“What’s Your Name?”

Appendix II
If You Want to Do More: Working With Artists in the Classroom

How to Find Artists

Teachers are often the best links to folk artists in a community. The key to identifying a suitable folk artist is to shed the misconception that you need a guest to come in who will do a professional presentation. You will be presenting someone, and can help them convey their material to the class to whatever degree is necessary.

Instead, think of people who are sources of information about the area, who are good at telling stories, who are practicing a tradition, and above all, who care about what they do and why they do it. Older people who are in relatively good health are often very effective in a classroom. For example, not only can they speak about an art form such as quilting, but they often have insight into the history of an area, and descriptions of what their lives used to be like. Retired people are also more readily available for school visits.

Don’t limit yourself to personal acquaintances. Look for people by asking others who would know different folk groups in the community. Ask the ladies who have worked in your school cafeteria for 30 years, the town librarian, the man at the filling station, the waitress at the local coffee shop or the local barber. If you are from the area, ask older people in your family. If you are not from the area, don’t despair. You may benefit from an outsider’s broader view of the community. Don’t be afraid to talk to strangers. Remember that you will be talking with people about what they love to do most or what they are strongly interested in. If you give a family interview assignment to your class, pay close attention to the students’ interviews. Sometimes their parents and grandparents make a wonderful program for the class, and this can be especially rewarding for the student involved.

Preparing the Artist

After you have located a suitable folk artist, it is important for you to take the time to establish personal contact. A phone call is really not enough. You need to visit with this person at home if at all possible. Often you learn more about people when you meet them in their surroundings. At some point, discuss the possibility of their coming into your classroom. More often than not, people are eager to demonstrate or talk about what they do in a classroom setting. It may also be that they have no interest or time for this activity, and you must respect this and not try to force them to come. Be aware that reticence may just be modesty or nervousness on their part. They may want to come and demonstrate but are unsure of themselves. They may say something like “I don’t think I’d be any good at that.”

You need to reassure them and describe in detail how you envision their visit to the classroom. Make sure you stress that they will not be expected to give a presentation by themselves, and that the children will have plenty of questions prepared to ask them. Cover other details with them in advance as well:

• Explain to the artist the exact times you will need them at the school. If you are planning for them to come to more than one classroom, let them know in advance. Do not overwork them -- four classes in a day is plenty. If they are elderly, fewer classes are even better. Single classrooms are best, but it may work to double up classes rather than completely tire out the artist. Use your best judgment. If they are going to other teachers’ classrooms, those teachers need to be versed in and aware of their role as presenters (see next section).
• Discuss details with the artist beforehand. Familiarize yourself with their work. Talk about specific pieces, songs, issues, or stories you would like them to cover in the classroom. Discuss what material will involve the children directly. Discourage them from bringing huge pieces or too much material to the school. However, if they do need to bring heavy or bulky materials with them, make sure to find a room where they need to set up only once, and the students can come to them.
• Payment is a very thorny issue. It is best that money is available and offered to any folk artist who demonstrates at a school. Often no money is available, and quite as often, an artist will refuse payment if they see their visit as a service to the community. However, our view is that money should be found and offered, even if it is only gas money to get the artist to the school and back. It is simply not right to expect the artist to come to the school as a goodwill gesture because they are local and “non-professional.”

Preparing the Class

It is best to tie the artist’s visit in with material the students are currently studying. With good planning, an artist’s visit can be a nice culminating session to an academic study. For example, a riverboat worker could come at the end of a section on rivers; a musician such as those presented on this compilation CD could nicely supplement a unit in history, language arts or diversity; a coal miner could come at the end of a session on earth science and geology, or economics for that matter; quilters could come for geometry; Latino or Asian cooks could come for discussion of other countries, or for holiday customs; THE LIST IS ENDLESS, limited only by imagination.

Besides their knowledge of the corresponding academic curriculum, the students need to be prepared in other ways:

• The class needs to go through interview exercises and assignments using other lessons in this guide and the student fieldwork guide. Through these exercises they will have a solid background for asking good questions, being involved in an interview, and listening to the artist. Above all, they need to be good listeners.
• Tell the class that the artist is coming; don’t think of it as an entertaining treat. Describe the artist as best you can to the class, and ask them to write down a few questions for the artist from this brief description. Have students read the questions out loud to the class, and review what makes a good or bad question.
• The class also needs to review rules of good behavior for the artist’s visit. A time will be set aside for questions, and the students should not interrupt the artist with raised hands until that time. Students should always raise their hands and not shout their questions out. They should never touch any of the artists' materials unless they have given permission to do so.
• Create assessment for the visit. Remember the adage, “if it’s not on the test, it’s not important.”

Presenting the Artist

• Your goal as a presenter is to be flexible and to control the flow of the presentation subtly and gently. Prompt the artists and direct the narrative with questions if they run out of things to say. Call on students if they seem particularly eager to ask questions. Let the artists call on students if they seem to enjoy doing so.
• Your placement in the room is important. Stand near or next to the artists if they need more input. Stand off to the side and assume more the role of an audience member if they seem to be happy doing their own presentation.
• Take control if the artists wander too much with their narrative. Your job is to keep things on track with well-placed questions. Keep an eye on the clock. It is guaranteed that you will run out of time! If things are going well, and you have a flexible schedule, then let things run over. But don’t overwork the artists if they are tiring and have other classes to go to.
• Take care of the artists while they are at school. Feed them lunch. Have students guide them to different classrooms; don’t expect them to find their own way.
• Never leave an artist alone in the classroom.

Follow Up

• The folk artist’s visit is a perfect lead to a writing assignment. For example, the students can write about what they learned from the visit, how this relates to other things they have recently learned in class, or how it relates to their lives outside of school. This writing can easily be used as an addition to their portfolio.
• Let the visit be a springboard for class discussion. Be sure to touch on anything about the visit that you think is important or needs further explanation.
• Use pre- and post-tests about the subject matter of the visit as a viable assessment tool.
• Write thank you notes to the artist. Often, students have done this on their own and asked for the artist’s address. If any particularly good writing comes out of the follow-up assignment, be sure to share it with the artists.
• Do involved, hands-on activities inspired by the artist’s visit. Learn one of the artists’ songs and keep singing it with the class. If a woodcarver came to class, spend an hour carving soap. If a quilter visited, have the class make some paper quilt blocks. The students could also write and perform a skit or short play based on stories that the artist told.

With these guidelines, we hope that an important and meaningful visit with a folk artist could take place in your classroom. You may also have a lot of fun along the way.

© 2001 On Tour Productions