Steinhardt’s David Kirkland Envisions Student-Centered Approach to English Education

By Timothy Farrell

      For David Kirkland, assistant professor of English education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, traditional English curricula too often exclude students whose lives are not reflected in the canonical texts of Western literature. An advocate of using students’ own experiences to reframe English instruction, Kirkland has researched the ways in which the literate experiences of urban youth can inform English language arts.
       “Youth enter the classroom with complex literate experiences,” Kirkland says. “And sometimes these experiences don’t get featured in the classroom.”
       Kirkland’s research has focused on the experiences of urban and black youth that traditional educators might miss. Although many of these students would be classified as struggling or barely literate in the context of school, Kirkland has documented their rich literate experiences, from reading and writing hip-hop lyrics, participating in online communities such as Facebook and mySpace, to using sophisticated wordplay in text messages and instant messages.
       “How can we build on the competencies and experiences that these students already have?” Kirkland asks. “I move from a deficit perspective to a profit perspective.”
       Influenced by such thinkers as Paulo Freire and bell hooks, Kirkland does not advocate abandoning the traditional canon, but rather imagining ways in which teachers can complement their instruction using modes that are familiar to students. Kirkland believes that the language of hip-hop can be effectively used in classrooms to promote critical reflection and to help students make sense of their world. He notes that urban youth—and youth in general—will continue to engage with hip hop culture, and that English language arts instruction would be better served by examining the meanings students find in hip-hop texts.
       For Kirkland, the qualities of contemporary life—a world in flux, norms constantly ruptured, and new technologies constantly being created—demand that educators rethink their approach. While he acknowledges that hip-hop alone won’t cure failing classrooms, he argues that the process of bringing the lives of students into the classroom, and learning from them, will revitalize 21st century English language instruction.