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When I was 20 years old, i started teaching at a juvenile prison.

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While there were many things that separated us,

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I quickly discovered my students and I had one big thing in common:

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our love of hip hop.

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For the next few years, rap music became the main content for the classes I taught,

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and I saw disengaged students emerge as leaders and experts.

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Through engaging elements of hiphop culture together,

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students and I learned language arts, life skills,

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and to love each other and ourselves more.

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As I continued to observed the ways in which our education system is rigged

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against black and latino students and students from low income communities,

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I asked myself what else we as educators could learn from hiphop,

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the insanely innovative and influential global phenomenon

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that has emerged from these very same communities.

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When I say hiphop, I'm not just talking about music

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or music xxx dance, which are considered central elements.

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I'm referring to the blend of instincts, confidence, and ingenuity

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that develops in oppressed communities

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as has been demonstrated through the evolution of hiphop culture.

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I'm talking about the Jamaican teenager in the South Bronx

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taking two records of the same song

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and fading back and forth between them

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to create a new musical composition

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by playing the most danceable segment over and over.

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I'm talking about the inspiring visual artists

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realizing they didn't need galleries to represent them

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for their work to be seen, and instead painting on train cars

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and instantly having an audience of hundreds of thousands.

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I'm talking about a highschool dropout from the projects of mercy

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using his entrepeneurial hassle and rap skills

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to go from selling drugs, to selling CDs out of the trunk of his car,

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to selling products at Macy's.

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This is what my colleagues and I call hiphop genius,

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creative resourcefulnes in the face of limited resources,

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or as it's often said in the hiphop community:

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flipping something outta nothing.

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How could this audacious approach impact our education system?

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For starters, we need to exhibit the brush creativity of hiphop pioneers,

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just as hiphop producers sample songs

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from other genres creating unique new sounds to please

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audience's ears, hiphop educators can borrow from diverse models

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and improvise xxx blends of educational practices customised

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to meet students needs.

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If that sounds to abstract, take a look at the highschool

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for recording arts in Minnesota, where they mix project based learning

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and competency based assesment with artistic, vocational, and business training

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with xxxx and xxx at local colleges, with a heavy dose of student leadership.

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We don't have to do the same thing that's been done before or follow one model.

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We can sample and mix multiple teaching techniques

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and school designs to find the blends that best serve our students.

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We also need to adapt the value hiphop places on staying fresh:

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a hot beat yesterday ... was a hot beat yesterday.

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Whoever sends out to make a hot beat today

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has to do something new and different to remain relevant.

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The world is changing rapidly around us.

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The top ten jobs in 2010 didn't exist six years earlier.

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Hiphop's premium on freshness must permeate our schools.

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And we need to be resourceful.

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In the 1970s, thousands of families chose to replace their

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linoleum floors.

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In poor neighbourhoods, the old linoleum was left in piles on the street.

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Young people, without access to playgrounds or dance classes,

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turned their parent's trash into dancefloors

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and invented new moves like the windmill and the headspin

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to maximize its potential.

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Faced with our own resource constraints,

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educators need to find new platforms,

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what refuges could we be dancing on,

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and what are our new moves.

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Behind the mike, spray cans, turn tables and when it comes to their educations,

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students have brilliant ideas and instincts.

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Hiphop genius is not just about teachers using hiphop songs

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to get kids to succeed in traditional schools.

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It's about changing education to respect and build

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from young people's brilliance.

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It's about the incredible possibilities that occur

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when students are engaged,

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not just as consumers, but as creators.

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We don't need to twig the content inside existing traditional academic structures.

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We need to think outside the classroom and build

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the institutions that are fundamentally more responsive

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to young people's interest and ingenuity.

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We need to create schools and school systems

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that not only teach hiphop, they are hiphop.