CFR_2009_R4.indb


79

 KID CULTURE: NEIGHBORHOOD EXPLORATION  
THROUGH ENRICHMENT CLUSTERS

KATHRYN A. MCCORMICK

Public school calendars of cultural and historical events are a resource for those 
who want to view cultural exchange at work. Urban environments give students 
the opportunity to understand folklore through connecting to their neighborhood 
and describing their experiences. A 2007 enrichment project at P.S. 261 in 
Brooklyn, New York introduced local lore and solicited students’ responses to 
literature, visual presentations, and neighborhood walks in a study of their own 
neighborhood. Students were encouraged to record with all of their senses, 
cognitive mapping, interviewing, photographing, diagramming, and planning  
food tasting to relate their experiences in their neighborhoods.

How to Get Famous in Brooklyn was used as an inspirational piece of literature 
to tap students’ knowledge and awareness of places in their neighborhoods. Third 
grade students in the Enrichment Cluster Project had done neighborhood study in 
grade 1 and the bridge study in grade 2 and so were quite aware of the working 
environment of their world. Daily travel to school by walking and taking subways, 
buses and cars provides various levels of awareness and involvement, as does 
experiencing playgrounds, games, parks, favorite stores and restaurants, gathering 
places, places they go with parents, street memorials, funeral traditions, and even 
lost or changing places.

The book The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey was used to stimulate 
conversation about transportation, and harbor life in New York City. Students 
created a model of New York Harbor, the working home of the historic fireboat 
that was activated as an evacuation boat on 9/11. The book emphasizes the 
working fireboat’s value as a survivor of an earlier time on New York Harbor. 
Students appreciate the will of restorers to keep the boat as well as the heroic  
use of it for a present day event. 

Social Outcomes

Visual presentations of street memorials stimulated conversations about death, 
remembering loved ones, accidents, and funerary practices in families and 
communities in the city. Students adopted the appropriate moods for these 
presentations. In fact, the social outcomes of local lore were many, reflecting 
the importance of recognizing the value children give to their own experiences. 
Students demonstrated pride in discovering their culture and sharing other 
students’ cultures.

Students shared their interests and concerns about their community, their 
play spaces, and their safety and illustrated neighborhood planning strategies 
to implement model neighborhoods. Their sense of belonging was enhanced 
because they researched and presented material on their own culture, traditions, 
customs and choices within their living environment. Play was affirmed and 

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KID CULTURE MCCORMICK

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categorized as “just fun,” and serious play as an interesting means to understand 
and communicate “kid” culture. Lastly, students became skilled fieldworkers and 
evaluators of their own lore.

What Teachers Learned

Students were less interested in the monuments and museums of Brooklyn than 
the everyday life within their neighborhood. Their stories were travel narratives 
of “spatial practice,” as in Asim and Eli’s model of their favorite park before the 
renovation planned by the Parks Department. They related exactly which activity 
took place in each space of the park, taking ownership of the space. Other 
students showed their skills as keen observers and recorders of physical space, 
showing how changes to that space impact their daily experiences. Emeka and 
friends demonstrated the use of space where they played games before and during 
the renovation of their school playground. Although they spoke nostalgically about 
the loss of particular corners of the schoolyard, they pointed out new small spaces 
which they had adopted for their games during the playground renovation.

Students recognize ‘folk’ culture and the dynamic clustering of culture as a 
concept of generative life in the city. They are receptors and communicators 
of culture, enthusiastic about learning and sharing their own customs. Ali and 
Raymond’s model of ‘life on the block’ related what Michel de Certeau refers to 
as “spatial narratives…narrated adventures, producing geographies of actions” 
signaling where they observe their own culture being transmitted, where 
they shop, eat and spend time with relatives in the Middle Eastern stores and 
restaurants on Atlantic Avenue (1984, 115-16).

Students are receptors and transmitters of lore involved in making themselves 
“famous in Brooklyn,” as the book How to Get Famous in Brooklyn suggests. 
Participation in activities and festivals in their neighborhoods as well as daily travel 
and use of the neighborhood roots students actively in their environment. They 
proudly display a sense of ownership, enthusiasm and confidence in knowing 
their own displays of culture. In addition, students utilize their own cultural codes 
and ‘kidspeak’ for their neighborhood and playground. These codes are not 
necessarily understood or used by adults, and that may be the point; students  
like to own their place in their local environment.

WORKS CITED

De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Los Angeles: University  
of California Press.

Hest, Amy. 1995. How to Get Famous in Brooklyn. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Kalman, Maira. 2002. The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey. New York: 

Putnam Juvenile.

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