Ground Control Parenting

Public School 163, an elementary school on the Upper West Side of NYC, has a general student body that is 63 percent Black and Hispanic, 27 percent white and 6 percent Asian. But the demographics are quite different in the school’s Gifted and Talented (“G&T”) program: 47 percent of the children enrolled in the nine G&T classes are white; 15 percent are Asian and 32 percent are Black and Hispanic. In the early grades the disparity is most noticeable: Of the 24 students in a kindergarten gifted class, one is Black and three are Hispanic. A first-grade gifted class with 21 students has one Black and two Hispanic students, and there are two Blacks and two Hispanics among the 26 students in a second-grade gifted class. Only 18 percent (80 out of 447) of the children in the general education (not G&T) classes are white.

An article in Sunday’s NY Times, found here, discusses the issues surrounding the demographics of the gifted and talented program and the general student body. Is the selection process fair? Does it rely upon standardized tests which are considered to disadvantage children from poorer communities, in part because they cannot afford extensive test preparation? Does the school advertise the programs in the best ways possible to attract all deserving candidates? The article suggests that much work must be done to alter these demographics.

But two comments, one from a parent and one from a teacher in this school, warrant special attention from GCP readers. Ellis Cose, an African American parent of a child who attends a gifted and talented program at P.S. 163, noted: “I don’t think the fact that G&T programs are clearly and disproportionately white, and are so lacking, given the size of the population, in black and Latino students is the result of anyone’s bad intentions.” Mr. Cose is the author of “The End of Anger” (2011), which explores the issues of race and generational change. “I think it is really the result of people committed to a system that can never work if the objective is diversity,” he said. “The only way it even conceivably can work is to give young poor kids the same sort of boost up that young affluent kids get, which is to make sure these kids get an excellent preschool education, make sure these kids get tutoring, make sure these parents know at what time in the circuit they are supposed to prepare their kids for what. And that is taking on a much larger task than tinkering with a test.”

In other words, parents have to not only know about the program, the application process and the testing, but start helping their children prepare for it years in advance. As we often say at GCP: One of the keys to getting a good education for our children is having access to the information we need to help them be as prepared as possible. Experts resoundingly agree that the years of 0-3 are the most important formative years for a child’s brain development, and parents need to begin at birth thinking about how to make sure we are doing all we can during those years to engage and stimulate our children. If we start our focus that early, we are going to be better prepared to deal with what we need to do by the time we need to enroll our children in pre-school and kindergarten.

Getting access to this information in a timely fashion isn’t easy, especially since we don’t know what we don’t know. But we have got to try harder to find out. This is why GCP was established: to help parents have more and greater access to information about the education and development of their children, especially their sons. To encourage parents to think about these issues proactively, rather than wait until there is a problem to solve. GCP is a start. But more is needed.

This becomes even more apparent when you read one teacher’s comment from this article:

…[O]ne afternoon at the school, Ms. Lindner, the fifth-grade teacher, said she was “always surprised” when she saw more than two or three white children in her general education classes. As a parent herself, and a resident of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, she said, “there’s no way I’d put my kid in a general-education class here, no way, because it’s right next to the project and all the kids in general education come from the projects.” She said her experience was that many of the children in her general education classes were at grade level or below and did not get the same support from their parents that the children in the gifted classes got. “They’re tougher kids,” she said of the general education students in the school. “They’re very street-savvy. They don’t have the background; their parents are hard on them but don’t know what to do with them.”

OK, this is a teacher in this school. So when she stands in front of her general education classes on the first day of class, looks out over those young, mostly brown faces, and thinks about how to teach these boys and girls, by her own admission she is also thinking that every kid in the class is below average, doesn’t have the skills to succeed (never mind excel), has parents who are mean and clueless, and that there is no way she would have her own kids in this class, because the education is not good enough for them. What chance does a young boy or girl have to achieve in that classroom?

We can cringe all day when we read comments like this, and hope (and demand, even) that this teacher’s comments, coupled with her arrogance and stupidity in boldly making them to a NY Times reporter get her bounced out of that job tomorrow, but we also have to be realistic and analytical here. For every teacher that goes on the record with these comments there have got to be others who are thinking but not saying these things. But no hand wringing allowed; it is time to be savvy and strategic. In biased comments like these there may be kernels of truth, and one kernel here may be that all parents need to be more actively involved in their children’s education. In fact, these kinds of comments bolster the argument for getting and staying involved with your child’s teachers and school. By connecting with the teacher and the school regularly you are learning more about your child’s learning environment, and you have greater access to information (from teachers and other parents) which could help your son or daughter. You are demonstrating your interest in and support for your child’s schooling. You are giving teachers like this less ammunition to use against your child, and more importantly, giving teachers who really care (of which there are so many) the opportunity to work with you to help your child be the best he can be. And, if and when you run into teachers like Ms. Lindner, you will know with whom to work to make sure she no longer has that job.

A recent NY Times online article, “The Dicey Parent-Teacher Duet” provides thoughtful commentary from Sara Mosle, a parent who is also a teacher, about how parents and teachers both approach these relationships with trepidation. While everyone agrees that parent involvement is a critical component of a child’s success in school, overly involved parents risk interfering with their child’s maturation and growth, not to mention irritating a teacher to the point that it affects the teacher’s view of their child. Mosle offers guidelines in this article (found here) for parents and teachers to follow as they develop their relationship. Her suggestions, such as limiting the use of e-mail for routine scheduling matters and focusing on the student’s strengths early and often, will ease the stress both parents and teachers can experience during the school year. Worthwhile reading, as are the comments readers sent in response.

GCP strongly advocates parent engagement with teachers throughout the school year, and the suggested guidelines seem helpful. An additional stressor in the parent teacher relationship not mentioned in the article can be present if parents believe their son is being treated differently or judged unfairly, especially in a school where there are few children of color. In a previous GCP post which addressed this issue called “What To Do When the Road Gets Rocky (And It Will)”, guest posters Anne Williams-Isom and Jennifer Jones-Austin discussed this dilemma. They noted the concern a Black parent had upon hearing that a teacher had an issue with her son: “[W]as it a legitimate fear that her son was being treated unfairly? Or could her perspective be clouded by an unwillingness to face the possibility that an actual issue might need to be addressed? Many parents of color are constantly torn between wanting to trust their school administrators and feeling like trust may leave their sons unprotected.”

Establishing regular communication with teachers early in the school year will help strengthen the parent teacher bond and give parents a better and fuller understanding of the teacher’s perspective (for better or for worse) if troubles arise. (If they do, be sure to read the post mentioned above, which was posted February 28, 2012.) GCP readers, we would love to hear how you have handled or resolved dicey parent teacher relationships, as well as any tips for ensuring that they are good and productive. Any good stories and tips out there?

Good teaching matters, and good teachers can make the difference in how well students learn regardless of how the students performed in previous years. Parents know this instinctively, as we angle to get our children in the good teachers’ classrooms from pre-school days on. Our instinct has been recently confirmed by a study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has concluded that effective teachers can produce student achievement in students who have struggled in the past with other instructors.

The Gates Foundation spent three years and $45 million on the MET (Measuring Effective Teachers) project. One of the most contentious issues in education reform is how to fairly and properly evaluate teachers. The current teacher retention model highly values seniority and experience, and places less emphasis upon the quality of a teacher’s classroom instruction. While all sides agree that this does not generally yield the best results for the students, debate rages as to how teachers should be properly evaluated. Some argue that a strong focus on students’ test scores in teacher evaluations is unfair, as it reflects student demographics more than teachers’ ability, and penalizes teachers of students who have more difficulty learning. Others argue that an evaluation system that doesn’t principally focus on how well the students are learning (as measured by their test scores) is not in the best interests of students, and sets a teaching standard that is mediocre at best.

Enter the Gates Foundation’s MET project, which teamed economists and education research analysts from top universities to tackle this issue. As the MET team explained in its initial report:

“An important step toward supporting teachers and ensuring that all students have access to high quality instruction is to develop fairer and more useful measures of teacher effectiveness. This is the goal of the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, which will support independent education researchers–in partnership with school districts, principals, teachers, and unions–to develop objective and reliable measures of effective teaching. Rather than relying solely on how well a teacher’s students do on assessments, the Measures of Effective Teaching project seeks to uncover and develop a set of measures that work together to form a more complete indicator of a teacher’s impact on student achievement.”

The MET project has just released its final report, which concludes that effective teaching can be measured by a combination of student surveys, student scores on tests, and classroom observation. These things, working together, can best determine how well a teacher is making an impact on his or her students. Using this multilayered evaluation system, and randomly assigning classes to teachers in consecutive years of the study, the MET project was able to determine that effective teachers can help struggling students improve. In a Wall Street Journal article about this study found here, Harvard University professor Thomas Kane, leader of the MET project, noted that the MET data indicates that teachers can “cause student achievement to happen, and this is a really big deal”.

A really big deal, indeed. Good to see that what parents know intuitively is supported by this research. A lot of useful information has been presented in this study, including the recommendation that multiple people observe teachers in classrooms (not just one busy principal), and the effectiveness of having teachers watch and analyze videotapes of themselves in the classroom. Let’s hope that schools use this information to help teachers best help our students.

Special thanks to GCP reader Sandra Johnson Harris for the heads up on this topic and the WSJ article!!

As I write, the Washington Redskins are battling the Seattle Seahawks in the wild card game to see who will play in the NFC divisional playoffs. All Redskins fans are hoping that the dynamic duo of their rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III and rookie running back Alfred Morris will lead their team to this important victory. Tens of thousands of these fans are in Washington D.C. Fedex field, soaking up the action. But according to the New York Times in a recent article found here, one of Morris’ biggest and most important fans is not in the stadium. His mom Yvonne Morris opted to watch the game from home in Florida, because she teaches reading to 9th and 10th graders at Pine Forest High School in Pensacola, Fla. and the game’s 4:30 p.m. start would force her to miss classes Monday. She couldn’t be happier for the Redskins and prouder of her son Alfred, but “I have an obligation to those kids,” she explains. “I really love teaching, and it is kind of difficult to part ways.”

As the Times notes, Mrs. Morris clearly has passed her strong work ethic on to her son Alfred, the fourth of the seven sons she has raised with her husband Ronald, a chef. Alfred had a team-record 1,613 rushing yards this year, which represents the third-highest total in league history for a rookie. Morris pushes himself so hard in practice, that the offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan finds it impossible to slow him down, even during practices when players are asked to just go through the motions. “We make fun of him because he won’t ever go walk-through tempo,” Shanahan said. “He’s always full speed.”

His meteoric rise this year is even more remarkable considering that he was not a heavily recruited college or professional athlete. In fact, his alma mater Florida Atlantic was the only N.C.A.A. Division I program to offer him a scholarship. In the professional draft he was passed over by all 32 N.F.L. teams until Washington chose him 173rd over all amid concerns about his size (5 feet 9 inches, 216 pounds) and speed (4.68 in the 40-yard dash). But these hurdles only made Morris more determined. “I’ve been an underdog my whole life,” Morris told the Times. “People underestimate you, but I’ve always believed in myself.”

Gotta love this story, and gotta admire his mom Yvonne for her strong sense of commitment and a passion for work, which has so influenced her son. (How many moms out there would miss being in the stands for this game so they could be at work the next day?) Regardless of what happens in tonight’s game, Morris is a winner.

We were delighted to recently learn that a GCP post, “How Do We Talk to Our Children About Newtown?” has been featured on The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School website, which can be found here. The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (CHHIRJ), established in 2005 by Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree, is a hub for scholarship, strategy, socially concerned legal education, and open, engaging and original public forums on matters central to civil rights in the 21st century.

The Institute honors and continues the work of Charles Hamilton Houston, one of the great civil rights lawyers of the twentieth century. If you and your sons aren’t familiar with Houston, you should become so, as he is an important and inspirational figure in American history. Houston, whose father was a lawyer, started at Amherst College in 1911, was elected Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated as valedictorian in 1915. He returned to D.C. to teach at Howard University. As the U.S. entered World War I, Houston joined the then racially segregated U. S. Army as an officer and was sent to France. He returned to the U.S. in 1919, and attended Harvard Law School. He was a member of the Harvard Law Review and graduated cum laude.

Houston played a role in nearly every civil rights case before the Supreme Court between 1930 and Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Houston’s strategy to attack and defeat Jim Crow segregation by demonstrating the inequality in the “separate but equal” doctrine from the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision as it pertained to public education in the United States was the masterstroke that brought about the landmark Brown decision. Houston trained Thurgood Marshall, who, as we know, argued Brown before the Supreme Court.

As the CHHIRJ website explains, “Charles Hamilton Houston dedicated his life to using the law as a tool to reverse the unjust consequences of racial discrimination. CHHIRJ is committed to marshalling the resources of Harvard and beyond to continue Houston’s unfinished work”. Please bookmark their website at http://www.charleshamiltonhouston.org/, and make it a part of your regular reading.

Let’s start the New Year off on an inspirational and positive note. For those of you who don’t follow football or missed this, it was recently discovered that Colin Kaepernick, starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, wrote a letter to himself when he was in the fourth grade detailing his plans for the future. (You can see a copy of the letter and his fourth grade picture here.) Young Kaepernick wrote:

“I’m 5 ft 2 inches 91 pounds. Good athelet. I think in 7 years I will be between 6 ft- to 6 ft 4 inches 190 pounds. I hope I go to a good college in football then go to the pros and play on the niners or the packers even if they aren’t good in seven years. My friends are Jason, Kyler, Leo, Spencer, Mark and Jacob. Sincerly Colin”

Not only did Kaepernick call his academic journey, profession and team, he even nailed his height (he is 6’4″). How cool is that? And considering the odds of this adorable biracial fourth grader making it to the NFL, never mind being the starting QB for the team of his dreams, how inspirational is that?

The moral of this story, which we should share with our boys, is not to be afraid to Dream Big. Let’s encourage our young boys to dream of their futures, write down those dreams, and keep them in a safe place (with our help) for future reflection. Many schools have this as an in-class assignment, and if they do, be sure to keep track of those letters or notes over the years. If your son’s school doesn’t assign this, you might want to make this a weekend project. No comments about or criticism of whatever he comes up with, just encourage the dreaming. The goal is not to have him predict a superstar career (or the career of your dreams), but to begin thinking and dreaming of his future, and imagining it to be wonderful.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from Ground Control Parenting! Hope you have enjoyed good times with your families during the holidays.

At GCP we are looking forward to another year of keeping you posted on a variety of issues, tips and resources to help guide our sons through school and life. We have quite a few New Year’s Resolutions: more frequent posts, a Twitter and Instagram presence, more guest posts (especially from you GCP dads, hello?), and the establishment of regular columnists in 2013. It is so important for us to understand, harness and use the power of parenting to help our children, especially our sons, achieve and reach their full potential. Our mission at GCP continues to be to encourage, inspire and support parents in this effort. We are all in this together.

Stay tuned!

We are inundated with media coverage of the horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut. A parent’s worst nightmare, that a monster is terrorizing and potentially killing their child, has become a reality. We have stared unbelieving at the images of terrified children being led to safety; we have shuddered to try to imagine being one of the parents, one of the teachers, one of the children; we have cried, we have mourned; we are terrified for those children, for our children, for all children. The media discussion of this tragedy is constant, and sometimes difficult for us to bear. If it is tough for us, how are our children dealing with this tragedy? One of our principal jobs as parents is to do all that we can to help our children feel safe. How are we talking to them about Newtown and what are we saying to try to help them cope??

Perhaps you received a letter from your children’s school suggesting ways to best communicate with your children about this tragedy. Our school psychologist’s tips for helping our children cope included the following helpful suggestions:

Don’t be afraid to talk about the tragedy and related emotions. Find out what your child is thinking or feeling and help reassure him that you are there for him.

Reassure your son that adults and other professionals work very hard to protect him – let your son know that there are many systems in place at the school to keep everyone there safe.

Limit media exposure, especially for the younger ones. If your child is watching or reading reports related to the incident, join in and talk with him.

Don’t be surprised if your child’s mood fluctuates or if s/he becomes clingy. Respond by letting your child know that you are there for her physically and emotionally.

If your child has a caregiver/nanny, they too may have a strong reaction to this event. Have a conversation with the caregiver and check in to find out how they are, as well as to share with them how they might respond if your child speaks to them about this event.

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has also assembled tips for parents to help them talk to their children about this issue. Among the many helpful suggestions in their document, found here, are developmentally appropriate ways to have these conversations:

Early elementary school children need brief, simple information that should be balanced with reassurances that their school and homes are safe and that adults are there to protect them. Give simple examples of school safety like reminding children about exterior doors being locked, child monitoring efforts on the playground, and emergency drills practiced during the school day.

Upper elementary and early middle school children will be more vocal in asking questions about whether they truly are safe and what is being done at their school. They may need assistance separating reality from fantasy. Discuss efforts of school and community leaders to provide safe schools.

Upper middle school and high school students will have strong and varying opinions about the causes of violence in schools and society. They will share concrete suggestions about how to make school safer and how to prevent tragedies in society. Emphasize the role that students have in maintaining safe schools by following school safety guidelines (e.g. not providing building access to strangers, reporting strangers on campus, reporting threats to the school safety made by students or community members, etc.), communicating any personal safety concerns to school administrators, and accessing support for emotional needs.

The NASP also suggests the following points to emphasize when talking to children:

Schools are safe places. School staff work with parents and public safety providers (local police and fire departments, emergency responders, hospitals, etc.) to keep you safe.

The school building is safe because … (cite specific school procedures).

We all play a role in the school safety. Be observant and let an adult know if you see or hear something that makes you feel uncomfortable, nervous or frightened.

There is a difference between reporting, tattling and gossiping. You can provide important information that may prevent harm either directly or anonymously by telling a trusted adult what you know or hear.

Don’t dwell on the worst possibilities. Although there is no absolute guarantee that something bad will never happen, it is important to understand the difference between the possibility of something happening and the probability that it will affect our school.

Sometimes people do bad things that hurt others. They may be unable to handle their anger, under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or suffering from mental illness. Adults (parents, teachers, police officers, doctors, faith leaders) work very hard to get those people help and keep them from hurting others. It is important for all of us to know how to get help if we feel really upset or angry and to stay away from drugs and alcohol.

Stay away from guns and other weapons. Tell an adult if you know someone has a gun. Access to guns is one of the leading risk factors for deadly violence.

Violence is never a solution to personal problems. Students can be part of the positive solution by participating in anti-violence programs at school, learning conflict mediation skills, and seeking help from an adult if they or a peer is struggling with anger, depression, or other emotions they cannot control.

While focusing on helping our kids feel safe we have to think about this in a context broader than this horrific incident. As President Obama said in his press conference on the day of the event, “As a country, we have been through this too many times, whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown or a shopping mall in Oregon or a temple in Wisconsin or a movie theater in Aurora or a street corner in Chicago.” He reminds us that as long as our children are being felled by senseless gun violence, in suburban neighborhoods or on city streets, we are not doing all that we can to keep them safe. In his speech at the memorial service this evening in Newtown, he suggests that he is ready to do more: “In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine.” Encouraging words, and we hope to hear more soon.

As the days and weeks of this tragedy unfold, surely bringing more unsettling concepts and images, let us focus on our children and do all that we can to help them cope.

Today’s post is from GCP Dad Darrell Williams, Chicagoan and father of a 21-year-old son. Darrell has had a long career in the financial services industry, and currently works at a leading investment firm.

Raise your hand if you know what a Nik•Nik is.

Anyone? Not even you seriously old school brothers and sisters?

A Nik•Nik is a shirt. A very popular shirt in the mid-1970s. Nik•Niks were so popular that some brothers were willing to give up a body part to acquire a couple of these sartorial masterpieces, and the true “ballers” of the of the era had several. As you can see in this link, Nik•Niks are tight-fitting shirts of man-made material that came in a near infinite number of color and pattern combinations. Of course, this provided the near infinite opportunity for the Nik•Nik company to lighten the wallets of young men of every race to the tune of about $35.00 per shirt. Chump change you say? Perhaps for some. But my solid brown Nik•Nik shirt represented 15 hours of lugging office supplies for Stevens Maloney back in the day.

Everyone has a few Nik•Nik equivalents that they can find buried deep in that closet back at Mom’s house. For some it might be that Members Only jacket. For others it might be that Starter jacket or those Calvin Klein jeans. Perhaps it’s that FUBU gear, or those Phat Farm or Baby Phat jeans. They all have two things in common: today you wouldn’t wear them outside of a Halloween party even if they actually fit – which they don’t. And most importantly, today you would rather have the money you spent on all that gear back in your pocket.

That $35.00 I worked so hard to scrape together to acquire my Nik•Nik shirt would be $752 today if I had left the shirt in the store and bought and held the S&P500 index instead. Would I trade my Nik•Nik shirt today for $752 dollars? Of course I would. I look back on that teenager who worked so hard to acquire that shirt and wish someone had pulled him aside and told him that he wouldn’t give a damn about that shirt two years after he bought it. I wish someone had told him that he could improve his future life by investing rather than by spending.

To be fair, my parents actively discouraged me from buying my Nik•Nik shirt at the time. While they didn’t walk me through the power of investing, they did assure me that buying the shirt was not the best use of my earnings. I heard them, but it was my hard earned money, and I just had to have that fly brown Nik•Nik shirt. Now that I am older, arguably wiser, and in the position to watch history repeat itself, I am determined to try to get the message about why and how to save money across to my son and his peers.

Until our kids actually start paying serious bills, they are not inclined to spend time thinking about how these bills get paid, or focusing on how to get and hold onto money. But we parents need to talk to our children early and often about the power of saving, investing and the magic of compound interest. They need to hear it not just from us, but from other trusted adults as well, since our kids are often much more likely to pay attention to this type of advice from them– possibly by several orders of magnitude. And as I know firsthand, they are not always inclined to take this advice from their parents.

So please talk to your sons and daughters about what happens if they take the two hundred dollars (or more) they are asking you to use to buy them the latest sneaker, outfit, or other fashion item and invest that money instead. As importantly, ask your brothers, sisters, friends, cousins, any and everyone close to your children to talk to them about the value of saving money over time. Ask them to tell your sons that spending $295 on a pair of skinny, low-rise jeans could take about $5,800 out of the pocket of their 65-year old selves. That’s what you have if that $295 is invested at a 7.0% compounded return. Ask them to ask your son if he would rather have a pair of pricey high fashion jeans right now, or as much as $5,800 at the time he’s ready to retire. Tell him what the 65-year-old him will think of the 21-year-old him if he spends his money on the fashion of the moment. (If you are talking to a teenager, adjust the math accordingly, and the numbers will be even higher.)

Tell your friends to tell your son that these are critical life lessons that will put and keep money in his pocket for the rest of his life. Tell him he is a terrific young man regardless of the label on his shirt or the cut of his jeans. (And while they are at it, they can tell him to pull those jeans up and keep them up.)

I certainly plan to talk to my son and his friends about the power of investing. I may not have been able to resist blowing money on the fashion must have of the moment, but I hope I can save some young brothers (and maybe my own son) from making the same mistake.

The next time your son tells you he doesn’t need to study because he plans to be a rap star, you can tell him that he should follow in the footsteps of some well-known rappers who managed to do both. Here are some artists who have either graduated from or attended college. Some of these names may well surprise you.

College Graduates:

J.Cole: Graduated with honors from St. John’s University in New York City with a major in communications.

Ludacris: Graduated from Georgia State University with a major in music management.

Chuck D (Public Enemy): Graduated from Adelphi University with a degree in graphic design.

Attended College:

Two Chainz: Attended Alabama State University and played for their basketball team for one year. Transferred to Virginia State for his sophomore year. Not clear whether he graduated from Va. State, but rumor has him graduating from college with a 4.0 average. Whether this is truth or urban legend is hard to determine, but if there must be rumors, this is a good one.

Lil Wayne: Attended University of Houston, where he studied psychology. Currently takes classes online at the University of Phoenix.

Kanye West: Of course the creator of the albums “The College Dropout” “Late Registration” and “Graduation” went to college! He attended Chicago State University (where his mother was Chair of the English Department) and Columbia College in Chicago.

Sean Combs: Attended Howard University.

OK, for you non hip-hop loving parents, your homework is to familiarize yourself with the music of all of the artists above that you don’t know. You are likely to know the old school guys, like Chuck D and Ice Cube, and everyone talks about Lil Wayne, P.Diddy and Kanye West, but take a minute to check out their music, if you haven’t done so in a while. Also check out the newer guys. Why? Because hip hop is an international cultural phenomenon born in the U.S.A. that you should not ignore. You don’t have to love it, but since your children are growing up on it, you should pay some attention to it. (Also, you can really impress (or annoy) your sons with your newfound knowledge.) It is worth the investment of a few minutes of your time on youtube.com.