John,

Welcome to M'cat. Along with my other gigs, I managed to spend 22 years doing what I felt were informative and entertaining assembly programs and workshops (those for classroom groups following the show) in the eight counties surrounding the city of Chicago through an arts-in-education agency in Chicago called Urban Gateways. In general, my intention was, first, to show student K-12 that these songs could be historical documents that depicted what came before in the language of those who were THERE-----THEN. Were they accurate historically? Not necessarilly. They had elements of truth but also contained the dreams and the fantasies of the people. The songs showed how stuff was, and also how people wanted it to be. The songs were documents of Geography, History, Social Studies, Art, Music, Poetry and Literature too. ---- I was showing, also, how folks entertained themselves in times before TV, CD, DVD, VCR, Records, Radio and whatever.---Real home made entertainment.------ What you are doing is what the best teachers do. They force the kids to read between the lines in a way that is so enlightening to the students that they want to look at other aspects of their lives with the same analitical methods. When they do that, they come up seeing they can give many new and fascinating dimensions to things they formerly saw as being flat. The Gestalt, thus percieved, makes the conclusions greater than the sum of the parts.

Have I answered your query? I'm not sure, but this is what I strove to do.

All the best,

Art Thieme