New Educational Resources
 
by Gregory Hansen, Arkansas State University
 
The Folklore and Education Section welcomes announcements of new instructional resources for teaching about folklore. Send word of completed projects as well as descriptions of works-in-progress to Gregory Hansen at ghansen@astate.edu.

Community Art in Action is a new book by Kristin Congdon on the richness of the art and cultural traditions of communities and how to give students a simple push to explore this world beyond their boundaries. She demonstrates how art education programs in schools and other sites can be expanded to address community-based arts and folklife traditions. The text explains how art and aesthetic choices are at the heart of communities, and Kristin discusses how folklife and community practices are associated with the natural and built environment, different occupations, recreational activities, and ethnic traditions. Order from Davis, publisher of School Arts, $19.95, 800/533-2847, http://www.davis-art.com/catalog.

 
   

The new online education resource entitled "Preserve the Stories of Your Family and Community: The Smithsonian Folklife & Oral History Interviewing Guide" is now available as a free download at http://www.folklife.si.edu/explore/Resources.

This website presents guidelines that Smithsonian folklorists have developed over the years for collecting folklife and oral history from family and community members. It features a concise, easy-to-use guide to conducting an interview, as well as a sample list of questions that may be adapted to each interviewer’s own needs and circumstances. The Guide concludes with a few examples of ways to preserve and present one’s findings, a selection of further readings, a glossary of key terms, and sample information and release forms.

For more information, contact Marjorie Hunt at 202/275-2025 or by e-mail at marjorie@folklife.si.edu.
   

The American Folklife Center's Veterans History Project website now includes a section especially designed to provide suggestions and guidelines to help teachers and students who participate in the project. The site provides examples of work done by students including exemplary video interviews, logs, and transcriptions. It also includes a brief listing of web and printed resources for each war to help students prepare for their interviews.

The site's address is http://www.loc.gov/folklife/vets/youth-resources.html.

For more information, contact Peter Bartis at 202/707-4919 or peba@loc.gov.
   
The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation has released From Bridge to Boardwalk: An Audio Journey Across Maryland's Eastern Shore. Assembled by folklorists and community scholars who know the Eastern Shore intimately, this audio package includes two-hours of interviews with some of the Shore's most interesting and revealing people, such as hunters, trappers, watermen artists, and decoy carvers, plus music tracks never before available on disc.

An accompanying booklet features a dozen essays on regional topics, photographs and tips for learning more abut this special place called Maryland's Eastern Shore. This resource received the 2004 Maryland Tourism Council's Best New Product Award. It can be ordered for $24.95 plus shipping and handling from http://www.midatlanticarts.org.

For more information, contact Douglas Manger, Folk & Traditional Art Programs, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, 201 North Charles Street, Suite 401, Baltimore, Maryland 21201. 410/539-6656, ext. 107.
   

Joanna Pecore, museum educator at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, has produced guides for recordings of Cambodian music.

Homrong: Conserving Culture, Connecting Community: An Insider's Guide to a Living Khmer Musical Tradition in Virginia is a limited-edition companion to the recording "Homrong: Classical Music from Cambodia" by Chum Ngek.

The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy supported the recording, mixing, and initial mastering of the recording as well as the donation of this guide and a complimentary copy of the release to libraries across Virginia.

The recording and guide features the music of Chum Ngek, one of the few living Khmer music masters worldwide who possesses a vast repertoire and command of multiple instruments across various genres. He is the 2004 of the Bess Lomax Hawes Award, the NEA National Heritage Fellowship conferred upon one artist who has significantly benefited his or her tradition through teaching and preserving important repertoires. Chum has also received honors from the Maryland State Arts Council.

For information on ordering these materials, contact Joanna at joannapecore@juno.com.
   
Aurelia Gomez writes that ¡CARNAVAL! is a new multimedia program produced by the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico. This interdisciplinary program explores vibrant Carnival festival traditions being carried out today in eight different communities in Europe and the Americas.

The program includes a video, a set of twenty-four 8-1/2 x 11-in. color prints and teacher's guide. The 80-page guide will help students understand the global nature of the living, pre-Lenten/ renewal celebration called Carnival, recognize how the themes of play and renewal in Carnival celebrations are expressed through art and culture, develop respect for the beliefs of other individuals, groups, and cultures, and draw on this understanding to create a Carnival celebration that is meaningful to the students.

The 49-minute video allows students to study each site and get ideas to make their own costumes, floats, banners, as well as music and dance processions. The set of twenty-four color prints accompany the program to provide a visual reference to the art presented in the video and teacher's guide. Grade K-12.

The guide is available for $75.00 from Crystal Productions, Box 2159, Glenview, IL 60025, Phone 800/255-8629, FAX 800/657-8149. E-mail: custserv@crystalproductions.com. Website: http://www.crystalproductions.com. For more information, contact Aurelia Gomez, Director of Education, Museum of International Folk Art, P.O. Box 2087, Santa Fe, NM 87504-2087, agomez@moifa.org.
   
Katrina Harkness of the State Archives of Florida announces that selected records of the Florida Folklife Programs’s first twenty years have been put on-line. Based on their extensive Florida Folklife Collection, the State Archives of Florida has created the "Florida Folklife Collection Online" website. In addition to information, images, and links relating to Florida’s folklife, users can search descriptions of nearly 50,000 images and 5,000 audio recordings from the collection. For more information, go to http://www.floridamemory.com/Collections/folklife/index.cfm.
   
The Oregon Historical Society’s Folklife Program and the Oregon State University Extension Service 4-H Program teamed up during 2002-2003 to teach 4-H youth and club leaders how to document their communities’ traditional artists and culture. This exciting and innovative project provided 4-H club teens with training in fieldwork strategies, interviewing skills, black and white and color photography, sound recording, video production and editing. Teens then located local tradition bearers and completed documentation enabling them to explore, investigate and gather visual and oral information.

Projects included fourteen documentary videos, written projects and photographs of: members from the Basque community in Jordan Valley and Arock in Malheur County, the Latino community in Washington County, saddle making, bronco riding, wool and spinning traditions in Jefferson County, moccasin making on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Century Farms in Coos County, and pioneering, mining, wagon restoring and lumber folklife in Josephine County.

Results from this work were compiled into an educational resource entitled Portraits of Oregon. This resource includes strategies, lessons, and reproducible forms for community documentation and video production are available in a kit from The Oregon Historical Society Folklife Program. For more information, contact Carol Spellman at carols@ohs.org or visit the Folklife Program's Web site at http://www.ohs.org/education/folklife/Portraits-of-Oregon.cfm.
   
Laurie Sommers announces the availability of “Faces in the Piney Woods: Traditions of Turpentining in South Georgia," an oral history project of the South Georgia Folklife Project at Valdosta State University. It reflects the perspective of the field of folklore and focuses on the occupational folklife of South Georgia turpentine workers.

For much of the past century, Georgia was the nation’s leading producer of gum naval stores, or the industry of extracting products such as turpentine and rosin from living slash and longleaf pine trees. The last bucket of gum for commercial turpentine was dipped by Major Phillips on August 9, 2001, outside Soperton in Treutlen County, Georgia. The end of domestic turpentining in the United States inspired the project team to interview former turpentiners about their lives and traditions. The work of gathering and processing the raw gum was done chiefly by African American men, although countless European American small gum farmers turpentined on their own land or on land leased from others.

This site contains information gathered from 1998-2004 through background research, photographs, video, and oral interviews. It includes information on work in the woods and life in the turpentine camps as told by those who lived it. For more information, visit the South Georgia Folklife Project: http://www.valdosta.edu/music/SGFP.
   

The International Bluegrass Music Association announces a new educational DVD about bluegrass music and its history. Entitled "Discovering Bluegrass," this resource is targeted for audiences aged 8-13. The DVD can be ordered for $5 for use in schools and related settings. It is hosted by Tennessee wunderkinds Sierra Hull and Ryan Holladay. The project complements IBMA's other educational resources such as its "Bluegrass in the Schools Implementation Manual."

For additional information, visit their website at http://www.ibma.org/events.programs/schools/index.asp or call 888GET-IBMA.

Click here to return to the front page
Click here to go on to the next section