I found out about this from a fellow folklorist on a folklore list serve. I thought many would find it informative and interesting. This is not a partisan statement.
The last few days I have been very upset about Palin’s comments about community organizers.
I wrote a lengthy post on my facebook account about how her comments reflect that she has no respect for everyday citizens who work to make this world a more just place. I firmly believe community workers and grassroots activists are the heart of a democratic nation.
I found this article last night and encourage everyone to read it and pass it on.
As folklorists, we too are community organizers. Some of us may be overt activists and some of us not. But we are all community service workers, and I believe we can not stand for having those in power mock our democratic struggle. I encourage everyone to talk to your family, your neighbors, your friends, about the importance of community work. We can not afford a leader in office who does not understand the value of everyday citizens working for change. It’s unacceptable.
Social Justice educational publishers and organizations Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change have published a middle and high school history curriculum based on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. A copy is available for free download here. To download a free copy you must agree to respond to a survey and provide feedback after completing the book. You need not be a middle or high school teacher to download a copy.
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Rethinking Globalization:Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World textbook
I just read about this textbook from Rethinking Schools. It was published in 2002. This resource textbook teaches students 4th-12th grades social justice issues as an interconnected web. As the authors say in the introduction (which can be found online as well), (more…)
In working with a few different oral history programs, I have always been intrigued by how much information these interviews about rural life in North Carolina, Arkansas, or central Kentucky contain about climate change. When men and women in their 80s and 90s discuss their childhoods, they often recall extended winters, greater amounts of snow, creeks running so deep they would flood their banks, and trees so filled with robins that robin soup was a popular dish.
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I have posted the annotated bibliographies, which you can find under the pages section of this blog. If there are books, articles or radio programs that you know of that I have not listed, please post and let me know!
I am in the process of finishing up the podcasts created for my independent study and preparing an annotated bibliography of useful sources that combine folklore and human rights education.
Once complete, the annotated bibliography will be housed here.
If you have any suggestions for books, webpages, school programs, archives, etc, please let me know. I am hoping this site can be a resource for people interested in the combined possibilities of folklore and human rights education, so feel free to post!
This blog will explore readings, discussions, experiences, and other forms of communication that bring together social justice, human rights-based education, and folklore studies. The original inspiration for this blog came about during my first semester of graduate school when I discovered that googling “folklore and social justice” resulted in few hits. Over the course of the past year and a half, my work as a Folk Studies graduate student interested in human rights education and social justice activism has led me to believe that each of these areas of action and study have a great deal in common and can learn a great deal from one another. This blog will be an interactive learning tool where I can share what I am reading and learning with others as I continue my exploration in these themes.
No doubt many folklorists already work in areas of human rights based activism and many activists employ the skills of an ethnographer. I hope this blog can highlight that work and those resources and serve as an interactive annotated bibliography of sorts for other folklorists and students interested in such work.
I welcome any comments, discussion, feedback, and reading suggestions. I would like to thank Dr. Tim Evans for serving as the director of my Independent Study of which this blog is a small part.