Blue Ridge Family Literacy Project
Multi-generational storytelling at Mabel School
A Family Literacy Learning Initiative
by
Appalachian State University’s Reich College of Education
During the 2007-2008 academic year, the Blue Ridge Family Literacy Project (BRFLP) will sponsor literacy projects at Watauga High School (Watauga County), with a focus on celebrating the international diversity of that student body; Westwood Elementary School (Ashe County), for a follow-up Appalachian Family Storytelling project, after their first such experience in 2006; and on the campus of Appalachian State University, where faculty/staff and students will identify and celebrate our diversity. A special early childhood family llieracy project will take place at Valle Crucis School (Watauga County), for families of newly enrolled pre-school children.
Under the direction of Dr. William Peacock, Dr. Ann Marie Clark, and ASU doctoral student Matt Roberts, BRFLP offers participants an opportunity for informal shared learning experiences in support of developing and extending literacy skills while fostering healthy relationships that are supportive of life-long learning.
In most BRFLP projects, tech-based media and the collaboration and mentorship of university/college student partners (UPartners), support the sharing of participants' personal histories. The purpose of this work is to preserve the history and culture of these communities, while providing an opportunity for collaboration between young learners, those who teach naturally (parents and family) and those who teach formally and informally (university/college volunteers). The result is a living, literary work that develops from the relationships formed between student and teacher, teacher and family, and people and community.
Another important goal of BRFLP is to support and enrich the experiences of future teachers. Students (Upartners) from ASU's Reich College of Education, seerve as mentor/facilitators in the storytelling/publication process. UPartners listen to participant stories, assist young learners and family members in transcribing their stories, and enhance their relationship-building skills, while enriching their own awareness and appreciation of local culture.
Beginning with the spring semester of 2008, BRFLP will venture into our first non-storytelling projects. Dr. Connie Green and Ms. Kathy Schlagal (Valle Crucis Pre-school Teacher) will supervise RCOE Early Childhood Education students (UPartners) in a project that will focus on involving parents and pre-schoolers in activities designed to promote development of emerging literacy skills.
History of the Project
BRFLP has evolved from the Appalachian Family Storytelling Project which originated in 2005 with Mabel School’s effort to involve some of its constituent community in a project designed to involve families in a shared tech-based learning experience with their children and students from Appalachian State University’s College of Education teacher preparation program. An ASU team including Dr. Walter Oldendorf, Dr. William Peacock Dr. Ann Marie Clark, and Dr. Julie Horton, worked closely with then Mabel School Principal Brenda Reese and teachers Amy Miller and Audrey Tate to develop an activity which would serve to enhance learning skills while celebrating the cultures of individual families and the greater school community. Modeled on the Fifth Dimension, an international technology based literacy program, the Mabel project brought together families, university partners (UPartners), and technology at a community school site. For ten weeks the group met, shared their family stories, learned and polished computer skills, and produced a published anthology of those stories.
Family/UPartner cohorts collaborate to share and publish family stories
and they experience the social fusion of a weekly meal together
To date, AFSP has involved approximately 110 families and 100 college/university students and other community volunteers at 11sites in and beyond the North Carolina High Country, in the publication of 12 anthologies.
More information regarding these projects can be obtained by contacting Dr. William Peacock, (peacockws@appstate.edu) Dr. Ann Marie Clark (clarkam@appstate.edu) or Matt Roberts (robertsam@appstate.edu).
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ASU Faculty/Staff Diversity Storytelling Project
We, as a university faculty and staff, form a rich and vibrant tapestry of diverse racial, ethnic, gender and experiential qualities.
Our faculty/staff storytellers spent the fall semester sharing their dynamic personalities and exciting personal histories with students from one of our RCOE Learner Diversity classes. Childhood stories of war-torn Poland in the 1940's, a Korean's first day in America encounter with the FBI, tales of growing up in Zimbabwe, and one Indian family's fascination with music were just a few examples of our incredible fall experience!
And there's much more to come, as we continue this project during the spring, 2008 semester!
Program Support from:
(SALT GRANT)
APPALACHIAN PARENTS ASSOCIATION
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IT'S HERE!
Our First Digital Anthology!
Hidden Treas"yours"
The Alleghany County Digital Anthology
This is a very large file. Some server connections require a complete download before viewing. Work is in progress on an alternative format presentation.
Go ahead and download it....it is well worth the wait!
Click below -
http://zeno.ced.appstate.edu/~spag/alleghany_flash.html
- a Ying Wu and Gear Up production
Contact Ying Wu at yinginusa@gmail.com
Technical Production Assistance -
John Spagnolo
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UPartner Reflections
UPartners perform a vital service as active participants in the storytelling and publication processes. The following are samples of the reflective experiences of our UPartners. Enjoy!
Carolyn Sears
FDN 3800 - 107.
Appalachian Family Storytelling
As human-beings, there is a need within us for the affirmation from other people. We want, and need sometimes, so badly for people to simply listen to us and let us know that our voice is important. To share a story and have someone laugh, or cry, or simply appreciate its value, is a powerful thing. This idea of showing others how they are appreciated through listening and writing down their stories is the basis for the Appalachian Family Storytelling Project. Students come with their families, and they simply share stories from their past which the college kids, or UPartners, who transcribe them into a written document on the computer. At the end of the term, the stories are put into a printed collection for each family to have. The ultimate beauty in this project is its ability to let people know their stories are important while helping students to learn at the same time.
Maxine Greene, author of Releasing the Imagination, is an educator who believes in the power of stories. She explains in her writing that everyone understands what is happening around them based on their previous experiences. “A reflective grasp of our life stories and our ongoing quests, that reach beyond where we have been, depends on our ability to remember things past. It is against the backdrop of those remembered things and the funded meanings to which they gave rise, that we grasp and understand what is now going on around us” (Greene). If this is true, it is essential for everyone to remember the past to try to interpret how that scope is defining the present. The past cannot be forgotten, because if it is, we will become closed minded to the attitudes and opinions of others along with knowledge that we don't see as relevant to ourselves. Looking at the present without remembering the past gives us a narrow view of what is important.
The Family Storytelling Project is all about giving importance to people's personal histories. The students are there to tell their stories so that the uPartners can write them down. Those stories are given distinction simply by the uPartners asking to hear them. At the same time, the kids’ minds turn on. If one topic is mentioned from a uPartner, the student is able to think of a string of different stories that they could share. This demonstrates how storytelling is activating the mind. After running through several options of stories, or after finishing telling a story, the students would have no problem creating a fictional story if they were asked to. The can piece together different aspects of their own experience to create a new work. When students are stuck in routine before they are prompted for their stories, “new beginnings become unlikely, yet it is only in the experience of a beginning that persons feel themselves to be the initiators, the authors of what they are doing or intending to do” (Greene). When the students feel the power of being able to create, they can and will do amazing things.
Dr. Jane M. Healy wrote a book called Endangered Minds in which she impact of stories in a child’s education. Her focus is more on storytelling to children instead of by children, but she brings up several good points. She notes that listening to stories, even without any explanation, helps kids understand the story structure, which leads to an understanding of other types of literature later on. Healy also points out that listening to stories without seeing any pictures forces the child to accept the “symbolic potential of language.” She goes on to say that “any activity that helps children use their brains to separate from the ‘here and now’, to get away from pictures and to use words to manipulate ideas in their own minds, also helps them with the development of abstract thinking” (Healy).
The act of remembering and sharing their stories during the project is an example of an activity that Dr. Healy is referring to. The words from the uPartners to get the kids thinking about the past and their experiences are, in a way, “manipulating” the ideas in the kids’ minds – leading to abstract thinking. As the semester progressed, the students at the Storytelling Project naturally began to understand more about story structure. Students began to understand, often without explanation, about how a story needs a beginning, middle, and end to each story that they tell.
Students learning without being formally ‘taught’ was a fun thing to watch. Most of the kids had the same uPartners every week of the project, so after the first couple times they became comfortable with their uPartner and the storytelling process became more fun. Those uPartners with the same kid and family throughout the project would all be able to say that they say their kid’s writing skills develop, and they may also be able to say they saw improvement in their computer skills, creativity, or grammar.
Because I came to the Westwood site at the fourth week, I didn’t have a family that I was consistently with. I partnered up with whoever didn’t have a partner for the week, which allowed me to work with a different family every time. This was really a fun experience for me. I was able to see how differently families interact with each other. Some kids who didn’t have a typical mom-dad-and-siblings type of household had more trouble behaviorally and in their writing. However, there were several students who came from a rougher background, but were very bright and way above their peers in their writing abilities. The main downside to having a different child and family every week was not being able to see their development as the semester progressed, but learning was still very obvious with all of the students I worked with.
This project was such a good experience for me. It was great to be able to work with kids and their families at the same time. It was also good to see an example of how teachers are going above and beyond the job they have to do in order to promote student learning and family involvement. Hopefully, when I am teaching, I will be able to get involved in programs like this one that are making a difference in the community.
References
Healy, Jane M., Ph.D. Endangered Minds (excerpt from). Referenced to by Bill Wood. http://www.billwoodstoryteller.com/Storytelling.html. Viewed December 12, 2006.
Greene, Maxine. Releasing the Imagination. Ch.2 “Imagination, Breakthroughs, and the Unexpected.” https://wncln.wncln.org/search/ppeacock/ppeacock/1,1,1,B/l962@info~2577075&FF=ppeacock&1,1,,0,0,0
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Kim Phoenix
FDN 3800
12/13/2006
Westwood Elementary/Appalachian Family Storytelling Project
At first, when I heard that we were going to have to do a service learning project, I was unsure how I could relate it to my teaching career. I chose the Appalachian Family Storytelling Project because I was intrigued by the idea of people sharing their family histories. I thought that by at least working with students I could learn to be more comfortable in that position. I was unaware when I started how relevant this project would be to my career. The three things that most influenced my future career were learning how to positively interact with parents, the pressure of End of Grade testing, and finally the importance of offering your students the opportunity to create for authentic audiences.
The importance of learning how to interact positively with parents cannot be overemphasized. So many times, especially in secondary schools, teachers only interact with parents when there is a problem with a student. Parental involvement is very important to ensure a student’s success in school. It is also very important that the instructor attempt to maintain good relationships with the students’ parents. As seen in the video, “Boys from Baraka”, parents often want their children to do better in school than they did. They almost always wish to see their children succeed in school and in life.
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Teachers must maintain a good relationship in order to provide feedback to the parents and be able to hear the parents’ concerns and issues as well.
I learned this through my interaction with my family in the service learning project. The mother, “Eileen” came to me with concerns that her daughter, “Rose” was not doing as well on spelling as she had hoped. She stated that “Rose” many times misspelled words that she knew she could spell when writing stories by hand. “Eileen” also stated that she noticed that “Rose” did not seem to have this problem as much when typing. As a pre-service teacher, “Eileen” looked to me to provide answers to her concerns. It stated in the manual for the project that I should never point out a student’s weakness, but comment on their strengths. “Rose” was a smart child, with no discernable problems with spelling. It just so happened that I, too, often had the same problem. I explained to “Eileen” that “Rose” was often in a hurry to get her thoughts out on paper. I attempted to explain that she could think faster than she could write. I told “Eileen” that “Rose” did not misspell as many words when typing because she was not familiar with the layout of the keyboard and had to look for letters before pressing the keys. That proved that she knew how to spell the words, she just got in a hurry when writing. “Eileen” seemed quite relieved with this explanation. For the first time, I realized what a powerful position teachers were truly in. If a teacher, whom “Eileen” had looked to for guidance, had made the wrong comment, it would have impacted “Rose’s” life for years. I do not believe that this is an exaggeration. Teachers must remain open and communicative with parents in order to further in academic career of many of our students.
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Many of us future educators have heard the horror stories regarding end of grade testing. Of course in my classes, I have had my issues with the No Child Left Behind Act in theory. However, it wasn’t until I was afforded the opportunity to work with flesh and blood students that I realized how this problem really affected students and their parents.
When working at Westwood Elementary School, “Eileen” expressed concern over her daughter’s upcoming 4th grade end of grade test. With high stakes testing having so much weight in the secondary education system, it becomes an even larger shadow looming in the lives of my future students.
This experience with assisting in the Appalachian Family Storytelling Project really emphasized how important it is for the teachers to use their professional voice to help create laws and change regulations made by individuals in politics that have probably never stepped foot inside a classroom. The NEA has released a “Positive Agenda for the ESEA Reauthorization”. This outline helps illustrates what could be seen as weak points with the NCLB. I believe one of the most important points that the NEA recommends is, “states, school districts, and schools should actively involve teachers and other educators in the planning, development, implementation and refinement of standards, curriculum, assessments, accountability and improvement plans,” (NEA 2006). Teachers must use their professional voice to change things that are going wrong with the way the educational system is being assessed. My service learning project illustrated the fact that, who would know more about what is happening within the school system than the teacher? Teachers should not be satisfied as professionals to allow others to make our decisions for us. Listening to “Eileen’s” fears and concerns over end of grade testing
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made me realize that in the position of teacher, we have the intimate knowledge of what concerns both our students and their parents. I believe we have the moral obligation to try and change the system, not only for ourselves, but for our students.
The final thing that I learned from my service learning project that I will probably utilize most in my classroom is that students need the opportunity to have authentic audiences in order to create their best work. I believe that sometimes teachers and students get complacent in their roles. Students often learn what the teacher expects from their work and simply give it back to them when they turn in their work. It is important to allow students of any age the opportunity to create for an authentic audience. An authentic audience is an audience different form the usual consumers of a student’s work, the teachers and the student’s peers in the classroom. This would be very important to me.
The importance of authentic audiences has been well documented. One study states that authentic audiences are “audiences who will or can respond to what has been written, who can learn from what is written, and who have tangible opinions, knowledge, or interests,” (NCREI 2006). Authentic audiences do not necessarily mean that the students’ work is published. The same study by Engauge states, “it t is important to note that teachers and peers can serve as authentic audiences, as long as the writing is a genuine act of communication with these individuals. This condition serves a motivational function and it makes the feedback-revision process more effective,” (NCREI 2006). Everyone wants to feel like the products mean something to someone.
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Students believe that teachers have their opinions formed and that anything that they can contribute would simply be right or wrong. In fact studies have proven that “the better assignments asked students to write to an authentic audience in a genuine act of communication.” (Peterson 2005). The study found that “when the audience is not real and the communication not authentic, the writing is often weak.” (Peterson 2005). As an English teacher, it is important for me to be able to teach my students to communicate with feeling and heart. I majored in English for a reason. I believe that the most crucial element of a language arts classroom is to get the students in touch with what they feel passionate about. I don’t believe that many students have no passion about anything. I believe many times, no teachers have taken the time to find out what the student does feel passionate about.
As an English teacher, I will have plenty of opportunities to allow my students to express themselves creatively. While the majority of times, it may not be possible to share the students work with an audience outside the classroom. I will be able to share students’ work with a larger audience on occasion. I began to consider this form of expression when working with “Rose”. She seemed reluctant to share or create for the project. She kept asking who would be reading her stories. I tried to explain to her that it was going into a book for everyone to read. Knowing that her stories were going into a book, made her go back and try to polish them. She completely changed her attitude about how she presented her stories. She couldn’t wait to have other people read her
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stories. I want to see that kind of excitement in my students. I want to inspire my students to try and communicate with someone else. The function of a teacher is to inspire. That is what I learned from my service learning project.
When I was assigned this project, I never thought that I would look back and be so happy that I did this. This project is one of the most important things that I have done in order to prepare to be a teacher. This project taught me that it is vital to maintain a good relationship with the parents of my students. It also taught me that concern over end of grade testing is not going to change any time soon. It gave me just a little bit of practice dealing with these concerns. And finally, I believe that it gave me some insight and a way to help my students grow in their language arts skills. I know that I will use what I learned in this project in my classroom. Theory and history are great things to study when preparing to become a teacher, but nothing can compare with hands on experience. This project drove home that you cannot learn how to be a teacher through a class, hands on and being out there doing it is the only way to learn what works. I am very grateful that I had this opportunity to attempt some hands on training.
Works Cited
Engauge, “What Works—Enhancing the Process of Writing Through Technology: Integrating Research and Best Practice” http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/resource/techno/whatworks/sec2.htm Retrieved December 05, 2006.
NEA pamphlet ““Positive Agenda for the ESEA Reauthorization” 2006.
Peterson, Art. “NAEP/NWP Study Shows Link Between Assignments, Better Student Writing.” National Writing Project. 25 Mar 2005. Retrieved December 05, 2006.
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Daniel Nathan Sluder
Dr. William Peacock, Professor
Foundations of American Education
05 December, 2006
Final Paper: Appalachian Family Storytelling
When the semester began I was very tossed up about what I wanted to do for a service learning project. I went to the Act meeting in the Act office and none of the options really got me excited. In class we were told about the Appalachian Family Storytelling Project which initially sparked my interest due to the nature of the project. This project has impacted me deeply as a future history teacher. It has impacted me from my professional perspective as well as my individual perspective. By exploring how it has impacted me on a professional and individual level one can gain a better understanding of the far reaching effects of this project.
I was initially interested due to emphasis on Appalachian history and folklore. These are two genres that have always intrigued me and were the foundation of my decision to take part in this project. As a future history teacher I am always looking for ways to take history out of the textbook for the benefit of the learners in my classroom. I firmly believe that the underlying reason behind why students don’t (as a whole) enjoy history is because their teachers have never made the material relevant to them. John Dewey believed that the educational process has two components: psychological, and sociological. The Appalachian Family Storytelling Project addresses both psychological and sociological components in the learners and the learners’ families. Whether the students are participating in the program to benefit from the writing experience, or if the students are participating for the sociological/historical benefit, both components are relevant. According to Dewey, the psychological aspect is the foundation of the educational process. He states: “The Child’s own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting-point of all education.” In this project, the learner is given the opportunity to bring an artifact into the classroom and use it to tell a story. Artifacts are referred to in history as primary sources. From Dewey’s point of view this project uses the child’s instinct by allowing the child the opportunity to choose the artifact to bring to tell their story about. This is related to the child’s instinct because the child has the opportunity to use their own desires to facilitate learning. It is very hard for a student to learn when their desires are never included in the educational process. The process of students bringing in primary sources to tell a story is a strong building block for building writing and research skills. Primary sources can be letters, ship’s manifests, pictures, artwork, legal documents, etc. Basically they can be anything from the time in history they are being used to show evidence in. The process of students finding an artifact and bringing it in to write about it has impacted me professionally by showing me a way to connect historical content to the learners in my future classrooms. At first I was a bit skeptical about choosing to work with elementary learners as opposed to something closer to my actual target grade level. What I learned is that regardless of the age level of the students involved, learning is dependent on the individual learner’s perceived relevance to the subject matter being presented to them or by them. One thing that impacted me is that I learned that all learners have stories to tell that can be related in some way to teaching history in some way. One story Annsley wrote about was a doll she and her grandmother made out of acorns and toothpicks. At face value one could argue that this has no historical relevance whatsoever. One common theme throughout Appalachian history is that the people who have inhabited this region have had to deal with scarcity of some form or another. Resourcefulness came to be a common attribute among Appalachian families over the past 200 years. This resourcefulness is demonstrated in the grandmother’s idea to make a toy from acorns and toothpicks, and manifested in passing that ability to a younger generation. This demonstrates the potential educational value for this project and others that could be designed to parallel certain aspects of this project. This project is phenomenal because it makes history relevant to the learner, all while the student is learning how to formulate ideas into a story that can be read by others. This has the potential to improve: students’ writing and communication skills, understanding of family history, interest in family history and Appalachian culture as well.
Appalachian culture is fading with every passing generation. Technology in the 20th century has made the world a relatively smaller place. One of the foundations of the sociology of Appalachian culture is that it is centered on family and community. What makes Appalachian culture unique in America is that it is the oldest mountain culture in America. It isn’t all that different from culture in the Caucasus mountain region in Asia where familial and clan ties are the foundations of social existence but it is unique to the United States. I have seen a degeneration of the Appalachian culture just in my lifetime. I can remember going to my grandparent’s house when I was young and sitting around the living room and listening to my family tell stories late into the night about how they lived through The Great Depression, or how my grandfather’s uncle got killed hauling a load of moonshine from Asheville to Mountain City Tennessee during the prohibition years. None of these family stories are written down at this point. They are passed down from generation to generation in the form of oral history stories which is a cornerstone of Appalachian culture. One thing that I noticed about this region didn’t dawn on me until I left and joined the military and was taken from this environment and transplanted elsewhere. Citizens of Appalachia are often excellent storytellers. This is a skill that has passed down from generation to generation due to the geographic and social nature of the region. Urban culture is often centered around a communal gathering place such as a dance hall or pub. In Appalachia there weren’t a lot of these social gathering areas, the center of the social world was the living rooms, porches, and gossip fences. This fostered a tremendous oral history in this region. What the Appalachian Family Storytelling Project does is it copies down and preserves this marvelous oral tradition of this region. Circulation of the published material from this project can have an impact outside of this region as well. Hopefully this project will help preserve the Appalachian cultural heritage that is rapidly fading away.
What has caused the degeneration of Appalachian culture is the disconnect between the older generation and the younger generation. The Appalachian Family Storytelling Project is an excellent tool to bring the disconnect back together by reaching out to young and old alike and getting them interested in their family history. Most importantly, the stories are recorded and published so that they don’t vanish from the face of the Earth. We human beings are essentially social creatures. Every aspect of our lives has some form of social connotation, education is no different. Dewey states that “the school is primarily a social institution.” Bringing social implications back into our schools will help preserve these disappearing family histories. This has become far more important since the NCLB act has put education on a national standard. There isn’t much room to implicate regional or cultural history in the standard course of study during a 90 day semester.
What this project has ultimately done for me as a professional is that it has taught me how to bring the social implications back into the school and use it to teach history that is relevant to the learner. I will certainly be able to teach prohibition by telling about my grandfather’s uncle getting killed running from revenue agents with a trunk load of moonshine. I will be able to teach the reconstruction period by telling about the Roberts family property tax receipts and how they represent independent actions on behalf of southern landowners to keep detailed records of property holdings in the event that northern carpetbaggers tried to burn down the courthouse that housed all the property deeds. What is most fascinating about this is that there is no limitation to the potential of this method. I plan to try and incorporate certain aspects of this project into my teaching career. As I build a larger and larger repository of family histories I will have a larger pool to draw from that will bring history to life for my learners. These are just a couple of examples of ways this project has impacted my professional stance on ways to teach exciting history lessons that still meet the criteria of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study Curriculum.
This project has impacted me as an individual by reviving an interest in my own family history. It has awakened me to the reality that I am the caretaker of all my family history that has been passed down to me. I realize that if I don’t make an effort to preserve my own family history, I can’t expect others to follow suit. I have also been exposed to many different family histories during this project which has broadened my horizons and helped me appreciate the diversity of experience in this region. Such an experience has a profound influence on me because of the diversity of the students that were involved in the project. There were males, females, Caucasians, Hispanics, etc. that participated in the project displaying a variety of socioeconomic classifications. One thing that was present in all of these families was a desire for the success of their children. They were willing to come out and sacrifice an evening once a week to allow their children an opportunity to better themselves. I am sure the fourth grade writing test and the free meal helped motivate families to participate, but I believe that most parents want to see their children succeed in school so that they can have a brighter future. This meant a lot to me, not just on a professional basis, but also as an individual. When I used to think about Appalachian history my stereotypes involved only Americans of Scottish, Irish, or German descent that had been living in the region for generations. This project has showed me how that minorities have been and are starting to make up a sizeable percentage of the Appalachian community and their histories and stories are no less significant than the Anglo families that have resided here for generations. This project has not only taught me to preserve the history that we already possess, it has also taught me to welcome the history and stories of the newer generations that are reshaping Appalachia. There is so much negative hostility in this region directed at the influx of those who are deemed “outsiders” by those already residing here. Our society and culture can be further enriched by the presence of a more culturally diverse population in the future if we will open ourselves to their presence in the region. My family moved into the Appalachian region just outside of what is modern day Asheville in the years of the American Revolution. My family came from the black forest of Germany to America to make a better life for themselves. One of my ancestors on my mother’s side didn’t have enough money to pay for his passage to America from Germany. He worked as a cook on the ship that brought him to America to reduce the expense of the trip. We still have the dough tray that he used to mold the dough to make the bread during his voyage to America. The plot of land my family owns has been in our family since the American Revolution, but even back then my family were German and Scotch-Irish immigrants who migrated in looking for a better life. That is an often overlooked aspect of Appalachian history that I believe is a cornerstone of our cultural history. In retrospect our cultural heritage is not that much different from immigrants moving into this region to make a better life for them and their families today. The potential for a better life has always drawn people to America and this region. This concept is one that I hope to instill in my future learners when I become a history teacher. It doesn’t matter the color of your skin or the language that you speak, all of us came to this area somewhere down the line looking for some way of bettering a previous condition. I must confess prior to this project I viewed the influx of immigrants and other “outsiders” as a force that was taking away our culture. What this project has helped me to realize is that these people coming into this region are coming here for the same reasons my family came here over 200 years ago. This project, I believe, has helped other families in the community to realize this and hopefully appreciate the cultural diversity that is reshaping the Appalachian region while fostering a greater sense of community among all its residents.
In closing, I had no idea when I signed up for this project what an impact it would have on my professional and individual future. The project has given me countless ideas of ways I can bring history alive in my future classrooms. Students so often seemed so disconnected from history that few ever find a passion for it in their lives. I hope that I will be able to inspire my learners in the future to pursue careers or hobbies that have some form of historical implications. By exploring how the project has impacted me on a professional and individual level I have gained a better understanding of the far reaching effects of this project and the potential for its implications in my future classrooms. It never ceases to amaze me how that a project so strongly rooted in history can have such profound future implications.
Works Cited
John Dewey. My Pedagogic Creed. In The Institution of Education: 4th Edition, edited by Svi Shapiro, Susan Harden, Anna Pennell. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003, 243-249.
Isaenko, Anatoly. Lecture on the Caucasus Mountain Region’s Societal Structure. Appalachian State University. November 8th, 2006.
Roberts, Annsley, Todd Roberts. Interview Regarding Tax Receipts Dated in the Late 1860s. Westwood Elementary School. October 24th, 2006.
John Dewey. My Pedagogic Creed in The Institution of Education: 4th Edition, ed. Svi Shapiro, Susan Harden, Anna Pennell (Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2003), 243.
John Dewey. My Pedagogic Creed. 243.
Anatoly Isaenko. Lecture on the Caucasus Mountain Region’s Societal Structure. Appalachian State University. 8 November, 2006.
John Dewey. My Pedagogic Creed. 244.
Annsley Roberts, Todd Roberts. Interview Regarding Tax Receipts Dated in the Late 1860s. Westwood Elementary School. October 24, 2006.
