Why Every Educator Should Listen To Rap Music

Presenters

• Vincent Sneed, Gwinnett County Public SchoolsFollow

First Presenter's Highest Degree Earned

Ed.S

Year First Presenter's Degree Was Awarded

2004

First Presenter's Field of Study

Music Education

Institution Where First Presenter Received Highest Degree

Columbus State University

First Presenter's Institution

Gwinnett County Public Schools

First Presenter's Brief Bio and Description of Credentials for This Presentation

Vincent Sneed has been a music educator in public schools in Georgia for the past 22 years. In 2012, he was selected as the Teacher of the Year for the Muscogee County School District in Columbus, Georgia, Star Teacher in 2013 as well as Teacher of the Month on numerous occasions. Sneed was a featured TEDx talk speaker in April of 2024 and has spoken or been invited to speak on education, music, and culture across the world including in Germany, France, Cyprus, Canada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Tennessee. He received his Bachelors Degree in Music Education from Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, his Masters Degree in Music Education from the University of Florida, and his Educational Specialist in Teacher Leadership and School Improvement from the University of Florida.

Location

Ballroom E

Document Type

Individual Presentation

Primary Strand

Restorative Practices

Relevance to Primary Strand

Educators and parents often like to point out how worse schools have become. They discuss how behavior and academics were better decades ago. It is said that things began to change in the 1970s and 1980s, and the state of education in the United States has significantly declined. What happened? After schools became integrated in the 1960s and 70s, one of the key problems was that the firing of black educators and administrators. Therefore, you had white teachers teaching black students. The main problem was that these white (often suburban) teachers did not understand the culture of these students. African American students were accustomed to societies in which they were accustomed to the call-and-response, improvisation, polyrhythm, and participatory culture that one might hear in funk, soul, and rap music, and especially in the church. These white teachers were used to more presentational cultures where one sits and observes, such as in classical music or in traditional churches. This divide created significant behavior and educational concerns. In order to the address this within our modern context, restorative practices are necessary. In order for to develop positive relationships and repair broken ones, it will take these educators and educational leaders to immerse themselves in the culture of the students that they are not as familiar, especially minority students or students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. This session will explore these cultural differences and how to restore relationship through not only understand the culture of the students, but also how to implement those strategies within the school and community.

Alignment with School Improvement Plan Topics

Climate and Culture

Brief Program Description

Do you listen jazz, R&B, or hip hop? Did you know that these music genres are key in education and creating an inclusive cultural space for learning? Through participation, engagement, and discussion, this workshop will demonstrate various components of music such as polyrhythm, call and response, storytelling, improvisation. Attendees will note the differences between Eurocentric and African American musical models and how this relates to education. It will be demonstrated how to use musical concepts to provide a school with a positive school culture.

Summary

Students sitting in rows, taking notes, and being quiet while the teacher lectures is a passive receptive Eurocentric model of education that ignores the diversity in our country. This session will show educators how resist the supposed superiority of Eurocentric education and reimagine it into a culturally relevant one by rebuilding the foundations. I will use music to accomplish by task using African American students as a primary example. For example, It be demonstrated that African American students are culturally more accustomed to the engagement of a call and response in a song or the polyrhythms used in dancing. The passive receptive Eurocentric model is not appropriate for African American students. I will demonstrate to attendees how to reimagine and rebuild their school and classroom culture by incorporating the ideas behind those musical concepts into lesson plans, classroom management plans, and into their school culture. The audience will actively participate in each musical concept. For example, I will have the audience perform polyrhythm through body percussion, sing the call and response to some familiar songs, and participate in group dance moves. These musical concepts will show the audience the type environment that African American students encounter in their daily lives such as in church, at cookouts or parties, and through the media they engage with. It will give the audience the context of how an African American student might feel in a Eurocentric passive receptive educational context. Finally, this session will highlight how this can be applied beyond African American students and can apply to students from other varying backgrounds, such as socioeconomic status.

Evidence

Having taught in various school districts across Georgia, I have encountered students from very different backgrounds, from students that live in multimillion dollar home to homeless students. Additionally, I have taught students from all across the world and I have personally traveled to 27 countries in the last 15 years learning about various cultures. After these travels and experience in the classroom, I began graduate work at the University of Florida in which I researched the variations in world music and culture. Based on research by scholars such as Carol S. Weinstein, Bettina Love, Eve Ewing, and Dr. Joy Degruy, I was able to implement many of these ideas in my classes. I saw immediate success with minority students and students with other varying demographics. Grades increased, and I have never had to write a referral for a student in the last few years. Additionally, I mentored and coached younger educators with this same model and they also saw similar success. Most importantly, I collected qualitative data from the students where they expressed why they desired to do well in my classes. In almost every case, it was that the class was interesting or and relevant, as the way in which even the most mundane material was presented was taught in a culturally inclusive way.

Learning Objective 1

Understand relevant fundamental musical concepts such as call and response and polyrhythm and how they relate to societal and educational culture

Learning Objective 2

learn how to appropriately actively engage and participate in their students' cultural practices such as attending an African American church service and how to use that information for educational success

Learning Objective 3

learn how to find resources that can assist in understanding various global cultures and how to apply the concepts learned to their schools and classrooms

Start Date

6-1-2026 3:45 PM

End Date

6-1-2026 4:45 PM

Recommended Citation

Sneed, Vincent, "Why Every Educator Should Listen To Rap Music" (2026). Southeast Conference on School Climate. 29.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/secsc/2026/2026/29

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.