Chris Emdin has been named to Time magazine’s list of 27 leaders who are “bridging divides” in the United States.
Time cites Emdin, Associate Professor of Science Education, for “working to bridge the cultural divide between teachers and students, especially when the teaching workforce fails to reflect student diversity.”
Helping teachers to engage with students “on their own cultural turf” is essential to creating culturally-inclusive classrooms that better empower their students, says Emdin, who has become internationally known for championing the use of hip hop in teaching science. “The system, as it exists, just doesn’t do well for a vast majority of young people...We just have to change it.”
Emdin is the author of the critically acclaimed For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too, and the founder of the #HipHopEd initiative, recently covered by the New York Times.