Foxfire 5 (Foxfire )

515 Pages·1979·24.27 MB·English

by  Foxfire Fund Eliot Wigginton

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Doubleday and Company, - I n e .-
$01 F r a n k l i n ~ v e n u e
'Garden C i t y , \ N Y 11530
USA

'Garden C i b

of t h e o r i g i n a l document.,

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se?ies of.retord ilkums of traditiorial. ?ins-;
and a fumituie-nrtikicg
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husi-
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ness. Eliot \vigginipn is also the e&or of I 'Wish I CodfrGi~ie My S% p,

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This I~ool, is dedicated,to those teachers who,

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j r i hundl.i& of hiffkl'ellt ways,
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haye iide*their communities hnd ;heir classr6onis'on~.
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t is late at night. Ronnie, one of,

~ o u t h f r n C:rescer~t rolling
tiain brfore. and he's
self doing all this again for the first time.

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Lost in the

wat~hed

oise and steam and metal and<houtins men.
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He's in the top hunk now, so8nd,aslrep. The last thing he sacd to me was,

"IVake me up at every single station." Yes. That's just the way it was for
me once. Ho\v could I have forgotten?

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I have never heen more conscioi~s of the fact that teaching is Ixst as a

t~vo-\ray proposition. IVe teach; and at the same time allow ourselves to be
taught hy those \se teach. We talk, and at-the same time, listen.,M'e experi-
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encc the world ane\v through another's eves. .And therein lies a part of the

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secret of renewal. It comb, in part, from allowing ourselves to accept from
our students some of t k s a m e positive energy we try to put into their lives.
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\Ve rcfuel each other.
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Even more important is the 'fact that opening ourselves to our students
has a vital I,?-product. The better we know our student$ and their environ-
n~ents and the p'rersures undgr which they operate outside the school walls,
and the more completelv we understand the ways the); react to real situa-
tions in the real world, the better al~lc 1st are to select appropriate vehicles
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and experience for- rneetirl~ their cdilcation;rI needs.

xct rr.i,h;iryed, and simultaneously we lalot new teaching strategies,

;ind ;fi \v(. \ v ; ~ t i h t h r n ~ rc.:ic.t to thosr stl-atrgirs that wosk, we get recharged
arain. l\.rr!thiri,q conies full circle.

I;os/,i?r. iiia~azine, thi contents of which make up these l)ooks, lIega;l as
one of 'those strategies. Since Iiry job iii the:local high school was to tehch
ni~irh and telith g~'&ers how toywrite, a literary nlagazine seemed an
appiopriiite actii:ity. Bqt it was only aftei. one of m> ninth grade~s took nie
to the head of \\'olfoik \'alley one weekend 2nd taught me how to fi~ld
gillsr~ig tll;ir clic idca for nixking the colrtents of the niagazi~~e
cultur;~l in-

ste;id of 1itcr;ii.y \v;~s esti~l~lished.
Since' the11,"I have watched st.udeirt who
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h a d never \viit~en poetry and short stories with any ent1lusiasin work for
,monrhsoii articles that were rooted i ~ i
their own environnlent a~id,culture-

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.I' eb that aprnied ;.ather than coirdcnlneii that backgrou;id and pro-
vided < 1y:-
ahis -- iron1 which 1aiid-tge stud?rits could analyze it in light of the

natioi1:rl pop cultu~.e \\;it11 which the? were constalitly Iiontharded. Had I
'not goile yii~~t-ilg
huriti~ig with that stddent, the Fosfiie slory nlight well be
a
different one.
Over the yea[-s, our organization expanded its staff and scope to i~lclude

.offerings within the local high school, that illcorporated, 11ut went far be-e
. yond tlle hard skills of la11,uu;~ge arts: e~rviron~,lental
3tudies, folklore, il-adi-

tionill riiusii and record produrtion, photography, and videotape and televi--
sion. -411 air appropriate vehicles for passing on a myriad-of basic kki~rls,'ill
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are appropriate .vehiclesfor~~helpi~rg--stude~lts
see therrlselves iri relation to
their o\vn culture and to the outside world, and xll .are appropriate,vehicles
through \\hlch the\ tan y c e e d and l~econle self-confident and absured of
their self-\\-or-rh. -411 elid result, of course, is that my staff and 1 have corrle
to kno~c the ,students even .better as iiidividuals for we have had to work
clo~elv with then1 in 1~1th of their worlds: thc pul~lic school world through
which they recei4e acadeiriic credit, and the oubide worid that provides the
raw data for their projects. It is difficult for a student to poduce a rnaga-
xilie article about some piece of culture, or a record all~urn that features a
local iilusicia~i, or,a caGk television show a\)out sonle aspect of the comnlul
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or nil errviron1i~ei~tal-ski11s
haiidt,ook for pother .studints without

knockingdo\vn the classroom walls and eliterir~~
into a verv different rela-
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tionshlp ~vith that outside world-and
yith the teacher who is assisting him.
It js in~pofsible to l,e involved iri education of this sort for any length of
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time and 11ot l,e rogllizant of the larger, overarching goal of education itself
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--a
uoal that gom far bevorld the creation of a set of I>oo!<s and a series of

recoiy albun~j. Though. bur approaches 111ay differ, here our rnission as
teachcrs is rlear. It is. quite simpl!., to 1i.elp our students master the inforrna-
tion the! rnust ha\.e to l ~ e
aljle to take their destinies into their own hands.

Stlid ;iliother \%a?, it is to help our std$eiits corrie as close as is humanly pos-
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to lia\irl control over their ow;) futures. 1'0 start our students toward

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INTR nr-c'rronr
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a lifestyle that lriatches their espeqtations. 'Yo move the111 toward the
of independence that ire\-ents their hein,? cternallv dependent on'athkri. T o
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si\.e rllirn tools for thk long.fight; and at. the sanlE time give ,\hem the
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human se~isiii\-it: they must have if the\; are to he part of the solutio~l in-
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stead of part of the prol'~lem.
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There's a ,yoad word for it:, empdwerment.
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It's a tall order. hut.+ll of i s who wdrk with young peoplehave'a man- :

date to he al,out that $~sinesq. It is \vh\, .
, wkteich. Foothill coaches do not

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work with students daf after day o ~ l y
so that kids can master the specifics ~/ i
of the game of football. For the l~est of coaches, there is a larger goal: the,'

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pemonal rewards hat Fccrue t g their students, from teamwork, self-dij
cipline. and good health. History teachers do not work with students ,ill

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year onl\ ,to hclp thcm memorize dates and events. For thr best of thkm,
there i~ a larger goal: perspective. An understanding of the way h~pinan

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heinp interact upon the glohe, why they do"the.things they do a n d with

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\chat consequences, andho,< each of us-rach
in his own wac-is
part of
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he historical process. English teachers do not work with students,hll yea;
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only to help fhem memorize a poem or two, some rules of grambar, and
some common themes in literature. For the hest of them, there is a larger
goal : a ~ensitivit! to the voices within ourrelves, and, by extension, a s<nsi-

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to the \~hole of the human condition.

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r must evaluate. Il'e ask the eternal questions that haunt all
teachers and all adults who work closel'v with .kids: "How
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"Has anytmng we dih togethkr made a difference in their
o the'answers we'find tell "s ahout -our future thrusts and

I know that at our public school, through Foxfire, and in concert with
. tht other teachem and administrators there, 'we have done part of our job . ',

well. -4 skeptical journalist visited 0"s project recently and spent several
hours ta_lkin- with t~io-of our former stqdents, soon to be college graduates.'
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I left her alone with them, and wheg she was Finished, she and I had supper
together, and she told me that it had taken her thirty-five years to acqaire
the self-confidence, sensitivity, and cultural and human awareness that
those two students already had at the age of twenty-one.
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But those t\vo students, and hundreds like them, are also proof of the fact
that we have not vet come full circle, and that our project and our school
and our con~munitc
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one of our- :.reatest prol~lerns. 'I'hose two students want to return to our'
coirnt:to
l k r and \york. 'I'he prohal)ilityis that neither will.

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INTRODUCTION

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I N IKUUUGI IUN
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. For looniini I~ehiiid all this. like the $ackdrop for 'a tragedy, and compli-
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ca.~ing our task itnnlensely-perhaps.
inpossil)ly--is the larger reality of Ap-

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palqchi;~ iisclf. ~ .
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111 the set.orid quart,tr of the nirtejeenth ce~ltu~).,
the Cherokee Indians

were .senloved from our .part of the k~ou~itairisunder
orders frorn Andrew ?

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~ a c k s o ~ l .
\\'bite settlerx moved in, ajquired lirid .bv ,. lottery, and atallishe>

'tiny, esse~ltialiy self-sufficie~it comnjui$tirs that wel'e largely Scotch-Irish,
English, and^ German. ~radualli,, a -distiq'ctive ..ippalachian
cultuie

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evolved. Of special significruice is ihe fact ;hat, once es~al~lished,
these set-
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achieved a measure of secul-ity from jiriowirtg thatLthough coni-
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munalk iwterdepe~~dent-as a group-they 'had contrd ovc5 their futures. .
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had larld,'the) had the iug&iuit, and the pride that cdnles' from self-
reliance, and thrv had eaoh other. With the exception of natural catas-
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tcophe, they felt,-l,a$cally secure. ..i certaiii amount of effort provided a
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ineasurahle arnou~'?t of gain. Predictal~le 1.&11ts werc the reward of ineasur-
al~ie erler~y expenqed. Things ~llade ,sense, life had a pattern, aud the cul- .
ture ev&ed accordin~ly:
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. This
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sensr' of cGtrol bega11 .to
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rimst noticealdy with the various

goFernrnent pl-ogrenrs that follow&d the~Depressidr1, and with the arriva&of
industries that were owned Ijy large, non-lbcal corporations. The ~latural re-
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.our-ce; arid the ndh-union lal~or ;~vailable in the mout~tains worked to the

.,,. ad<arltage of tnan! of the industries but, to the ultirnate disadvantdge' of the

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:lppalachi';t~~ people, &hi, lost cbntrbl of those resources: who brovided
labor, but could not share in the own'e~shi~,
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~ leadership, cont~ol, or dpbfits of
those ifidusiriea f6C their cd~~rctive
Ixnefit. The steady cotlversio~ tdla +h :

econoh) in the moui~tains made many, fa~nilies financi;;lly dependjent on

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'* the jol~s offered by those factories arid assured them a continued wdlcome.
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.-Td\vns ire\< and 11ecame.filled with stores that depended on casli from '

paychecks for theirlsun,ival; schools and hospitals were 1)uilt a~id\roads
were paved, ;nd
these services, which people carne to depend on in\turn,
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depctlded themselves o0n 'cash for their sumival. Local I,usiness leaders kame
to wonder ho~; they had ever sumive'd at all ,+&&out those indus.tr%8,';,jhus;<

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giving the corporations that owned them the final measure of conpol: ""Un-
ionizd this plant; and we'll shut\,it down." And they, weren't kidding. bud-
denly, he esecutive; of the industries, most of whor% were from outsid$ the
region, Ixca~nc the new d e facto'powers in their respective towns, And 4ith
a 11otal)le few exceptions, the career ;tlternatiyes availal)le to most Kigh
school xraduate~ centered around the family f a ~ m , some service occupa-
tions, and thc closest availal~le factory. Choose from those, or nrove on.

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Gra~ltrd. Yomc \:cnt
on to collcsr qnd returned .i4 Ifofessi;,ii;lls (teachel-s.
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doctot-.. 'tc.!. 1,111 most c61nmunitici: could
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of t11e.w

f i ~ i n l l
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so most who left the 1-cgio~11
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1'01- ;i tinic. all that was

,\-ere jienerally low. taxcs \\-err lo\\-;
quisitioll hnd I
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nlodrt.

\.idcrl, ;und tl~c i;illril! 1161llc on
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cion of-&if not \\-ell-heins---at least comfo~-t :$cl
r/.l;rti\.c s'ccitl-ity. It wor;ld

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-Duriny: the )c.a~-s whin