Sometimes a Shining Moment: The Foxfire Experience
“Foxfire Grows Up” from the Harvard Educational Review
It is the constant, unrelenting examination and revision of approach
-- not a package of answers to packaged questions --
that makes better teachers among us the best.
~ Eliot Wigginton, Sometimes a Shining Moment ~
*Author’s Note: The following text is a synthesis of my reading and thinking this semester’s social studies methods class (Curriculum & Instruction 307 with Tom Kolbe). For readers who may not be familiar with Eliot Wigginton’s Foxfire, I wanted to take the opportunity to give a brief summary of the Foxfire curriculum before my analysis:
Eliot Wigginton began his career as an English teacher in a rural Georgia high school in the late 1960s. In hopes of creating a more learner-centered curriculum, Wigginton solicited the assistance of the learners, in effect asking them, “What can we do to help everyone grow as writers?” What emerged from the discussions was not only an active, content-driven English curriculum, but a venture that Wigginton admits he could not have dreamt up on his own. His students had a vision that became reality – they worked to create a literary magazine that focused on the appreciation of people, community, and culture in Appalachian Georgia. Students named their magazine (Foxfire), helped to fund the endeavor, interviewed locals, wrote stories, edited, and published their work. Foxfire has grown exponentially since then and is still publishing a twice-a-year magazine about the history, crafts, and personalities of Southern Appalachia. Additionally, there are eleven Foxfire books, a Foxfire museum, and publications/workshops for teachers who wish to be trained in the “Foxfire approach.” I’m still trying to get a grasp on all things Foxfire, but I know that Wigginton and his students did some incredible things as far as experiential and place-based learning. Reading, writing, thinking about, and discussing Foxfire and place-based learning encourages me to continuously strive towards curriculum that is relevant and worthwhile. Sometimes a Shining Moment and “Foxfire Grows Up” are a book and an article (respectively) written by Foxfire’s creator, Eliot Wigginton. Sometimes is a summary of the then-20-year experiment that is Foxfire, as well as some generalized commentary by Wigginton on community-centered, student-driven teaching and learning. Likewise, “Foxfire Grows Up” was written 20 years after Foxfire’s conception. The article reviews and evaluates the Foxfire teacher training sessions. If you’re interested, I would recommend either of these readings as excellent introductions to Foxfire. Also, see the Works Consulted section of this site for additional readings on Foxfire and other place-based curriculum.
Eliot Wigginton is a teacher/author who has transformed the way I think about teaching and learning. Although Wigginton’s place-based curriculum is one in a rural Appalachian high-school, there were certainly many “overarching truths” (which apply to all teaching and learning contexts) or “fundamental common denominators” (xiv) that he reveals throughout his narrative. In Sometimes a Shining Moment, Wigginton notes that the major intended outcome of Foxfire isn’t his students’ newfound appreciation for Appalachian land and culture (although this is certainly accomplished). The place-based thrust is really just means to a greater end -- “a collection of reasonably whole human beings working and sharing and learning together” (115). No matter how noble and important place-based or community-involved learning may be, Wigginton reminds me that it is just a nice by-product that comes along with the true purpose of democratic education: “to bring a class to life through those projects and applications of the course material we can do together with our students” (184).
It was fascinating to read through the nearly two-hundred pages of “Book I,” in which Wigginton (for some reason, I have the urge to call him “Wig,” as if we’re somehow close friends now!) described his phenomenal twenty-year journey -- from the unsure 1960s college student to the creator of the “Foxfire empire.” Seemingly without knowing it, Wiggington became an educational icon. What was most useful/interesting/comforting to me was Wigginton’s description of his first several years of teaching. It seems that he was just as inexperienced and unpromising as I sometimes feel. What impressed me about Wigginton, though, was his continual attempts at self-evaluation and improvement. When his students didn’t “see why they should have English,” he experimented -- he lead his “146 pupils“ outdoors to “sit quietly and alone in front of a plot of ground for an entire class period.” The students were asked to describe the outdoor setting -- suddenly the students became poets and expert observers. When he felt the need to “crack down” on problem behavior (kicking kids out of class or threatening failing them)[31], he quickly noticed this was ineffective (and counterproductive, really) and changed his approach. Wigginton didn’t attribute his “failure” on his students, the administration, or the school; he really stepped back to examine his teaching and pedagogy. Most importantly, he invited his students into the inquiry -- being honest, Wigginton admitted: “Look, this isn’t working. You know it isn‘t and I know it isn‘t. Now what are we going to do together to make it through the rest of the year?” (32). It seems to me that Wigginton’s inquiries into his own teaching were what kept him from accepting the status quo (textbooks, endless skill instruction, infinite compositions); it may have also saved him from beginning-teacher-burnout. More than anything, watching Wigginton grow and develop as a teacher made me realize that teachers always have room for growth and development. Even twenty years later, Wigginton still remarks, “So how do we make teaching work? I‘m still trying to figure that out” (199). It’s encouraging to hear that this amazing educator still engages in the struggle to answer that important question. Later, Wigginton expands: “...each of us, no matter what our age or experience, has the capacity for self-evaluation and for growth. Each of us can do the job better” (193).
Another thing that really impresses me about Eliot Wigginton is the incredible relationships he built with his students (that’s hard for me to fully trust in light of his 1992 child molestation indictment, but I‘ll ignore that for my purposes!). Wigginton took time to know and learn with his students outside of school -- he would take them on interviews or tout them as Foxfire experts at presentations. He seemed to be intensely aware of the power and authority that came with the student-teacher relationship, but still knew how to be authentic with kids. Students even volunteered to build his “six-sided log house” in 1972 (see chapter 19, pages 152-158).
One thing that I was glad to see in Sometimes a Shining Moment was the way that Wigginton constantly documented his and Foxfire’s development -- he included excerpts of his 1960s college journal, letters to friends, student work, pictures, and vignettes of individual students or experiences (just to name a few). Having these supports included really added meaning and depth to Wigginton’s claims. For example, Wigginton could have asserted the importance of meaningful relationships with students, but a story he included illustrated the point brilliantly. The story (69-72), which reminded me strikingly of Tom Barone’s “at-risk” narrative, detailed a Saturday Wigginton spent with a student who was written off by most teachers. Wigginton “became the pupil” (72) when the student took him hunting for ginseng in the Georgia mountains. After that day, Wigginton reports “never again” having a “disciplinary problem in class with that boy (or his friends, whom he apparently talked to behind the scenes). The change was instantaneous” (71). Taking the time to listen to and care about students is neither inappropriate or time wasted -- in fact, I think it’s a vital component to “classroom management” (whatever that means). Towards the end of the Foxfire story, it was truly amazing what Eliot Wigginton and his students had accomplished -- not only was Foxfire a widely popular quarterly magazine, but there were also Foxfire books, hired staff, museums, expanded course offerings, and festivals. Wigginton constantly noted that the strength of Foxfire was that it was student-created and student-written. It seemed to me (an admittedly ignorant outsider) that the focus of Foxfire became less student-driven and more organizatonalized. Herb Kohl shared some of these concerns in a 1979 resignation from the Foxfire Board (as printed in Foxfire Reconsidered pages 347-48): “Who actually produces Foxfire books? Are they the work of the students, who should be proud of authorship, or are they reworked versions of material students collected? Does the staff of Foxfire and the editorial staff of Doubleday do the actual writing?” Kohl also notes: “On my last visit, the Foxfire [magazine] classes seemed automatic, to have been reduced to a formula. I felt a lack of student participation, of discussion and probing issues about the community.” I don’t know enough about the current state of Foxfire to be a true critic, but I think it’s an important issue for progressive ed circles to grapple with -- How can we continuously monitor student contributions and those that are imposed by other adults (in the case of Foxfire, the input of teachers/staff, historians, publishers, etc.)? How do we ensure that place-based learning (or experiential, or student-centered, or [insert your buzzword here!]) does not become “reduced to a formula”? How do we critically evaluate our understandings of progressive teaching?
“Foxfire Grows Up” from the Harvard Educational Review gave me some real insight into the teacher outreach programs that have sprung from the “Foxfire community” (as Kohl calls it). There were a lot of unanswered questions in Sometimes a Shining Moment. Wigginton, at various times, mentions Foxfire-like projects that emerged in other schools, but also notes that they were rather short-lived. The reason for the failure of Foxfire’s followers is hinted at in Sometimes, but stated explicitly in “Foxfire Grows Up.” Wigginton realizes that he was “present[ing] a package that was already thought out and invit[ing] participation, not realizing those students would have real difficulty becoming committed to an idea into which they had had no input” (Sometimes a Shining Moment, 132). As a teacher, I could easily impose a magazine project on my sixth grade class. I would just introduce it as Voices of the Platte, would have already gained support from the community and administration, solved all the initial set-up problems, and *poof* assign articles for homework, pick the best, and publish -- the Foxfire prepackaged formula. As Wigginton noted in “Foxfire Grows Up,” this project has been “completely gutted...of all its educational potential and its life” (25). So, how to “solve” this dilemma of the Foxfire formula? -- “the work...must be infused from the beginning with student choice, design, revision, execution, reflection, and evaluation.” Certainly, the Foxfire approach could result in a number of perfectly appropriate “end products” for unique locales. The approach that students take in different classrooms (or different school years) may likewise vary within the same school. Wigginton’s response on how to avoid formularization? “The central focus, rather than being placed on the methods of creating a publishable article, is instead placed on the design process of an open-ended but structured activity sequence that, if carried out, is more consistent with a higher, broader educational philosophy” (“Foxfire Grows Up” 42).
Foxfire’s “core set of practices” are really quite impressive -- they get at the heart of what I deem to be good teaching and learning. I had no idea how much I would see John Dewey‘s Experience and Education cited this semester. He must be saying some pretty important things -- I am going to check it out. My look at place-based learning has been so much broader than community studies or even social studies -- I’ve really transformed some of my fundamental understandings of educational theory and hopefully practice, too.