To read the minutes of the 2006 meeting of the Folklore & Education Section, click here.

Saturday workshop

About thirty people, including a number of local teachers, attended the 13th annual Folklore and Education workshop at the Milwaukee AFS meeting.

Sadly, the original recipient of the annual Robinson-Roeder-Ward fellowship, Mark Wagler, was unable to attend due to his mother's recent death. However, another fine Wisconsin teacher, Kristin Larsen, accepted the fellowship and attended the workshop, presenting on her "Rhinelander Cultural Tour," described below.

Anne Pryor of the Wisconsin Arts Board gave a brief overview of the day, explaining the workshop's focus on configuring local-culture fieldwork to advance learning.

The day's first presenter, Natalie Underberg of the University of Central Florida, offered one approach with her demonstration of the UCF/Florida Cultural Heritage Alliance's "Folkvines" website.

The site allows users to take a virtual tour of Florida’s local culture and meet seven artists from around the state. The project's thematic interface lets viewers truly experience the sounds and visuals that are metaphors, analogies, and true representations of the artists and their work. There is also commentary from the Folkvine scholars that provides theoretical analysis by clicking on each scholar’s bobble-head doll image.

Natalie emphasized that this is woven together with interviews with the artist and other elements so that the theoretical aspects and the fun elements are not mutually exclusive. Each artist has a “splash” (introductory page) accessed through picking up a postcard off a rack in the virtual souvenir shop. These profiles are specific to the artists. For example a Puerto Rican artist has a mask as her splash page and you “enter” her “house” and can look around and pick up virtual artifacts. In addition, visitors can also access three topical guides that contextualize folk art and culture in the Sunshine State. The Cultural Heritage Alliance is now looking at doing podcasts as part of this ongoing work.

The workshop's second presenter, Paul “Sugar Bear” Smith (Oneida), who works with Heifer International's Indian Nations Program, described his efforts to reintroduce traditional plants, planting methods, and foodways in his (and other Native American) communities.

To underscore the importance of maintaining these traditions both in terms of cultural health and physical health, Smith offered the startling statistic that 80% of the Oneida population has Type II diabetes, in large part due to the wheat-based diet encouraged by the reservation system.

Paul shared several food products that the Oneida Nation currently produces, most of which are low in sugar. Paul does not work directly with educational programs, but is a mediator/bridge between different groups working with families and whole communities to get back to traditional agriculture and healthier foodways. There are currently programs teaching young people where their food comes from and the processes of planting and harvesting.

Steve Ackerman, University of Wisconsin/Madison professor of Atmospheric Science, continued the theme by describing his work with a UW/Madison task force investigating ways to enhance student learning using various technologies, including podcasts and digital games.

While digital games have been deemed somewhat “evil” by society, the group discussed how these so-called evils could be used for good: gaming can enhance critical-thinking skills, eye/hand coordination and development of motor skills, and social interaction with other gamers. The key was to shift the focus from winning the game to the larger picture, process of building the community or taking on the role of a particular profession in a role-playing game.

Robinson-Roeder-Ward fellow Kristin Larsen (Northwoods Community Secondary School) took the stage to discuss her Rhinelander Cultural Tour, which she designed for other teachers in conjunction with her 6th-grade students.

The project was a course in local culture for both Kristen and the students as they began to look at their own community and the people and places that were unique to their area. First she and the students brainstormed ideas about places visitors shouldn’t miss when they came to Rhinelander. During this stage of the process, the class discussed the criteria for what made a good place to visit. These factors included identifying presenters who were good talkers (and listeners!), who had the ability to tell stories, and who possessed rich local knowledge.

Students were put into pairs and each pair was assigned a stop on the tour where they served as tour guides, introducing visitors to the places and interviewing the artisans, authors, or representatives at each location. The class also put together a self-guided tour for teachers to do on their own.

Kristin eventually worked these projects into the scoping sequence for social studies and language arts standards in her district.

Natalie Underberg demonstrates the Folkvines website.

Paul "Sugar Bear" Smith discusses the role of corn in traditional Oneida foodways.

Some of the many food products produced by the Oneida nation.

Steve Ackerman engages the audience in a discussion of educational uses of digital games.

Robinson-Roeder-Ward fellow Kristin Larsen explains how she and her 5th-grade students constructed a cultural tour for teachers.

Debbie Kmetz, one of the teachers who participated in the Wisconsin cultural tour in the summer of 2006, explains how the tour changed her perspective on her own sense of place.

Finally, Debbie Kmetz of Wisconsin Teachers of Local Culture described “Here at Home: A Cultural Tour for K-12 Teachers,” a statewide, multi-disciplinary cultural tour for teachers that Debbie, Anne Pryor, and Ruth Olson developed.

In the summer of 2006, 27 teachers ranging from seasoned teachers in their 50’s to teachers in their 20’s and even a recent graduate participated in the eight-day bus tour, which included stops related to Wisconsin geology, geography, history, folklore, and atmospheric science.

The main goals of the tour were 1) to explore local culture through the environment and human factors that affect culture; 2) incorporate both historical and contemporary examples of culture; and 3) teach how can teachers identify local culture in their own communities. Debbie then took us on a “virtual” version of the eight-day tour. One of the participants was present at this workshop and said that is was a life-changing experience and that she has an automatic awareness and connection to local culture that she never realized before the tour.

At the end of the workshop, Paddy presented a slideshow retrospective of our Saturday workshops, which began at the joint AFS/SEM meeting in Milwaukee in 1994. To view highlights of the presentation, click here.