Network News

  
by Paddy Bowman, Coordinator, National Network for Folk Arts in Education  
   
Education trends toward high-stakes testing and emphasis on reading and math are discouraging many educators across the country. Many remain innovative and energetic, however, and find that folklife, oral history, and ethnography engage students and involve them with family and community members. As the Network marks its 10th anniversary of NEA funding, I am curious about how folklorists are approaching K-12 education today, what issues are crucial, what feeds people’s engagement, how can we support and sustain one another? If anyone’s interesting in an online dialogue, I’ll start an informal listserve. Contact me at pbowman@ix.netcom.com.  
   

Summer 2004 Institutes

The annual roster of courses, workshops, and institutes in folk arts, folklife, and oral history can be viewed by clicking on the "F&E Opportunities" link to the left. New and updated information will be posted on the CARTS web site at http://www.carts.org as it becomes available. If you want immediate information or have not sent me news of your institutes, email me at pbowman@ix.netcom.com.
 
     
     

WWW.CARTS.ORG Resources

Send information about new resources useful for K-12 educators for the "Resources" section of the CARTS Web site at http://www.carts.org. Check entries for your region and send corrections as well as additions to pbowman@ix.netcom.com. In particular, we ask that you encourage people to use the artist residencies with NEA National Heritage Fellows and the CARTS Culture Catalog, now online.

Contact Amanda Dargan if you know of resources that might be appropriate for the national audience of the catalog, adargan@citylore.org. If you’d like to receive periodic CARTS E-Bulletins, email me.

The Spring 2004 CARTS Newsletter features Rites of Passage as a theme. Next year’s theme is teaching American history with folklife, ethnography, and oral history. If you have ideas for articles, authors, or resources, send them to me.

  
     
   
 

"Coming Up Taller" Awards

These annual awards for arts education programs from the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities come with a generous stipend. March 25 is the application deadline for programs that serve children and youth. Find instructions at http://www.cominguptaller.org, 202/682-5409. Community-based programs that include folk arts and fieldwork are among past winners.

  
   
   

Articles on Ethnography in Language Arts


The May 2004 issue of NCTE's Language Arts, a journal for elementary educators, has an ethnography-in-education theme. Anne Pryor and I both have articles in the issue. Getting these articles accepted for this special issue was not easy: the editors assumed that it would be professors, grad students, and perhaps teachers using ethnography–not students!

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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