‘We Do It 4 the Culture’ uses hip-hop to teach life lessons

A former Baltimore City Public Schools educator is using hip-hop to teach youths about social-emotional learning.November is Hip-Hop History Month, and middle school students at The Commodore John Rodgers ElementaryMiddle School get to listen to hip-hop music and analyze the lyrics in class as a part of their advisory period.”It’s fun because it gives you a break from actual class time,” said Jamil Taylor, an eighth-grade student. “Even though we are still learning, you are learning about stuff that is way more interesting than ‘y equals mx.'”It’s all thanks to a program called We Do It 4 the Culture, a social-emotional learning curriculum rooted in hip-hop culture and storytelling for students in the sixth grade through 12th grade.”We leverage hip-hop culture because it is a universal language. There’s nowhere you can go on this planet where hip-hop has not made an impact, so we try to connect with what students are familiar with, what they are listening to,” said Jamila Sams, the school’s former assistant principal, who created the program.The curriculum uses age-appropriate hip-hop songs with positive messages to connect the students to important life skills, like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.”Just now, they are having...