My Experience
Many students can probably explain who their favorite teacher was in grade school and why. When I am asked this question, I tend to go silent because I never had a teacher who saw the potential in me in elementary school. Most of my teachers would oversee my education and not see the struggles I was facing. I went through a lot in elementary school when it came to my home life and school was the last place I wanted to be. I did have one teacher who who I admired, which was in third grade, but reflecting on that year I’ve realized I 
wasn’t pushed enough to take more risks and be confident in the tasks given to me. Anything a teacher says to students sticks with them for life, especially when those comments are negative, and I have many negative memories of teachers making me feel stupid and embarrassing me in front of the whole class. Thus making the rest of my school experience challenging. Yes, that is a gloomy experience, but instead of having those memories define me, I’ve decided to let my story be a motivator to not allow my future students to feel the same way I did. This experience also gives me to opportunity to relate to all students and gives my future students the understanding that I truly am there for them and care about not only their education, but also who they are as a person and how they are doing both inside the classroom and outside in the community.
With my experience at Millersville, we learned about so many philosopher’s in education like Friedrich Froebel, Charlotte Mason, Jean Piaget, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Lev Vygotsky, the list goes on and on! While all these philosophers have done amazing things in the world of education, I don’t feel a personal connection to them. However, one person who I admire tremendously and hope to someday meet is Dr. Christopher Emdin.
In my sophomore year at Millersville, I took the course Foundations of Modern Education, with Dr. Primus. In this class Dr. Primus had hand selected books written about various philosophers that related to our own teaching philosophies. I 
was assigned Dr. Christopher Emdin’s book, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education. After reading the first page of his book I was hooked and in love!
Christopher Emdin
Dr. Christopher Emdin is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of the Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Christopher Emdin is also the creator of the #HipHopEd social media movement which focuses in on hip-hop education, STEM education, politics, race, 
class, diversity, and youth empowerment. This movement originally began as a twitter discussion, but later grew to be so much more. It has now grown to be a non-profit organization that focuses on conferences, curriculum, professional development, training, and youth development. In his book, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, Dr. Christopher Emdin shares his own personal experience as being a student, as well as his experience of learning and teaching in urban settings, and offers new and creative approaches to education.
Christopher Emdin: For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education.
Don’t be fooled by the title of this book, this is not directed specifically at white educators, but rather directed towards relooking at outdated pedagogy, regardless of race and culture. I’m the type of reader that gets bored easily of dull and jammed-packed context. However, this book made me want to keep turning the page because the tone is conversational, relatable, and humorous. One of Dr. Christopher Emdin’s teaching strategies that was mentioned in his book is the Seven C’s. The first of these seven sections is Cogenerative Dialogues, which teaches teachers to solicit feedback from dissimilar groups of students. The second section is Coteaching, in which the students are called on to teach the concepts they are learning to their classmates. Third, Emdin outlines Cosmopolitanism, where students take over some of the activities in the classroom. Next is Context, where teachers incorporate their own knowledge of the community in everyday life situations. Then Emdin speaks about Content, in which the teacher and the students engage in a certain topic. The sixth area is Competition, in the sense that students compete in nontraditional ways to showcase what they know and have learned. Last, Curation, where both the student and teacher study classroom videos to determine negative and positive learning strategies in the environments.
My Future Plans
After reading this book, it has inspired me to be the teacher I never had for my future students. I love each of the Seven C’s Emdin discusses in his book and will be using them in my classroom. One of the Seven C’s that I am more drawn to is Cogenerative Dialogues and Curation! I would love to have panel of students who discuss what works well in the classroom and what can be done differently. My goal is to have learners feel they are the teachers of their own learning and I am there for support and guidance.
Another theorist who’s work I admire is Gloria Ladson-Billings. Similar to Emdin’s philosophy, Ladson-Billings focuses on culturally relevant teaching and the role the teachers play in the classroom. She focuses on the three pillars which are Academic Achievement, Sociopolitical Awareness, and Cultural Competence. We as educators need to stop teaching by the book and start teaching what truly matters to students. We need to ask students what they want to learn and how that curriculum can be applied to everyday life situations based off their wants and needs. If you don’t make teaching meaningful and engaging, then how do you expect students to respond in a positive way? I want my students to walk out of the classroom everyday feeling they have actually learned something that they can use and remember for the rest of their lives. I remember learning about so much “nonsense” in grade school and thinking I will never use this and this is pointless. I also want my students to be able to go home to their families and say I learned X, Y, and Z today rather than “we didn’t do much today in class.”
More information
I could go on and on about Christopher Emdin, and I truly admire everything he has done in the education world to give all students a space where they feel valued, cared for, and confident to take risks. If you haven’t already read this book I highly recommend it! Not only has he written one amazing book, but also three other books entitled Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation: Essential Tools for the Urban Science Educator and Researcher, #HipHopEd: The Compilation on Hip-hop Education, and Between the World and the Urban Classroom.
Below is a link to a TED Talk called, Teach Teachers How To Create Magic, given by Dr. Christopher Emdin which I think is very compelling, and also gives you an idea of what to expect when reading his book(s)!
Christopher Emdin: Teach teachers how to create magic
What do rap shows, barbershop banter and Sunday services have in common? As Christopher Emdin says, they all hold the secret magic to enthrall and teach at the same time – and it’s a skill we often don’t teach to educators. The science advocate (and cofounder of Science Genius B.A.T.T.L.E.S.
I also wanted to add Dr. Christopher Emdin’s website so that you can find out more about him and his goals for education! It’s definitely worth your time to take a look!
Dr. Christopher Emdin
No Description
References
Education is not memorization. It is the activation of the imagination and a path towards liberation – Dr. Christopher EmdinLearn More. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2020, from https://chrisemdin.com/
Emdin, C. (2010). Urban science education for the hip-hop generation. Rotterdam: Sense.
Emdin, C. (2017). For white folks who teach in the hood – and the rest of y’all too: Reality pedagogy and urban education. Boston: Beacon Press.
Emdin, C., & Adjapong, E. (2018). #HipHopEd: The compilation on hip-hop education. Leiden: Brill Sense.
Gloria Ladson-Billings. (2018, October 01). Retrieved October 29, 2020, from https://naeducation.org/our-members/gloria-ladson-billings/
Sirrakos, G., & Emdin, C. (n.d.). Between the world and the urban classroom. Rotterdam: Sense .
Teach Teachers How to Create Magic [Video file]. (2014, April 8). Retrieved October 01, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ddtbeduoo