Teaching with Folk Sources - the Journal of Folklore and Education
Vermont Folklife is featured in the 10th Volume of the Journal of Folklore and Education!
The volume focuses on Teaching With Folk Sources, a partnership with our colleagues Local Learning that Vermont Folklife staff have been involved with over the past two years. Teaching With Folk Sources focuses on making materials in ethnographic and oral history archives accessible to classroom teachers.
Folklife in the Wake of a Natural Disaster
As our state continues to recover and heal from the 2023 floods, we are re-sharing some of the resources that Vermont Folklife developed for times of crisis.
Mary Wesley Named New Director of Education and Media
We are delighted that Mary Wesley, who has worked with Vermont Folklife in a wide range of capacities since 2009, has been promoted to Director of Education & Media as of May 22nd.
Folk Sources: Learning With Vermont Folklife's Archives
This spring, we–with project partners History Miami Museum, Oklahoma Oral History Program, OSU Writing Project and Local Learning–launched Folk Sources, a digital resource that provides pathways and tools for learning with specific types of primary source materials: field recorded archival sound, documentary photographs, text and other items generated through the research activities of folklorists, ethnomusicologists, oral historians and anthropologists.
The Most Costly Journey & Primary Sources of Vermont’s Food System: Educator Workshop in Barre
Multiple Perspectives and Counter Narratives in Vermont’s Food System: A workshop for K-12 educators and partners was an inspiring occasion that brought together educators and community partners to discuss learning strategies that focus on creating a more just and sustainable food system.
VT Folklife Goes to Tulsa!
This month, the VT Folklife Education team, Sasha Antohin and Mary Wesley, attended the annual meeting of the American Folklore Society (AFS) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Read about their trip!
Welcome Jordan Mitchell, our new Youth Media Fellow
Thanks to grant funding from the Canaday Family Foundation, the Vermont Folklife Center is pleased to welcome our first Youth Media Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year. This position will support the objectives of the Vermont Voices pilot program, whose main objective is to integrate humanities-centered training and skills practice at career and technical education (CTE) centers.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy & Primary Sources from the VFC Archives
This summer included two activities that have shaped the development of our classroom resources. This past July, the VFC organized a workshop at the St. Albans Museum for K-12 educators that presented oral history interviews focused on the role farmers play in Vermont’s history and identity. A few weeks later, the VFC participated in a workshop at the Minnesota History Center that offered strategies for pairing the use of primary sources with approaches to culturally relevant pedagogy.
In/Visible Stories Series in Brattleboro
The Folklife Center strives to reach across the state with our events and exhibits, and this July we’re enjoying concentrating our energy in southeastern Vermont through a range of programs in Brattleboro. The In/Visible Stories Series centered around The Most Costly Journey exhibit, on display through the end of July, features the experiences of Latin American migrant farmworkers in Vermont. Here’s a glimpse of some of the events that have taken place over the last two weeks:
An interview with April McIlwaine, Education Intern
This winter, the Folklife Center launched its Teaching with Primary Sources project. As part of that effort, VFC surveyed its own archival holdings to identify primary sources related to farming life and local foodways. April McIlwaine, a graduate student of the UVM Foodways Program and VFC Education intern for Spring 2022, was an instrumental part of the completion of this survey, and offered key insights for the future of this project.
Stories of Love and Delight - An artistic collaboration in Brattleboro, VT
On March 13, 2022 VFC Education staffer Mary Wesley attended a special reception at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (BMAC) to celebrate a collaboration between the VFC’s Vermont Voices project, the Windham Regional Career Center, and Mexican-American artist Yvette Molina. Mary reflects on the experience in this Field Note.
Educational Partnership Profile: Middlebury College’s Dr. Amy Morsman’s “Chronicling COVID-19” Project
This past January, Education and Media Specialist Mary Wesley introduced Middlebury College students to the VFC’s ethnographic approach to oral history through Professor Amy Morsman’s course “Chronicling COVID.” … READ MORE
Franco-American Culture From the Outside: Identity and Education In Reflection
Last fall, the Vermont Folklife Center launched a limited term engagement with five educators with music and intercultural teaching expertise to develop approaches for integrating Franco-American music for K–12 in classroom learning and across content areas. Emma Auer, VFC Fall 2021 intern who participated in these meetings that concluded in early December, offers her perspective on this experience as shaped by her own educational journey in New England.
Ethnography and Community - Online Public Discussion Series offered this Summer
The Vermont Folklife Center will host a series of four online presentations, in conjunction with our Summer Institute programming, August 2-13, 2021. These virtual events are free and open to the public. Through guided discussions with local educators, artists, and VFC staff, each session will offer a different perspective on how ethnography, an approach and set of methods for understanding and representing human experience, can inform and strengthen community-based inquiry and knowledge creation.
Education Reflections: Discovering Community in Brandon
We hear from another participant at the VFC’s 2019 Discovering Community Summer Institute for Educators, held in St. Johnsbury. Educator Dave Praamsma of Otter Valley Union High School in Brandon came away from the program inspired to launch a “Vermont Folklife Digital Storytelling Project” in his 8th grade classroom. Here Dave reflects on the importance of student voice in project-based learning.
Education Reflections: Discovering Community in Proctor
At this year’s Discovering Community Summer Institute for Educators, the Discovering Community team were fortunate to be joined by Proctor High School educator Linda McCuen. In this post, Linda reflects on the implementation of her collaborative ethnography project and what her students learned in asking their community “What does it mean to be an American?”
A "Very Vermont" Summer Institute!
This year’s Discovering Community Summer Institute for Educators was held at The Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury. Faculty included Discovering Community educators Trish Denton and Mary Wesley, VFC’s Archivist Andy Kolovos, and visiting scholar West Virginia State Folklorist Emily Hilliard. With the support of a handful of key community members, we were able to weave together a wonderful, place-based program to discover the unique community that is St. Johnsbury today.