a lot lately so shiri bought that back into my life after all these years but tits gum coumadin is the wild card so we might do anything then okay cuz you got to mix it up you got to keep them thinking I'm gonna keep you thinking so make sure your caps on here we go we'll get it on I don't have a clock here so I don't much time I have left I haven't much I need wonderful here we go you ready to give me a little bop make sure you nice and warm get those knees warm uh-huh my little neck roll okay this is called the town boogie I just named this I just named this this is Chester town boogie right here here we go ready here we go traitor let say Chico FISA Kofi Salonga katachi langa poom addenda whom addenda testicular Sachiko FISA Kofi Salonga katachi Langa poom addenda kunkuma den dey come come come come come come attend a circular Jericho pizza for free Salonga cartel Angga boom addenda whom are then they come come come come come addenda thank you guys very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 172,813

Rating: 4.8818226 out of 5

Keywords: Social Change, English, Performance, ted talks, Community, tedx talks, ted, ted talk, TEDxChesterRiver, ted x, tedx, United States (Country), Dance, Culture, tedx talk

Id: gF1fJ_cTcwk

Length: 24min 19sec (1459 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 27 2012