Folk & Blues in the Schools teams you with an acoustic musician for a 3-day in-class residency using live music to explore part of your curriculum. While most students love contemporary music, they have not thought about how much history is contained in the old songs. You will even see that some of your less successful students will become more engaged with what you are teaching by doing the hands-on activities of this residency. By working with a veteran musician for three full class periods, your class will have the opportunity to explore the folk tradition with someone who has helped shape it. They will also learn that they can take part in the process and that songs are living expressions of everyday people, not just unblemished products of media stars.

The program will introduce songs from any era that you are teaching and involve students in things like songwriting, singing, playing music, dancing, oral history and other hands-on activities; whatever you and the musician feel will work best with your kids. There is a week between each session for students to do a homework assignment and connect what they learn with the curriculum. It is a great teaching opportunity in which you and the musician work together to make doing history a community project.