authentic fakelore- David Meyerson

I recall my first year as a teacher (6th grade in an elementary school) where I taught social studies to three different classes.  I was excited because I love the subject and really wanted the kids to critically think about the world we live in and how it got that way.  Most exciting was the country report, an assignment that elementary classes the world over have been doing for years.  Usually, the country project focuses on the "five Fs" of social studies-  Festival, Food, Famous People, Flags, Fashion and Famous People.  These all look good on a poster board as long as you include a wide variety of colors and fonts.  However, none of these, taken individually, necessitate critical thinking.  One can merely present and delight classmates with color, taste and maybe even a catchy costume.  I wanted my students to seek out the unique qualities, but also look for the commonalities between their country and others. I asked them to include vital statistics common to all nations and reasons why they came to be that way.   I needed them to assess the impact of that country's choices on the world stage.  This helped go a bit deeper than usual, but it was also met by predictable resistance.  To them, social studies was studying names and dates and little more.  They were growing in a landscape that made it okay to believe that we lived one way (correctly), and the rest of the world lived their way (incorrectly). 

I look at folklore's tensions in the same way.  Camp and Lloyd are pessimistic about the opportunities that folklife festivals give its participants in the same way I don't think our schools do a good job of teaching how to think and question.  Because of our education system's set-up, there is no time to go in depth.  One is always looking to the end-point, not honoring a process of inquiry.  Camp and Lloyd suggest that the success of festivals can be measured by how much they inspire audiences to seek out authentic experiences when the festival is over.  I agree about the limitations of the festival, but I'm not sure that their goal is realistic.  If our elementary students are any indication, there will always be opportunity to become more versed in a particular culture in order to demonstrate project (research, reading, thinking) proficiency.  Asking our students and our festival audiences to do more, to widen the scope of their study is to deny how our schools operate and also to deny how multifaceted even our smallest communities can be.  I'm not sure why Camp and Lloyd are looking for more than what we already have.  Folklife festivals have an important place, if only to remind us to get outside ourselves.  When we see multiple "performances" at these festivals, we are reminded that the world is wider than our personal view.  That does not mean that it's wrong for people to focus on their own minutiae of detail.  Nor does it mean that we can't continually strive to better our understand of cultures and deepen our awareness of the world, past, present and future.  If Camp and Lloyd are calling for festival organizers and audiences to be reflective and reflexive, I'm with them.  I just want to keep them grounded.