Merging real stories
with theory, research, and practice, a prominent scholar offers a new
approach to teaching and learning for every stakeholder in urban
education.
Drawing on his own
experience of feeling undervalued and invisible in classrooms as a
young man of color and merging his experiences with more than a
decade of teaching and researching in urban America, award-winning
educator Christopher Emdin offers a new lens on an approach to
teaching and learning in urban schools. For White Folks Who Teach in
the Hood...and the Rest of Y’all Too is the much-needed antidote to
traditional top-down pedagogy and promises to radically reframe the
landscape of urban education for the better.
He begins by taking
to task the perception of urban youth of color as unteachable, and he
challenges educators to embrace and respect each student’s culture
and to reimagine the classroom as a site where roles are reversed and
students become the experts in their own learning.
Putting forth his
theory of Reality Pedagogy, Emdin provides practical tools to unleash
the brilliance and eagerness of youth and educators alike—both of
whom have been typecast and stymied by outdated modes of thinking
about urban education. With this fresh and engaging new pedagogical
vision, Emdin demonstrates the importance of creating a family
structure and building communities within the classroom, using
culturally relevant strategies like hip-hop music and
call-and-response, and connecting the experiences of urban youth to
indigenous populations globally. Merging real stories with theory,
research, and practice, Emdin demonstrates how by implementing the
“Seven C’s” of reality pedagogy in their own classrooms, urban
youth of color benefit from truly transformative education.
For White Folks Who
Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y'all Too has been featured in
MotherJones.com, Education Week, Weekend All Things Considered with
Michel Martin, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, PBS NewsHour.com,
Slate, The Washington Post, Scholastic Administrator Magazine,
Essence Magazine, Salon, ColorLines, Ebony.com, Huffington Post
Education.