Students Share World Music

Thanks to a generous grant from the Schuster Fund of Gannon University, students from refugee families participated in a song collection project with museum folk art coordinator Kelly Armor. Kelly worked with English as a Second Language classrooms at Diehl and Perry Elementary Schools where she introduced students to American folk music. She brought in a guest Appalachian fiddler and taught them several American folk songs. Then students were encouraged to teach the class a folk song they learned from their own families. The class translated all the songs and rhymes they collected into singable English. All the songs were recorded and notated and each child received a CD and song booklet.

"This was an exciting project in so many ways," states Kelly Armor. "The children felt so proud to share songs they inherited from their parents and we were all fascinated with learning songs from their classmates’ cultures. It was an honor to work with these kids as they struggled with creating good English translations. They mostly chose to retain the original rhythm and spirit of a song instead of going with a strict literal translation. The results were wonderful; they have created an authentic world music repertoire of children’s songs suitable for any American classroom."

The songs reflected all the ethnic groups in the classroom including Bosnia, Russia, Ukraine, Sudan, Eritrea, Iraq and Puerto Rico.

Contact Museum Folk Art Coordinator, Kelly Armor for more information.