Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

FOLKLORE AND EDUCATION
Children’s folklore educates young people in important ways. The pioneer-
ing American folklorist Dorothy Howard learned about children’s folklore in the 
1930s while teaching at a New York public school. She observed that her immi-
grant students were “learning English from each other on the playground faster 
than from their text books and from [her] in the classroom.” This realization 
resulted in collections of American and Australian children’s folklore that have 
inspired later fieldworkers to make similar efforts. For more details on Howard’s 
work, see chapters 4 and 5.
According to Richard Bauman, “the most significant potential contribution 
that the close study of children’s folklore can make is in revealing the truly im-
pressive range of linguistic and sociolinguistic competencies that is fostered by 
the children’s own peer group culture” (184). Besides linguistic skills, many other 

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12 Children’s 
Folklore
kinds of expertise grow through children’s interaction. The childhood under-
ground functions so efficiently that adults may not know much about their 
children’s traditions, especially those with subversive content. Mary and Herbert 
Knapp aptly chose the title of their 1976 classic 
One Potato, Two Potato: Th
 e 
 Secret Education of American Children.
Collecting and sharing the products of 
this “secret education” helps adults understand how much children learn from 
each other.
Children’s folklore has enriched public folklore: programs that represent the 
depth and diversity of folk tradition. Richard Bauman foresaw this development 
in 1982 when he wrote that “children’s folklore, representing what might aptly be 
called the indigenous art forms of childhood, unquestionably valued and enjoyed 
by the children themselves, might constitute a significant resource in the devel-
opment of culturally responsive, locally relevant arts programs in the schools, 
together with—perhaps as an antecedent point of departure for—the general run 
of arts curricula that are oriented more to the fine art forms of western culture” 
(184). Public folklorists have used children’s traditions as sources for programs at 
schools and festivals. The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress 
offers on its Web site a “Teacher’s Guide to Folklife Resources” that lists books 
on children’s folklore. Educators with an interest in children’s songs can visit the 
Library of Congress’s Web site “See, Hear, and Sing Children’s Songs,” which 
includes audio clips, song lyrics, and photographs of children singing. Other Web 
sites of educational value are listed in the “Web Resources” section of this book.
In schools, presentations of children’s songs, games, and other traditions have 
combined education with entertainment. Folklorist Kelly Armor, for example, 
has collected songs of inner-city children in Erie, Pennsylvania, producing the 
CD 
Folk Songs of Champions.
Folksinger and educator Dave Ruch has used such 
resources to teach songs to many groups of children. This kind of educational 
performance replicates, to some extent, traditional instruction in singing. Since 
relatively large groups of children learn the songs, the likelihood of the songs’ 
continuance in folk tradition increases.
Some children’s folklore demonstrations have reminded children and teachers 
how much young people have in common with each other. Simon Lichman’s 
essay “From Hopscotch to 
Siji:
Generations at Play in a Cross-Cultural Setting” 
(2001) describes a folklore project in Israel that “addresses a number of issues that 
face many societies today: cultural and religious pluralism; transmission of home 
culture between generations; and coexistence between neighbouring but differ-
ent communities” (152). Facilitators of this project, titled “Traditional Creativity 
through the Schools,” teach Jewish and Arab children about each others’ traditions, 
as well as the traditions of their own families. Over a two- or three-year period, 
children form positive relationships with other participants in the program. Dur-
ing the first year, children interview their own parents and grandparents to find 

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Introduction 13
out which games they played when they were young. With these games in mind, 
the children help to design a joint activity day for both Jewish and Arab children, 
which may include such games as Hopscotch, Chinese Jump Rope, Marbles, and 
Football. Older adults also participate in the joint activities. In small groups that 
include children of both Jewish and Arab heritage, appreciation of each others’ 
traditions grows. Lichman explains that “the playground becomes a symbol of a 
world in which different cultures and generations can be together in a dynamic 
atmosphere of creativity, mutual interest and national coexistence” (165). 
National, regional, and local folk festivals have featured children’s folklore. 
The Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., has in-
cluded memorable exhibitions, such as a Double Dutch jump-rope performance 
in 1988 and a Stickball and Stoopball game demonstration in 2001. During the 
Stickball and Stoopball game exhibition, presenters combined instruction with 
Girl plays in a box on a New York City street in the late 
1970s. Photograph by Martha Cooper.

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14 Children’s 
Folklore
“constant narration and neighborhood stories” (Cohen-Stratyner 36). Festivals 
for local and regional audiences have also included demonstrations of children’s 
game traditions. At the annual Battle of Plattsburgh Celebration in New York, 
for example, presenters have commemorated the 1814 battle by teaching chil-
dren games of the early 1800s: hoop races, potato races, Rock Tag, Shadow Tag, 
Beanbag Toss, Horseshoes, and Gee-haw Whammy-diddle, among others. Chil-
dren in the Plattsburgh area have enthusiastically learned to play these “old-time 
games,” and some children have volunteered to help with subsequent celebra-
tions (Ransom 29–35).
Evidence of children’s folklore’s impact on education also appears on Internet 
blogs (record-keeping Web sites). In 2006, Julia Alvarez, novelist and honorary 
chairman of the DREAM Project sponsored by the University of Illinois Labo-
ratory High School, posted a handclapping rhyme on the organization’s Web 
site. Having heard two six-year-old girls clapping and singing this rhyme in the 
mountains of the Dominican Republic, Alvarez realized that the girls needed bet-
ter education. The rhyme follows:
Mariquita, Mariquita Mariquita, you abuser, The man I like, I’ll steal him from his wife. 
I’ll steal him, I’ll steal him, I’ll steal him, that’s the truth, and then she’ll have to be my 
servant and my cook. I was born at one o’clock, at two they baptized me, at three I learned 
of love, at four they married me, at five I had a child, by six that child was dead, we buried 
him at seven, I got divorced at eight, at nine I had cancer, the operation was at ten, at 
eleven final prayers, at twelve o’clock, the end. When my husband gets home I don’t know 
what I’ll say, you better take your shoes off and wash off your dirty smell.
Thinking about the limited opportunities for women that this rhyme reflected, 
Alvarez helped to found a school at Alta Gracia, a sustainable farm. The story of 
this realization, including the rhyme’s text, has inspired high school students and 
adult staff members of the DREAM Project, who spend their summers volun-
teering and learning in the Dominican Republic.
Besides motivating adults to work with children, young people’s traditions 
have provided a pattern for corporate executives’ training. Among the “low ropes” 
(team-building) exercises included in executives’ retreats are Moon Ball, Blind 
Line Up, Pass the Loop, Double Dutch, Tail Tag, and Elbow Tag. One especially 
intriguing exercise that mirrors children’s folklore of the supernatural is Light As 
a Feather, also known as Helium Pole. Each participant holds one finger under a 
long, light pole, and the group tries to lower the pole—but it mysteriously rises! 
Through folk traditions kept in circulation by children, executives learn how to 
rely on each other and enjoy friendly competition (“Basics Kit”).
How will children’s folklore influence people in the future, inside and outside 
of the childhood underground? No matter what interactions develop, it seems 
clear that children’s folklore will remain diverse and vigorous. In their conclusion 

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Introduction 15
to 
Children’s Folklore: A Source Book,
Felicia R. McMahon and Brian Sutton-Smith 
observe that we live “in a world of multiple childhoods and multiple ways in 
which these can be studied” (308). Remembering how much cultures, lifestyles, 
and viewpoints differ from each other, we can maintain a balanced outlook while 
delving into the wealth of details that make children’s folklore such a fascinating 
field of study.