Is it Time to Put Folk Songs to Bed?

I’ve been struggling with something for a while now. My heart knows what my head doesn’t quite want to admit: folk songs, while an integral and respected part of American history, aren’t relevant and engaging to today’s youth. (It feels like blasphemy just to type these words.)

Everything I was taught as a young music teacher revolved around the singing of songs that were popular in the early 1900’s. Countless hours were spent learning singing games and dances that entertained young and old alike in the time before electronics, television, computers, and mobile devices.

I remember dutifully arranging “Wee Willie Winkie” on barred instruments for my students shortly after I completed my levels of Orff training:

 

“Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town

upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown.

Rapping at the windows, crying through the lock

‘Are the children in their beds, for it’s eight o’clock?'”

 

I worked hard on that arrangement to apply everything I had learned in my classes. My first clue that the material was dated was having to explain to my students that Mr. Winkie was not a rapper and he wasn’t sad.

 

 

Much of the professional development in Elementary Music Education centers around the use of popular music that was popular more than 60 years ago. The concepts are timeless, but the source materials are badly in need of an update. Basically, we do what we do because it’s what we have always done and it’s the way we were taught.

 

If we  want to truly engage the kids of today, we need to reach them where they are – with modern popular music from the Rock ‘n Roll era onward.

 

It’s scary and exhilarating at the same time to cast aside a large portion of one’s training and resources yet I know that it’s the right thing for me to do.  It is for this reason that I started this blog.

I greatly respect teachers who routinely and effectively use folk songs and dances in their curriculum. It’s just not for me anymore.

I am on a journey of re-inventing for myself what it means to be a general music teacher at the elementary level in the 21st Century.

Agree? Disagree? Are you on the same journey? Leave a comment and let me know.

Thanks!