My fingers can't move fast enough to get out all of the things I want to say. Isabel came home from school today and handed me a wikipedia article that they read in World Culture/Geography class today. The assignment was to read it and write down two facts and two opinions. Guess who the article was about?! You are never going to guess because no parent or teacher in their right mind would think that Lil Wayne is an appropriate person for our kids to be focusing on. What was this teacher thinking? This man has 4 children by three different women, the last two were born within two months of one another. Not to mention that he became a parent at the age of 15. He's also served jail time for weapons charges. While in jail he was able to release another album. Hmmm, great all good things so far, right??
The article glorifies this guy....."With well over ten million in sales, unquestionable street credibility, critical acclaim, industry accolades, eight Grammy nominations, and four Grammy wins for his multi-platinum selling album The Carter III, Cash Money/Universal Mowtown recording artist Lil Wayne has firmly laid to rest all doubt that he is anything less than the best rapper alive today. Wayne's silky flow, along with his uncanny ability to weave incredible metaphors and similies wrapped in taunt rhymes accented by witty punch lines, compel rap fans around the world to hang onto his every word whenever his records are being played." (Emphasis is mine.)
Incredible lyrics huh? Guess what his incredible lyrics include? Sex, sex and more sex....with anyone...doesn't matter, with some violence mixed in.....mainly just garbage about women and how to treat them. Just google the words to his hit song Lollipop, also mentioned in the article and see for yourself what kind of garbage this man sings about. Not exactly what I want my eleven year old daughter to be singing along to.
I asked Isabel if the class had a conversation about Lil Wayne, about his life, his choices, anything....nope. Nothing. So basically, read this article glorifying this rap star and form your own opinion about him kids. No reason to point out that maybe his lifestyle isn't exactly something to be modeled.
Of all the good, honest, hardworking people she could have chosen she picked Lil Wayne. Last time I checked the class title was World Culture not Pop Culture. And believe me there is a huge difference. I already called the school and left a message for the teacher to call me to discuss this article. I'm going to try to be as polite as possible but if she can't assure me that this won't happen again I think I'll be calling the principal. For heaven's sake it even gives a link to Lil Wayne's website, which I of course scoped out. It's basically a link so you can preorder his explicit cd or his the deluxe explicit cd. I'm thinking there's a teacher out there who didn't research what she was handing our children ahead of time. Stop trying to be cool and just be their teacher. Stop filling their heads with garbage and wondering why we don't get better results. Stop wondering why we have so many thugs here, why so many of our young people end up in jail, or on drugs. If this is what we model for them, no wonder.
