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Passing It On:
Folklife in the Curriculum
The desire to integrate folk studies into the curriculum combined with the NJSCA residency concept produced the particular shape of the Cumberland County FAIE program. Rittenhouse had suggested that we develop the program around a teacher-training course, and with her help and the guidance of the Cumberland County FAIE Advisory Committee, I formulated a graduate course that would assist teachers in developing curricula for folk artists' residency programs.
Folklife in the Curriculum, as the course was called, was offered in the spring semesters of 1983 and 1984 through the Office of Continuing Education at Glassboro State College. Twenty-one teachers and librarians completed the course and created curriculum-based residency programs in a variety of settings. The materials they developed for their programs have been catalogued at the Cumberland County Library, and several of these participants have repeated their programs or gone on to create other projects with folklife topics and folk artists. Between 1986 and 1988 the NJSCA duplicated this program model in Essex County, New Jersey, in cooperation with the Arts Council of the Essex Area and Montclair State College.
Today, FAIE programs have multiplied around the country, and many excellent new models have emerged. In several states folklorists have worked with educators to create statewide curricula for folklife studies. Yet the need for more curriculum models and resource materials remains great, particularly in view of our heightened awareness of multiculturalism.
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Thus, we offer this book, which has two aims. First, it presents a model of FAIE programs for folklorists and educators, both in New Jersey and nationally. Using some of the materials developed by the Cumberland County FAIE participants, it provides descriptions of specific programs, curriculum materials, and resources that can be incorporated or adapted. Some teachers in South Jersey may be able to duplicate these programs, and teachers throughout New Jersey may be able to use some of the materials to teach state history. But most will use the background materials on cultural groups as a model to create programs with people from their own area whom they recognize as community educators. Folklorists may also find here insights into the workings of the public education system. |
For educators everywhere, however, the book and the Cumberland County model may best serve as an impetus to find new ways to connect schools with the cultural communities they serve. Whether through folk artists' residencies, Foxfire-type documentation projects, statewide folklife curricula, neighborhood ethnographies, family folklife units of study, or innumerable other formats, local culture belongs in the curriculum.
No less important is the second aim of the book--to present to the people of Cumberland County a portrait of themselves and their place. A large portion of the book describes the county's history and some of its cultural groups, primarily through biographies of nine of the folk artists who participated in the program (a list of all the residencies is given in the chapter "Cumberland County Folk Arts in Education Participants and Programs"). These sections describe the individuals and their skills in the context of their communities, each of which is important to the complex culture of Cumberland County. Although these biographies will be useful to educators in the region, they may also appeal more generally to those who are interested in local culture. Because the structure of the book was determined by the structure of the program, not all the important cultural groups in the county, or even all the artists who participated in the programs, and profiled here. It is our hope, however, that what is presented will motivate others to document the cultural communities of this fascinating region and incorporate them into educational programs.
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