Fresh Ed: A Field Guide to Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (Urban Arts Partnerships - NYC) by Jarritt Sheel

We would like to thank Jamie Ehrenfeld, Fresh Ed & Urban Arts Partnerships - NYC for the sharing of their documents to hep further our understanding of Culturally Responsive Pedagogies and how they can be enacted in musicking classrooms all over the world. 

Fresh Ed is a standards-based curriculum that acknowledges and capitalizes on young peoples’ fanatical love of pop music rhythms, and retrofits its culturally responsive signiers (style) to reframe the way content is presented. In other words, Fresh Ed uses hip-hop music and youth culture to make ELA and social studies content accessible to middle school students who otherwise might nd it foreign or irrelevant. Its culturally responsive design is specfically informed by the ideas presented in “A Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching” (Raymond J. Wlodkowski and Margery B. Ginsberg)..... 


Getting to know and understanding your students is at the root of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP). Fresh Ed posits that learning cannot take place unless we know our students. Before exploring academic content, it is necessary to create a classroom culture that enhances social emotional learning (SEL). These activities are broken up into three categories: The Three Class Commandments, Ice Breakers and Team Builders. Because they are intended to build community, relationships, and understanding between students and educators, they should be used heavily at the start of the program, as well as implemented throughout the process.....

READ THE ATTACHED DOCUMENT FOR FURTHER DETAILS ON HOW TO ENACT THIS IN YOUR MUSICKING CLASSROOM...