In these times of political
and economic uncertainty, it’s easy to imagine that the problems
of the world are far too large for us to make any kind of an impact…especially
when, as many of us have probably experienced in recent months, the
loudest of protests go unheard. And when arts and education budgets
are being slashed across the country, and at all levels (from federal
to local, elementary to higher education), it’s hard to know where
the resources to continue even the most modest of programs will come
from.
I’ve been reminded recently, however, of how germane folklore,
and particularly folklore and education, can be in these times, on many
levels. I’ve recently been re-reading folklorist Elissa R. Henken’s
fine book—co-authored with her sister, Mariamne H. Whatley, a
biologist—titled “Did You Hear About the Girl Who…?”:
Contemporary Legends, Folklore and Human Sexuality. In this work,
nominated for last year’s Dorothy Howard prize, the authors contend
that no sex-education program can be truly effective without addressing
the wealth of folklore and particularly folk belief that constructs
adolescents’ knowledge about sexuality.
The authors don’t set out to debunk the “untruths”
that adolescents share with each other about sexuality, pregnancy, STDs,
and so forth, but rather argue that educators need to understand why
adolescents believe these things, and recognize that they are often
more powerful “lessons” about sexuality for students than
the ones received in the classroom. By embracing and discussing these
beliefs and stories in the classroom, students’ “folk knowledge”
about sexuality can be explored and deconstructed openly, in conjunction
with more formal information. The book is a potent reminder of how ideas
we might otherwise dismiss can instead serve to open up a whole new
level of understanding.
I rediscovered this same lesson while watching Michael Moore’s
documentary Bowling for Columbine. Living in Colorado and teaching
at a university where the majority of students come from metro Denver,
I was astonished that when the documentary was recently shown through
our campus film series, every screening was sold out. I fully expected
that people in Colorado—particularly students who would have been
in high school themselves during and just after the shootings—would
steer clear of something that might hit a little too close to home,
literally.
The events at Columbine, though, are only the inspiration for Moore’s
much larger exploration of what he terms the “culture of fear”
in the U. S., largely created and exploited by the news media. At one
point, Moore talks about the contrast between the impression of random
violence created by the news media and reality, noting, for example,
that while the murder rate has dramatically declined nationwide in the
last several years, the rate of reporting of murders on local news programming
is up by something like 600%. In the course of this analysis, Moore
trots out that chestnut of folklore research, carried out by Bill Ellis,
among others, which showed that the panic about drugs and razor blades
in Halloween candy was largely unfounded: in every reported instance
of such tampering, the tampering was done by a parent or other relative
of the child, not a stranger (see Ellis’ essay "'Safe' Spooks:
New Halloween Traditions in Response to Sadism Legends" in Jack
Santino’s Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life).
I was reminded, at that moment, of just how powerful teaching folklore
can be. In my own introduction to folklore classes, we almost always
discuss contemporary legends at some point in the semester, and I like
to point out to students how the nature of such stories has been changing:
whereas the villain in older stories was generally identifiable as a
deviant, and most often was eventually caught and punished, many legends
these days feature unknown and unknowable deviants, who strike at hapless
victims who did nothing more to invite assault than to stick their hand
in a coin-return slot, sit down in a movie theatre, or pick up a gas
pump, as several versions of a recent legend about HIV-infected needles
planted in unexpected places have it. The violence in these stories
is truly random—unwarned of, undeserved, unstoppable, and unpunished.
Doesn’t this exactly mirror the culture of fear Moore describes,
and which not only the media but at times our own leaders exploit with
generic terrorism warnings, “orange alerts,” and advice
to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape?
Folk belief is powerful, and in our classrooms (and our arts programming
and elsewhere), we have the expertise to help students of all ages discover
what their beliefs are, and begin to understand why and how they are
constructed. I’m certainly not suggesting that we try to “debunk”
or undo students’ beliefs, any more than Henken and Whatley wish
to, but I do believe that in articulating and interrogating those beliefs,
students can come to understand how, in their own storytelling and listening,
they participate in that “culture of fear.” Discussing these
fearful legends can perhaps give students tools for recognizing and
resisting unfounded fears, and for understanding the potent folk beliefs
underlying those fears. Such a process has the potential to be tremendously
enlightening and liberating…and at the manageable cost of a few
hours’ time spent in discussion, with the only required resources
being a sensitive, challenging teacher and willing, thoughtful students.