It’s Monday morning, and the classroom is filled with the early morning yawns of Sabot At Stony Point School‘s eighth grade students. As Black Liquid, or Mr. Liquid, as the students call him, enters into the classroom, he addresses most of his students by the nicknames with which they have knighted themselves.
It’s Monday morning, and the classroom is filled with the early morning yawns of Sabot At Stony Point School‘s eighth grade students. As Black Liquid, or Mr. Liquid, as the students call him, enters into the classroom, he addresses most of his students by the nicknames with which they have knighted themselves. He tells them to get out the rhymes they’ve written as he presses play on the stereo, and the instrumental for “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest starts to pump through the speakers. This is their final–a written rhyme to be performed in front of the entire middle school, as well as their teachers. Sounds like a dream class, right? For these students, though, it’s a real and important part of their education.
Sabot at Stony Point School was established in 2007, combining the resources of two different local private schools, each of which had three to four decades of individual history. It provides an intimate educational environment that offers plenty of individual attention for its students. Sabot At Stony Point Executive Director Irene Carney, who has over 30 years of experience with the school, explains that the purpose of the school is to focus on the child and what he or she might have to face when leaving school and going out into the real world. “We focus on teaching a more social and active approach to learning, and in exchange we learn a lot from our students as well,” says Carney. “I enjoy my students,” says social studies teacher Bruce Coffey. He also believes in passing along as much of his own knowledge as he can. “I like to include as much as I can in history without oversaturating the students.”
Where the hip hop class is concerned, Carney believes it’s had a positive effect on the school as a whole. “The program receives great responses from the students and parents,” she says. Black Liquid, who has previously worked as an assistant at Art 180’s Songwriting program at Henderson Middle School, has been teaching this class to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders at Sabot for three years. The goal of the class is to teach growing kids about the possibilities for expressing their creativity through the medium of hip hop.
I assisted Black Liquid in teaching the class this year, and found it to be a uniquely humbling experience. Considering that the class focused on rhythm, rhyme, and other subjects that aren’t too different from what is discussed in a typical English class, it was remarkable to see the joy that these Monday classes brought to a group of eager middle schoolers.
Students in the class named quite a few lessons that they found to be highlights. From understanding the importance of teamwork and learning new forms of communication to increasing vocabulary, becoming comfortable with public speaking, and discovering the multiple meanings that can be created through rhyming, many of the lessons they learned through the hip hop class had important real-world applications–and they still enjoyed learning them.
I asked Black Liquid for some thoughts on his experience teaching the class, and this is what he had to say:
“Besides speaking and performing for the youth at Juvenile Detention Centers, teaching has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my entire life. Not only because it’s something I never thought I would be doing, but because its value and meaning transcend words. There is so much shared inspiration, so many unique challenges, and it’s something I get to do with the singular expectation and goal of everyone being there to have fun! I don’t see my students as kids; I see them as a group of people who are knowledgeable because of their youth. As adults, we are all guilty of being ignorant because of our knowledge. In that simplicity I find liberation, and they run with it–and take me with them.”
Due to its unique ability to reach and connect with students, it’s clear that the hip hop classes at Sabot At Stony Point School are a valuable educational opportunity. The faculty and staff at Sabot At Stony Point are ahead of the curve with this and many other programs in their curriculum, but I hope to eventually see classes that educate students on the creative possibilities of hip hop at all schools, public and private. One day when I have kids, I hope an educational opportunity like this is available to them.
To learn more about Sabot At Stony Point School, visit their website: http://www.sabotatstonypoint.org
Keep up with the music and hustle of Black Liquid at the following links:
http://www.blackliq.com/
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