INTRODUCTION

About 30 years ago I walked into some elementary classrooms to observe some amazing teachers engage in rigorous, authentic teaching with students that much of the education research literature regarded as unlikely to experience academic success. What I witnessed was not only academic success. I saw students who affirmed themselves individually, socially, and culturally. I also saw students who engaged in real-life problem-solving that had implications for them as members of their school community as well as their wider community. Ultimately, I described these teachers as “Dreamkeepers” and the work they did as “culturally relevant pedagogy.” Both terms have gained some traction in the education research literature. Indeed, “culturally relevant pedagogy” produces some five and a half million hits on a Google® search.

Since the publication of Dreamkeepers I have talked to thousands of teachers, teacher educators, students, administrators, and community members throughout the nation and around the world—England, Scotland, Sweden, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, China, Spain, and other countries. Everywhere I have traveled I have learned of students who have been marginalized because of race, ethnicity, language, religion, and/or immigrant status. And, each of these groups of students have struggled to be successful in what might be considered the public schools. Educators and policymakers have wondered how they could adapt the work of the teachers they studied to their specific contexts. Early on I began see that the work of the teachers I studied was not merely descriptive, it was generative.

Since that initial study I have had the opportunity to learn of scores of classrooms where teachers have, despite various systemic inequities, challenged students to rigorous and engaging curriculum in all kinds of subject areas—history/social studies, English, mathematics, and science. I have witnessed teachers go out of their way to help students feel valued and appreciated. I have seen teachers help students with social-emotional and mental wellness issues that led to academic improvement and deeper commitment. I have seen teachers do what I call the “Rumpelstiltskin” pedagogy—spin straw into gold where they had little resources and minimal support but were still able to deliver first rate classroom experiences for their students. I will explain some of these experiences in detail in this volume’s afterword but in this introduction I would like to focus on two important innovations that should impact today’s “Dreamkeepers”—technology and youth culture (aka hip-hop).

Technology Take Over

For today’s students electronic technology is a part of their everyday way of life. I call today’s students, “New Century Students.” For the most part, their teachers were born in the 20th century, they were born in the 21st century. I have had an opportunity to make some observations about New Century Students and these observations have implications for how they operate in the classroom:

1. New Century Students believe in multi-tasking, even though cognitive scientists tell us that multi-tasking is not efficient.1 Our students believe they can listen to music on their Spotify playlist, check their social media pages, text a friend, browse websites, and write a paper. However, the research indicates that only about 2 percent of the population are good at attending to more than one thing. Students who multi-task perform less well than those who attend to one task. However, this does not stop our students from trying to multi-task.
2. New Century Students see themselves more as “consumers” than students. Thus, they tend to “shop” for schools, classes, and teachers. This consumerist attitude is not their fault. We have cultivated the notion of “choice” when it comes to school and students have taken advantage of it. They may live in a district where there is “open enrollment” and choose to go to any school in the district. They may choose a charter school over their neighborhood school. They may live in a district or state that promotes private school vouchers or they may opt out of brick-and-mortar schooling altogether and choose to do “homeschool” or online schooling. All of these choices means that students grow accustomed to “shopping” for their education and like consumers of other goods and services, they expect a certain degree of customer satisfaction. To maintain enrollment, some schools may acquiesce to student and parent demands that may determine course offerings and final grades.
3. New Century Students do not receive their news about the world the ways their parents did via newspapers and nightly television news broadcasts. They receive their news and information via push notices from their favorite Internet sites, blogs and programs like “The Daily Show.” Thus, teachers who may want to incorporate current events in their classrooms must be prepared to hear a variety of perspectives on an item and multiple perspectives on what was the news story of the day. It may not be the political news out of Washington. It can be entertainment news (e.g., Beyoncé dropped an album and video last night), sports news (e.g., Kevin Durant was traded to the Nets) or tech news (e.g., Apple is introducing a new iPhone). These varied perspectives on what constitutes news makes for interesting classroom conversations and the need for teachers to demonstrate some pedagogical flexibility.
4. Although heavily invested in “social justice” New Century Students are less sanguine about “social welfare” (particularly if they have to bear the costs). It is not unusual to see New Century students engage in social protests like “Black Lives Matter” in response to police brutality or “#MeToo” in response to violence, harassment, and discrimination directed toward women, LGBTQIA people, and gender non-conforming people. However, these same students may balk at the notion that they should pay Social Security taxes or be required to subscribe to a health-care plan because they see it as paying for “old people.”
5. In the world of New Century students, email is an “old technology,” and they would prefer to communicate via instant messaging and tweets. While email may be the stock and trade of schools and workplaces, it is a dinosaur among New Century students. Teachers who do not understand the way to reach their students is through text messaging or their Instagram® pages are likely to regularly miscommunicate with them.
6. For New Century students, “library” research can best be done on their desktop, which means they rarely leaf through an entire journal. Where previous generations of students trekked to the library and pulled periodicals off the shelf, New Century students find what they want by doing online searches. They rarely see an article in the context of a whole journal where they may be tempted to read beyond the assignment.
7. New Century students believe it is important to “stay connected,” thus their phones are always at hand and classes that prohibit cell phone use interrupt their connections. Teachers who want to be successful with New Century students often find ways to integrate cell phone use into their classrooms (e.g., establishing live Twitter® feeds and allowing students to search for information using their mobile phones).
8. New Century students have very different conceptions of copyright, intellectual property, and plagiarism rules. This tendency among New Century students is often difficult for 20th-century teachers. They do not realize that their students live in the world of “sampling” and “mashups” where selecting pieces of material is not only appropriate, it is expected. Hip-hop artist Ice Cube samples from the Isley Brothers to make, “It Was a Good Day,” and Lauren Hill samples from Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on “You’re Just too Good to Be True.” Teachers at both the high school and collegiate level have to explicitly teach students rules of plagiarism and intellectual property.

Despite these tendencies among New Century students, there are some exciting opportunities for using technology in teaching and learning. For example, the use of live Twitter® feeds referenced above can be a way to get students who are shy or reserved to participate more fully in the classroom. Instead of seeing mobile devices as distractions, culturally relevant teachers encourage students to use their devices to find information and become more engaged. Several of the teachers I have observed since the initial Dreamkeepers study taught me the importance of allowing students to create a class playlist. In these classes, teachers set the criteria and encourage students to select songs for the playlist. The criteria may demand, no songs with racist, sexist, misogynistic, or homophobic lyrics. The teachers begin each class session with a song or two from the class playlist as students arrive. They indicate that students arrive on time (just in case their song is the one that plays that day) and settle more quickly. Sometimes the song selected becomes a place to begin a conversation or represent a connection to what the class is studying. Teachers working with New Century students believe that mobile devices are another tool similar to textbooks, pens, pencils, and paper. However, it is a classroom tool...