|
Folklife is such a pervasive aspect of our lives that it often
remains all but invisible, so much a part of how we live our lives that we
rarely examine it. Yet it is precisely in the mundane activities of our
daily routines that we learn much of what we need to know in our lives:
whether it is the "tricks of the trade" that teachers (and doctors,
salespeople, clergy, gardeners, hobbyists, or good cooks) share with each
other and that often distinguish the expert from the novice, or the values
(of cleanliness, literacy, religious practice, affectionate play) that are
embodied in the routines with which we end the day for our children.
We become who we are in large part by our participation in groups in which
we share ethnicity, occupation, age, gender, religion, or other cultural
factors. Folklife traditions are an important basis upon which cultural
groups establish and pass on shared values and specialized knowledge. By
focusing study on such traditions, we may gain a better understanding of
how a particular group of people communicate with each other, what they
value, and how they perceive the world and their role in it. Folk groups,
the groups in which humans spend most of their time, provide access to
commonalities as well as differences, and by studying the folklife of folk
groups students can develop conceptual frameworks within which to examine
and reflect on both differences and commonalities.
--Standards for Folklife Education, Diane Sidener, ed., Pennsylvania Alliance for Arts Education, 1997, p. 2.
Folklore
- Folklore involves a tradition that passes over time and through space
and is not necessarily old; in fact, it is often contemporary and
dynamic.
- The learning process is usually by word of mouth, observation, and
imitation.
- There are conservative elements that stay the same through many
transmissions. For example, the "plot"of the old ballad "Barbara Allen"
remains the same: A woman forsakes a man and he dies.
- On the other hand, folklore is also dynamic, changing in transmission
(variants), while keeping a storehouse of conservative elements such as
motifs, metaphors, characters who belong to the collective and get
reworked again and again. Thus, each singer of "Barbara Allen"
might accidentally or purposefully change the lyrics, shorten the song,
improvise with the tune.
- The source is often anonymous.
Folk Groups
Folk groups can be any groups of people who share special language,
customs, traditions and can be based upon factors such as nationality,
age, gender, ethnicity, religion, region, neighborhood, social class,
social clubs, family, occupation, school, classroom. All of us belong to
many different, sometimes overlapping, folk groups that change throughout
our lives.
Functions of Folklore
- Entertainment
- Education and instruction
- Relief of cultural tension
- Boundary-defining
- Validation of a culture (paradoxically, folklore can also violate
cultural norms)
Basic Types of Folklore
- Oral Narratives--tales, legends, proverbs, jokes, riddles, anecdotes, oral poetry, toasts, signifying, sermons, personal experience narratives
- Music and Instruments--lullabies to highly polished song styles, penny whistles to tribal drums
- Material Culture--the "stuff" of traditional culture, which includes, for example, the following:
- Architecture--barns, fences, outbuildings, houses
- Crafts and Decorative Arts--baskets, quilts, coverlets, carvings, pottery, weaving, tool-making, furniture-making, needlework, home or yard decoration
- Foodways--gathering, preserving, and preparing food
- Beliefs--superstitions, weatherlore, folk wisdom, remedies, prejudice, spirituality
- Customs--group celebrations, holidays, calendar traditions, rituals, birthdays
- Body Communications--greetings, handshakes, dance, games, gestures
Traditional, Popular, and Elite Culture
Traditional knowledge and culture are learned and transmitted by word of
mouth and observation within our many overlapping folk groups. Elite or
academic knowledge is learned and transmitted formally in a society's
institutions such as schools, universities, museums, and concert halls.
Popular culture is learned and transmitted through mass media. The
boundaries between these kinds of knowledge and culture blur
interestingly, and often traditional knowledge and culture are overlooked
or dismissed as quaint or untrue.
Content and Methodology
Folklore's relevance to K-12 educators is interdisciplinary and twofold.
Young people respond not only to the content of folklore-sharing their own
and discovering others' traditions-but to collecting folklore through
various fieldwork methods, which can include observation, notetaking,
mapping, interviewing, audio or video recording, archiving, and presenting
findings in any variety of ways.
"The Educative Matrix of Folklore"
Clearly, folklore is alive and well. It constitutes a basic and important
educative and expressive setting in which individuals learn how to see,
act, respond, and express themselves by the empirical observation of close
human interactions and expressions in their immediate society (that is,
the family, occupational or religious group, ethnic or regional community).
Folklore structures the worldview through which a person is educated into
the language and logic systems of these close societies. It provides
ready formulas for the expression of cultural norms. . . .
--The Dynamics of Folklore, by Barre Toelken, revised edition, Utah State University Press, 1996, pp. 19-22.
National Network for Folk Arts in Education
Paddy Bowman, Coordinator
609 Johnston Place
Alexandria, VA 22301
703/836-7499 ~ fax: 836-4820
pbowman@ix.netcom.com
www.carts.org
|
