Local Learning: Louisiana Voices Institute

Teachers at the Louisiana Local Learning Institute prepare for an interview with a local businessman.

The Louisiana Voices Institute, held in June 2000, brought together teachers from across Louisiana to explore ways of using sense of place in education. Sense of place is a term used to describe the "setting of the experiences that matter to us most and makes us human." (Umphrey 2002) The institute gave teachers first-hand opportunities to develop research skills for exploring places and community traditions contained in them. The research skills they developed included: interviewing, ethnographic observations, photographic documentation, "reading" photographs and landscapes, guided visualizations for drawing on memories, and mapping exercises. During the second half of the week-long institute, teachers worked with Local Learning faculty to transform their experiences into classroom lessons, research, and activities that yielded meaningful material for students. Faculty members Paddy Bowman and Maida Owens focused on sense of place exercises for the study of Louisiana folklore and culture, faculty member Elizabeth Simons focused on sense of place and writing, and faculty member George Zavala focused on visual arts as a vehicle for exploring sense of place.

We have prepared highlights from three institute presentations:

  • Family Photos Writing Exercise

  • Visualization and Sense of Place Exercise

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  • Poetry and Sense of Place Exercise

    • Participating teachers worked with both a Louisiana-based faculty and the core Local Learning faculty which was comprised of artists and folklorists from around the U.S. Both faculty teams had experience using sense of place as an educational tool. For information on Paddy Bowman and Maida Owens' exercises, see the Louisiana Voices Educator's Guide [http://www.louisianavoices.org].


    Local Learning Project—Background

    In 1999, City Lore received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct a three-year national education initiative called Local Learning. Local Learning is designed to support educators in their efforts to integrate vernacular culture into K-12 student learning. City Lore, the National Network for Folk Arts in Education staff, and local partners Utah State University, University of Toledo, Iowa Arts Council, and Louisiana Division of the Arts conducted four pilot institutes during the summers of 2000 and 2001. We have compiled highlights from our Summer 2000 institute in Louisiana, Louisiana Voices, to give you a taste of institute offerings.

    Our next institute will be held in New York City during the fall of 2002. If you are interested in hosting an institute in your community or in bringing in one of City Lore's consultants to work with you on a local learning theme, please contact carts@citylore.org.