Shots In The Dark: " You Need to Be a Little Cooler"

Sunday, April 01, 2007

" You Need to Be a Little Cooler"

Ice-T spoke to a class a Teachers College, Columbia, the other day about "the evolution of hip-hop and the promotion of youth education."

To an audience of present and future educators, he said, “You need to be a little cooler. When you’re a teacher, get to know what the kids know … Get into their zone, communicate with them.”

Sounds like something that would get Cornel West driven out of Harvard!

But wait...there is a serious point here. As Harvard is trumpeting its admissions stats—97% rejected! 98 %! Pretty soon, Harvard will boast that it rejects every person who applies—the university is, theoretically, inviting more applications from poor and minority students.

A significant influx of such students would probably pose greater demands on advising and teaching methods. Is anyone at Harvard thinking about this?

¶ 12:24 PM

Comments:

What in the hell are you talking about?

And - "you need to be a little cooler"? This from one of the biggest sell-outs of all time?

You know, there's pop psychology, pop history, pop religion.....and now, pop blogging!

# posted by Anonymous : April 2, 2007 12:17 AM

This is a very interesting entry Richard:

"A significant influx of such students would probably pose greater demands on advising and teaching methods. Is anyone at Harvard thinking about this?"

It might also be helpful for these students to find some in the faculty who share their background... so that they would not be invisible to them... Have you read Ralph Ellison's novel 'Invisible Man', from the prologue:

I am an invisible man...I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me...That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come into contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality...It's when yuou feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump peple back.. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you are part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with yuour fists, yuou curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful."

# posted by Anonymous : April 2, 2007 6:49 AM

Why the rage, Anonymous 1? Anon2 seems to know what I'm talking about....

# posted by Richard Bradley : April 2, 2007 7:39 AM

What does Cornel West teach and why does he teach it?

# posted by Anonymous : April 2, 2007 10:20 AM

I guess Princeton might also be able to claim it can reject everyone who applies:

Princeton Rejects 90.5% of Applicants, Most Since '53:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aqHEFkEL3DSY&refer=us

# posted by Anonymous : April 3, 2007 6:18 AM

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