Old Songs New Opportunities

Erie is home to a unique project that brings more music and culture into local daycares. The Old Songs New Opportunities project is a partnership led by the Erie Art Museum with the Better Kid Care Program of the Penn State Co-op Extension Office, the Hispanic American Council of Erie, (a local refugee resettlement agency) and three daycares: Early Connections, Inc., St. Martinís Early Learning Center, and the YMCA Downtown Daycare. The goal is to address financial and cultural needs: Erie's Hispanic and refugee women are culturally rich, but economically poor. They need training and employment opportunities. Their rich folk culture can be an anchor for these women as they grapple with the challenges of a new life in a new country. It can also be a treasure for our community. While most Americans have lost the ability to sing with and to our children, immigrants from traditional cultures instinctively use song to bond with and educate their children. Our city's daycare centers are seeking qualified employees and they also are constantly looking for quality multicultural programming.

In the Spring of 2004, thanks to grants from the Erie Community Foundation and the Arts Council of Erie, nine African women took part in an 11-week program during which they received 30 hours of child development training and 90 hours of internship in local daycares. The class focused on basic child development theory, discipline and alternatives, the role of the childcare worker, and how art, music, and movement aid physical and mental development. Erie Art Museum Folklorist and music educator, Kelly Armor, worked with the women to explore ways to use their indigenous songs in an American daycare classroom, usually creating singable English translations of their songs. The project was a resounding success. Seven of the nine women were offered employment and now six of them are working full time. The project received additional funding to run another course which ended in 2005, training an additional 13 women: four Sudanese, one Puerto Rican, two Iraqis, four Ukrainians, and one Russian. Despite their cultural differences, the women took on the challenge of learning each otherís songs. They remarked with great humor and irony that although they once complained singing in English was hard, it now seems easy compared to singing in Arabic (if they were Ukrainian) or in Russian (if they were African.) Again, the daycares that hosted the interns were enthusiastic about the women's presence. The staff and children loved the range and vitality of the many new songs the women taught them. Nine of these women have been hired to work at local daycares.

This project is gratifying on so many levels. All the participating women remarked that up until this project, they had virtually stopped singing their native songs. They were living American lives where, due to school and work schedules, televisions and video games; they had very little direct contact with their children. They also made several poignant and heartfelt comments to our child development trainer that the classes had immediately improved the peace of their own households. These women were entirely capable of raising children in their native countries, but felt at a loss to parent their increasingly Americanized offspring. Their experience of childhood was to be respectful and quiet around adults and not to question authority. American children, in contrast, are allowed to be strong willed, ask bold questions, and complain. The training gave the women concrete skills to redirect their own children, and to see their behavior not as bad, but different and typical of the American way children become self-reliant and discover their own identity.

The songs are truly a treasure to anyone who works with young children. There is a reason that they have been passed down generation after generation. They are catchy, encourage physical coordination, strengthen improvisation skills, teach co-operation, and bring real celebration and joy to any classroom.

It is wonderful to see these immigrant women valued as a resource, and that properly leveraging their indigenous knowledge has turned them into marketable employees. Those working in daycares have blossomed. They have more confidence, and clearly love their jobs. One daycare supervisor who hired several refugee women was effusive about what they brought to her center. She was humbled by their gratitude and constantly amazed at how much patience they had with the children. She related that one worker discovered that a particular traditional lullaby was the only thing that would calm a crack baby. She sang that song for four hours straight, something that an American would never have had the stamina for.

Kelly Armor has been able to organize small groups of women to present about their songs and culture for pay at daycares, schools, and civic organizations. These refugee women have now presented to their American colleagues how to use traditional songs authentically in their classrooms. Word is getting out to other daycare supervisors know that a truly diverse and musical labor pool exists. Plans have been made to run another 11-week program and to make a professional CD and booklet of their childrenís songs and rhymes .

Putting traditional songs to work has put women to work, and the benefit ripples out to touch American daycare workers and the daycare children. Music makes for strong cultures, strong education, and strong economic growth!

There are CDs and booklets of the women singing their traditional songs in their natives tongues and in English. To purchase CDs and booklets go to (ADD LINK TO GIFT SHOP) For more information about the Old Songs/New Opportunities Project contact Kelly Armor at the Erie Art Museum, 814-459-5477