There are a handful of reasons something goes viral. It’s usually inspiring, cringeworthy, infuriating, hilarious, or unarguably awesome. The video “Welcome to the 4th Grade” by Dwayne Reed nails both the unarguably awesome and inspiring categories. The clip is pretty hilarious too — with Reed taking on different personas and dropping an Obama impression on us. Most of all, it leaves you thinking: “His students are lucky to have him.”
The second Reed’s music video ended, I started looking for a way to contact the first-year teacher. Here, finally, was someone who had the charisma and social media clout to make the profession look cool. As a part-time teacher for 13 years, I’ve got some thoughts on the education system. You can’t teach that long and not have thoughts — both about how we support learning and how we support educators. So I called Reed and we spoke about schools, funding, his famous video, and another Chicago native, Chance the Rapper.
Pretty big buzz coming off the video, huh? What kind of feedback are you getting?
There’s been an overwhelming amount of positive feedback, I’ve gotten emails and text messages, phone calls, Facebook requests. All my social media has blown up. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even remember to respond to all the things I want to respond to. There’s been some negative, too, but for the most part, the positivity has just been overwhelming.
What kind of negativity are you getting?
Some people are just saying, “Oh, he’s not going to last. He must be a first year teacher — that’s the only reason he’s got a smile on his face, he hasn’t been jaded.” Then there’s been the most insignificant, “Oh, the equations on the back of that board aren’t correct.”
As someone who taught for a long time, I saw your video and I really inspired, which I think is the key. I thought that if I was a 4th grader, I would be hyped. Have you had your students yet?
My kids came in and as they were walking down the hallway before we even talked, they would sing the song a little bit, or they would smile, or they’d be, “Hey, Mr. Reed.” My kids have been jazzed and then kids in other grades — 3rd, 5th, 2nd, 1st — were crazy. I walked into the lunch room the other day with the Kindergarten through 2nd graders and I felt like I was Justin Bieber or something. They were screaming “Mr. Reed!”
That’s awesome, because the other thing you’re doing — and the most important thing you’re doing, in my mind — is you’re making learning cool, right?
Definitely. I think when I was a student — with a lot of the teachers that I had growing up — you couldn’t have fun or cool mixed with school and work, and I feel like that’s so backwards. Why, if I’m going to be somewhere for eight hours a day, five days a week, why can’t I also have fun? Why can’t it be fun for me to be there, why can’t it be something that’s cool? If I feel like I can mix those two and find a decent balance, man, I’m set, and my kids are set.
I also saw your “Morning Song” — it seems to me like music is going to be a big part of what you’re trying to do this year. You have legit musical talent, but it also seems like that’s part of how you want to teach, is that right?
It doesn’t make sense to separate music from the rest of life, since music is such a big part of my life. Tell me one human being who doesn’t vibe with music. I’d be hard pressed to find somebody like that. Kids all the more, connect to music. You mention the morning song, if I can get us going early in the morning, remember and go, “We’re family, we’re a community.” I feel like love precedes learning, I feel like that song is about love. Not only the love for each other, but the love of learning, like, “Yo, I’m about to learn from my mistakes from yesterday and get things going.”
As far as a general curriculum, how many times have you tried to memorize math facts or states and different things like that and had a struggle. Memorize that new popular song, it comes easy. Why would I not incorporate music into my classroom? I have to do that.
As someone who really connects deeply to hip hop, I think rap has really been at the forefront of cool for, like, 30 years. Here, you have this rap that’s giving so much life and energy to people… It’s the music of the moment and that’s where you’re connecting with kids, is what I’m trying to say.
I think rap is so transcendent. I’ve had people say, “Oh, I’m a 58 year old white man from wherever ever USA, and I love this track.” I’ve got students that are hitting me up on Youtube, saying, “Mr. Reed, I’m a 2nd grader and I love this, me and my mom loves it.” I think rap has an ability to go into every single household in America and in the world, and be powerful. People want to bob their heads to something that sounds cool.
Yes, if kids are listening to it, you better believe that the parents are going to take a listen and be like, “Okay, what are you bobbing your head to?” Then the parents will be vibing to it. The audience that I’m trying to go for is those who love music and who’ll just bob their heads to something that sounds cool.
I saw something on Facebook that scared me a little. You shouted everyone out, you said, “Thanks so much,” then you also appealed to people for school supplies. Is that how poorly we’re taking care of our teachers in this country, that when someone goes viral for a song, they have to parlay it into funding?
The district that I’m in right now, I don’t think they’re pressed for funds, let me be real with that. Where I’m from and the schools that I’ve been in, just observing, and the inner city kids that I deal with, they are pressed. They have to worry about not having a pencil to go to school with. They’ve got to worry about getting to and from school, catching the bus, catching the train, making sure they can cook dinner for their siblings.
I had a student this summer who had to walk three miles just to get to school every day. Between thinking about that and thinking about an equation on the board, what do you think their minds going to gravitate towards?
As for supplies, what you see on the news is true. Chicago Public Schools are under-resourced, under-served, and underprivileged [Reed’s current district is Skokie, IL]. Teachers have a very tough job. Imagine how much tougher it is for their students who are hungry, who are tired, whose parents have to deal with x, y, z. It’s a very, very challenging world, the school arena in Chicago public schools, so I’ll be honest, I’m asking for all kinds of supplies, all kinds of books. I don’t want your money. If you’re giving money, great, you know what it’s going to go to, it’s going to go to servicing these kids. Send a book, send some supplies, send book bags, send winter gear.
It’s cold in Chicago, you know what I mean?
I will tell you that when I saw the video, my first hope, and it was just a personal thing that I feel whenever I see an awesome teacher, is the hope that you ‘ll be teaching for 20 years. Have you thought that far ahead yet, are your ambitions to teach, or do your goals stretch in other directions? Have you thought about that stuff, or not really? You’re young, obviously.
I am a little young, my mom and my family, they’ve always taught me to be more long sighted than short sighted, so I’m already thinking 20, 30, 40 years ahead, if God gives me that much time. Some of the thoughts that I have are, “Okay, I’m going to teach 5, 6, 7 years and maybe move into administration, maybe become assistant principal, principal, superintendent in 15 or 20 and impact an entire school district, not just the 25 kids in my class, but the 2500 in the school district if possible.”
If that doesn’t pan out, maybe I teach three, four, five years and get involved. That’s why I love Chance [the Rapper] so much, he’s so involved in philanthropy and that’s what I want to do. I want to help kids, I don’t necessarily only want to do the two plus two, I want to do the two plus two and the “Hey, do you have shoes?” the “Hey, do you have the knowledge on how to gain more for yourself?” and the “I want you to be able to go out and learn for yourself, I don’t want to just fill your mind with what I think you should know.”
Five years from now, if I’m in the classroom, dope. My kids are going to have a bast, and they’re going to learn a lot. If five years from now I’m in a school in some type of capacity, great, you got to know that I’m serving my teachers and I’m serving my students and the community that I’m in. If five years from now I’m, I don’t know, head of the YMCA or head of some bring music back to the schools program, cool. Whatever I’m doing, I want to be doing it for my community, I want to go back home and know that I’m serving the place that I’m located at.
That makes me so deeply happy. I want us as a nation to support and celebrate our young teachers. For you to feel like, “Okay, if I wanted to teach for 40 years, I could also do that, that’s a viable option because I feel supported, because I don’t feel like it’s the sort of marathon that I can only run when I’m in my 20s or 30s and then when I’m in my 40s or 50s, I can’t do it anymore.” Do you see what I’m saying?
Yes. I want to start my answer by saying the teachers and the principal and the staff at the school district I’m at now are phenomenal. I just want to go ahead and say right off the bat, they are phenomenal, they make me feel encouraged, they make me feel like, “Yo, keep sprinting, keep pushing.” I feel like Usain Bolt right now, I don’t feel like, “Oh my gosh, another day.” I’m like, “Let’s go, another day!”
So I want to say that up front, but I also think you’re right. Being a young, black male in America, especially in the school system, is tough. I remember growing up and feeling singled out by my teachers. I wasn’t a bad kid, I wasn’t crazy, I was pretty articulate, I was intelligent, but I always felt singled out. That doesn’t change once you get older, it just gets deeper, it just gets more subtle, so I definitely have felt that in the college system, in the school system, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to feel that for a good while. I think it would just be a matter of teachers and other people just constantly reaffirming young teachers, constantly saying, “Hey, you belong here. You bring difference and that difference is great, let’s celebrate that.” Constantly affirming the value that I know I have, and that will make it easier.
It’s not going to be all gravy, cupcakes, and butterflies, but to have somebody to look at me in the eye and say, “I’m glad that you’re here, the kids are benefiting from you being here, thank you.” To have somebody do that to me, would mean the world.
I really want you to have that support in the long run. I wish we could make alls teachers famous, because it seems like fame is the only way that people get credit on this planet anymore. For this exact moment, you’re the most famous teacher in America, and so I would imagine that you feel well supported, I would imagine that you feel well supplied and prepared, I just hope that we, as a community, can continue to celebrate you and other teachers and to decrease that attrition rate, so that people say, “Yeah, I might teach for 5 years, I might teach for 10 years, I might decide I might go into admin and then go back to the classroom, because I liked it more.” At least have that be a option, not have that be like, “Fuck, I just can’t. That’s a young man’s game.”
I like the point you brought up about how I’m quote unquote “famous” now, I think it’s not fair. It’s not fair that teacher’s only get notoriety or only get talked about when it’s something super good like this, or when it’s something bad, like, “Oh, there go those teachers again, striking.” Or, “There go those teachers asking for more money.”
Why don’t teachers get paid like doctors? You wouldn’t have doctors unless you had the teachers to build them up and to mold them. I’m not just saying this from a selfish point of view, I mean who wouldn’t want to make a hundred K? I’m saying this because when you raise the standard of pay for teachers and you raise the standard of teachers. Then it becomes more challenging, and the same way that we weed out those who aren’t fit to be doctors, we start weeding out those who aren’t fit to be teachers. At that point, then the education value rises for students and across the entire nation. I could be completely wrong, but that kind of sounds like raise the pay, raise the challenge level to get into the field, education level rises, everybody benefits. Does that kind of make sense?
I think you’re completely right, and it makes me feel better about those emails I sent you yesterday, because I was worried that you were going to be like, “Fuck, dude, I’m a first year teacher can you chill out on some of the systemic shit?” I hope people who are invested in underfunding schools don’t see your video as their way to say, “Oh, see, the kids are all right. This guy seems like a great teacher.” The problem is, is that talented teachers like you are anomalies right now because they’re in a field that isn’t supporting talent on a systemic level. I cringe every time I hear a 28-year-old teacher say, “I’m thinking I need to get out of it or move in this direction because I want to have a family.” Because it’s like, “Damn, this is a valued profession.”
I agree with all the things that you’re articulating. It’s tough, I’m even thinking about that now, I want four or five kids of my own, if God blesses me with them. To try to imagine that life on a 40k salary, it would be a challenge. It’ll grow us close together as a family, but I think we’d be better suited if we had a couple more Ks in our pocket, you know what I’m saying?
Definitely want to push for teachers to be funded, to be resourced. Let’s get that pay up and, mind you, that’s not what it’s for. I don’t go into the classroom, because I want to get a paycheck. I didn’t make this video because I wanted to go viral, I made it because I want to connect with those children. I think it’s Frederick Douglas who said, “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” That’s on my mind when I write that song, that’s on my mind when I make that video, that’s on my mind when I’m having this conversation, not me. I’m completely fine, I got clothes on my back, I got shoes, I got food, I can’t complain. This is about connecting with those kids and seeing to it that they leave my classroom feeling empowered, feeling like leaders, feeling they can make decisions, they can be blessings for themselves, and that they can then go and be a blessing to others. That’s what it’s all about.
You’re dropping gems. Anything else you want to say?
I want to shout out Chance the Rapper — I’m a huge fan of Chance. I want to help him help out Chicago. I want to do big things for our kids, for our youth. Even just to have lunch with him…that would be crazy. Dream come true for me.
