Hop Hop Finds Rhymes & Reason To Be Used As Way To Teach Students
When 13-year-old Steven (King) Ayala strides confidently down the hall at South Bronx Preparatory, students follow.
When he enters Rosaleen Knoepfel’s sixth-grade classroom, people notice.
When he freestyles in her after-school program, his rhymes ring.
“Think twice,” he raps. “Wrong or right, think twice, day and night, think twice, death or life.”
King is one of more than 40 students in the after-school Urban Art Beat program at the middle school at 145th St. and Third Ave. in Mott Haven.
Every Tuesday at 3:30 p.m., kids ages 10 to 14 pile into Knoepfel’s room to write rhymes, make beats, discuss the history of hip hop and learn from visiting underground emcees.
“From the Block! Out the Box!” Knoepfel, known to her students as Ms. K, shouts UAB’s slogan.
Urban Art Beat is an example of a growing trend of using hip hop as a teaching tool, especially in neighborhoods where the music form was born.
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