Funds of knowledge: Adolescent contributions
J. David Betts
University of Arizona
AERA Annual Meeting - CHAT SIG
New Orleans, LA, April 24 - 28, 2000
This preliminary paper addresses the effects on the families’ "funds of knowledge" (a concept developed by Luis Moll, Norma Gonzalez, James Greenberg, and Carlos Velez, and others) of participation by middle school children in the Multimedia Arts Education Program. The "funds of knowledge" concept usually refers to that knowledge which the child brings from home. This paper looks at cases that are examples of the potentially reciprocal nature of the flow of knowledge to and from the home and school. Middle school students carry back into their homes many kinds of knowledge. These activities become incorporated into the family culture, bringing family and neighborhood resources into the classroom. This role represents the transitional nature of early and pre-adolescence. Our study focuses on graduates of an after school program at the Multimedia Arts Education Program (MAEP) of the Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC). These young people participated in five semesters of art technology training in computer lab settings working with artist/teachers doing computer graphics, language arts, video, animation and creating electronic portfolios. Along with a good deal of art and technological expertise, upon completion of the program students also get their own computer to take home.

Parental commitment is an essential part of the MAEP program. Qualifications are based on need and commitment to the program. Young people who are interested in the program are interviewed along with their parents or guardians. Parents report that getting their young people through often requires effort on their part, most salient in the transportation commitment.

Through exit interviews with the graduates and interviews with their parents we have found that often it was in the home that this new knowledge was first appreciated. Graduates of the multimedia program, most of whom were starting the 8th or 9th grade when they finished, reported that they had little opportunity to show what they had learned about the very sophisticated art technology in school. They reported that school computer use is generally limited and does not include the kinds of activities that were part of the multimedia program. This is confirmed by report of middle and high school teachers. However, the arrival of a computer into the home for the first time, along with an experienced user, able, and often willing, to show other family members what he or she had learned seemed to have an impact on that family’s "funds of knowledge." In several interviews parents were curious about the new computer applications. Very few of them had heard of the software that was used. Although several did use computers to some extent at their work, art technology was clearly outside their experience.
 
 

Multimedia Arts Education Program

MAEP is an intensive computer-mediated arts technology program begun by TPAC in 1996. Middle school youth, targeted as being at risk from disadvantaged families, participate in a series of semester-long after school classes. The program is based on several literacies. Central to all the activities are written output from students consisting of journals, proposals, and descriptive abstracts, as well as poems and stories that are realized in video, computer-mediated animation or graphics. Students work in labs with professionals in computer graphics and publishing, language arts and word processing, computer animation, and video production. A final, fifth semester portfolio class capitalizes on cumulative skills and yields a home page a newsletter and a multimedia presentation. This study examines student development of literacies and computer skills as they effect school performance and prepare them for the electronic arts workplace.

MAEP views the arts as a critical factor in the mastery of computer and media technology. Art activities mediate learning in many ways. MAEP teachers are professionals in their area of art technology, each with several years teaching experience. The large TPAC building, with several computer labs, also includes an art gallery. Many local artists pass through and influence the culture of the facility.

The participant studied art and design, learned to use computer and media technology, and had many authentic literacy experiences. Students learn to make æsthetic considerations in design, to develop a critical eye and to revise. They work with several professional-level application programs and tools. They keep journals and write proposals for their projects and create storyboards, video logs and scripts, as well as poems and stories.

The Language Arts lab students do word processing and basic desktop publishing. There is an emphasis on basic English grammar and composition. The Computer Graphics lab students learn to do computer photo-manipulation, drawing and printing. Various projects such as letterhead, calendars and logos involve integration of many electronic arts tools. The Animation students develop narrative storyboards and two-dimensional computer animations. The Video lab has several camera kits with lights and microphones, editors, and a special effects generator. Students learn to use this equipment and basic production techniques as they work through group and individual projects. The Portfolio lab emphasis is on developing multimedia presentations based on their work from previous semesters.

The students receive a small stipend ($25) twice each semester upon attaining the required skill level benchmarks and completion of their individual projects. When they complete of the program, each student receives a desktop computer of his or her own. This has been a very motivating aspect of the program, as most of the families involved are not able to have a computer at home.

Population

Approximately 8 - 10 middle school students were enrolled in each of the five labs each semester. Most were Hispanic and bilingual in Spanish to some extent. Since the second year (1997) most started the program during their 6th or 7th grade and finished before entering high school. A balance of male and female students was maintained. Students did not have to audition for this program, but were selected for their interest and stated commitment to the five-semester program, as well as on factors contributing to high school drop out rates. Of the 44 students in the Spring1998 program, all but two were on free or reduced lunch programs at their school. 54% were bilingual Spanish, 79% Hispanic, 7% Native American, 7% African American and 7% Anglo. There is now a waiting list of interested students and families. Most live in neighborhoods associated with downtown Tucson where the graduation rate from high school is low. Students are required to maintain a "c" average in school in order to continue in the program.

Theory

Fund of knowledge is a theoretical way to understand what children bring with them to school. Teachers doing action research at several elementary schools in Tucson, Arizona, adopted this idea in order to tap into the resources present within students' households (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1994). Acknowledging that the households of their students could be rich repositories of accumulated practical and scientific knowledge, teachers did ethnography on home visits with the purpose of uncovering local knowledge bases. They saw the potential value in this as being the connections that students would then be able to make between the schooled concepts and the everyday concepts that are part of home life. An example given is the large amount of math content involved in the construction trades, a common occupation. The measurement and calculation that is part of the planning and execution of almost any construction task can be part of the child’s knowledge base in the home. Similarly, most occupations involve many authentic literacy experiences. Teachers found effective ways to use this knowledge to leverage learning experiences in the classroom.

There are certainly other advantages to this kind of action research. For teachers, learning to do ethnography is a process of focusing attention on social phenomenon outside the classroom. That focus constitutes professional development through reflective practice and building of strong ties between the school and the community. The valuing of the life experiences of the child’s home gives a connectedness to the learning that benefits the child in the classroom.

The integration of art into education facilitates the construction of new knowledge by young people based on this mediation. New facts are engaged with new skills in new media. These skills call forth new ideas and the transmediation of those ideas in a reciprocating spiral of learning (Salomon, 1990). The artistic content of the actions and operations of the MAEP provides a parallel means of connection or engagement for the learner.

Leland and Harste (1994) define literacy in terms of transmediation, or "movement between and among communication systems" (p. 340). MAEP provides many opportunities for students to transmediate between sign systems, such as placing the words of a poem onto an illustration, or animating drawn characters from a storyboard. The computer mediates the artistic expression of the student’s new ideas.

Eisner (1994) acknowledges the importance of connections between school knowledge and students' lives outside of the academic environment. Transfer of learning will occur, Eisner asserts, when students encounter tasks and relationships similar to those outside of school.

We can see that the MAEP activities are complex, and as they are in transition into adolescence, their influence on their home and community is reciprocal and changing. Those new ideas can come from any area of a child's life, including, as Moll (1992) first wrote, the "funds of knowledge" that are in family and neighborhood. The infusion of technology into the students’ lives at the MAEP, and ultimately into their families’ lives has an effect that ricochets among the several domains including school In many cases we see evidence of their new learning having an effect on their family.

Methodology

Interviews were conducted shortly after graduate from the program with the students as well as with their parents or primary care givers. These took place either in the home or at TPAC. The interviews were fairy structured based on a list of questions and were audiotaped and transcribed.

Th e exit interviews

The participants were also interviewed around the time of their graduation from the program in a more or less structured setting either at home or at the arts council. Items from their interview that related to the funds of knowledge concept were:

    1. How is your family with this whole activity? Do you get a lot of support?
      • students got a great deal of support from home. They spoke of their parents being proud of them and willing to provide transportation in particular so that they could get to the program on time.
          1. What plans do you have for your new computer at home?
            • The program graduates had a place for their new computer and plans for what they were
                            going to do on it, including a shopping list for software and upgrades.