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Passing It On:
Bringing Folk Artists Into Schools
In 1982, when the New Jersey State Council on the iarts (NJSCA) Folk Arts in Education (FAIE) program in Cumberland County, New Jersey, began, the idea of bringing folk artists into the schools was gaining currency as an innovative approach to teaching students about the culture they live in. Several folk arts residencies had in fact already been sponsored by the NJSCA as part of the state's Arts in Education (AIE) program.
In the AIE program, students and teachers work closely with artists of various kinds--poets and other writers, dancers, actors, singers and other musicians, architects and designers, photographers and other visual artists, folk artists, craftsmen and women-in an effort to illuminate for students the many facets of creativity that go into making up the cultural world. The special quality folk artists bring to this program is their ability to provide insights into the art forms that are woven into daily life in diverse cultural communities. Folk artists learn their skills through their participation in the life of a community that shares ethnic, regional, or occupational identity. The forms they create are of special significance to the group because they are part of the community's traditional lifestyle and expressive of its values. Whether a form is as utilitarian as a boat type or as ephemeral as a dance step, it is subject to the aesthetic criteria of the community. Folk artists articulate these standards in their work. When students work with a folk artist in the schools, they gain insight into how art exists in other cultures and what their role is in conserving their own culture.
Folk arts residencies contribute to fundamental educational goals that transcend the arts, They integrate diverse cultural communities into the formal education system in two important ways. First, they broaden the content of the curriculum with information on the history, values, and way of life of the many groups that form American society. Second, they incorporate the teachers and methods that are part of the "informal" learning systems of those communities.
The folk artists who participate in FAIE programs generally play an important role in passing on traditional knowledge within their own cultural communities. Because they express themselves within traditional parameters of the community, they serve as bothartists and "community educators." They pass on their experience in community settings in which they are actively involved in projects with friends, relatives, co-workers, or neighbors. An accomplished minyo dancer helps young Japanese-American girls learn dance steps for an Obon festival. A seasoned oysterman gives a young captain tips on handling sails in the complex maneuvers involved in dredging oysters. A member of the senior men's gospel choir at an AME church helps the junior choir perfect its harmony. A Ukrainian-American woman shows a group of her children's friends how to create "pysanky" for Easter. In these informal learning situations folk artists are the teachers; and experience, observation, and interaction are the methods.
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Although such learning situations are not usually thought of as part of formal education, they are in fact an important part of every individual's total education. Much of what we need to know to perform effectively in the family, neighborhood, ethnic group, work place, or church is learned through our observation of role models, our interaction with peers and elders, practice, and self-instruction. What's more, informal learning supplements--even activates--much formal education. Professionals who prepare for their careers with years of formal training gain much of their skill and knowledge through out-of-school experiences. |
A holistic concept of education will therefore include out-of-school settings as well as classrooms, experiential activities as well as text-centered lessons, and community members as well as professional teachers. A folk arts residency implements this concept of education. It integrates the content and structures of the cultural community with those of the official education system. It brings community educators into the schools to teach in tandem with professional educators. It creates small-group learning situations within the classroom and provides first-hand experiences as the focus of structured lessons. In all this it enhances the connections between community and school.
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