The term bertso-eskola, or "verse school,"1 consists of two words, bertso (verse) and eskola (school). To understand the nature and work of these verse schools, it is best to consider the concept behind each of these words. Bertso does not refer only to lines of verse and the rules of versification, nor when we say eskola do we mean simply a place where classes are given. The bertso-eskola should not be thought of as a mere school.Note: Basque Special Issu

Agirreazaldegi, Ainhoa

Goikoetxea, Arkaitz

Oral Tradition

University of Missouri: MOspace

Oral Tradition, 22/2 (2007): 65-68Verse SchoolsAinhoa Agirreazaldegi and Arkaitz GoikoetxeaThe TermThe term bertso-eskola, or “verse school,”1 consists of two words, bertso (verse) andeskola (school). To understand the nature and work of these verse schools, it is best to considerthe concept behind each of these words. Bertso does not refer only to lines of verse and the rulesof versification, nor when we say eskola do we mean simply a place where classes are given. Thebertso-eskola should not be thought of as a mere school.The Basque word for verse, bertso, evokes above all two closely linked ideas:bertsolaritza, the Basque cultural phenomenon of traditionally improvised verse; and versecreation as a form of creative communication. Eskola conveys the pedagogical notion of a placefor the cultivation of values, attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed in human development,while at the same time attempting to teach the importance of teamwork and to constitute a groupof friends united in a leisure activity. The purpose, then, is to go beyond the level of impartingknowledge towards a fuller sense of education, underlying which are four central concepts:learning to know, learning to do, learning to coexist, and learning to be.Essential to the bertso-eskola approach is what we could call an “ecological educationalmodel,” wherein the immediate context and social life inside the classroom are both basic day-to-day principles. This methodology is founded on constructivism; verse school methods havealways been based on meaningful learning and the construction of knowledge.History of the Verse Schools: Origin and DevelopmentIt is hard to say exactly when the bertso-eskola movement started, since it did not beginas a single, united movement at all. Verse schools began to spring up independently in differentparts of the southern Basque Country, responding to the features of society at the time. (For thepurposes of this article, 1980 has been chosen as a convenient starting point from which toanalyze the development of the verse schools.)Only a few years after the death of the dictator Franco, the Spanish state and the countriesit ruled were in the middle of a transition period. The Basque Country bore the scars of a 40-                                                1 For photographs associated with this article, click on link.66                    AGIRREAZALDEGI AND GOIKOETXEAyear-long dictatorship: its language and culture were in serious danger, neglected and despised,and almost entirely excluded from the school system of the time.Feelings that had long been smothered rose to the surface after Franco’s death, and oneidea in particular took on great force: many, many parents, seeing that the schools in this perioddenied their children a Basque-language education, set out to create alternative structures of theirown. This was the origin of the ikastola, the Basque-language education movement.The emergence and spread of verse schools was almost an automatic consequence of thebirth of the ikastolak. It was only natural for the bertso tradition to flourish in a school systemcentered on Basque language and Basque culture. Verse enthusiasts saw their chance and beganteaching Basque oral poetry to boys and girls as an after-school activity. That was how the firstchildren’s verse schools got started more than 25 years ago.In the early 1980s, as society evolved so did the place of bertsolaritza, making the leapfrom its original rural setting in taverns and cider houses to the stage. In this new environment,transmission to future generations was no longer a foregone conclusion. Thus began the earliestcourses for adult verse lovers. Groups met in every town; fueled by their passion for the Basquelanguage and verse singing, they gathered to learn traditional verses and to discover and studytheir techniques. From the courses organized by these large and varied groups arose the adultverse schools.Thus the verse schools did not come into being for the purpose of manufacturing orproducing bertsolariak, but simply to have fun with verses and to pass on this folk tradition tothe next generation. But it wasn’t long before the first new bertsolaris started to emerge,particularly from the children’s verse schools. The motivation and dedication of bertso teachersand the theoretical and practical literature published during the period had a lot to do with thisphenomenon. Xabier Amuriza and Juanito Dorronsoro made important contributions to teachingmethodology and provided teachers and students with written materials, as did the subsequentIkastola Association.From there on the road ahead lay open. Guided by intuition and common sense, the verseschools have been growing since the 1980s. Their goals are the enjoyment of verse, learning tomake verses, and the transmission of the bertsolari heritage to new generations. Over the years,each of the country’s schools has pioneered its own development and evolved its own missionand function. It has to be remembered that the schools have been built on a foundation ofvolunteer work; usually it is a local group of verse enthusiasts, making up the verse school’skernel, who have taken the trouble to search for one or more teachers and have assumed a sharedresponsibility for the school’s administration. Hence, the verse school phenomenon is not somuch a single, structured movement as a range of independently run individual bertso-eskolak.The Verse Society (Bertsozale Elkartea) has played a significant part in the schools’recent development. The Society has always treated the transmission of bertsolaritza as one ofits chief concerns, and has consequently given priority to the verse schools. It has made greatefforts to provide them with teaching resources, to train teachers, to create and maintain acommunication network and relations among schools, and to get verse schools started in areaswhere there were previously none.The outward profile of the verse schools has not greatly changed over the past 25 years.There are verse schools for adults, youth, and children. Different schools and groups each have           BASQUE VERSE SCHOOLS   67their own character resulting from their particular background. Some are more informal, whileothers adopt the specific aim of preparing and training future bertsolaris. While some are fullyindependent, others depend more on the initiative of the teacher, and still others have beenestablished under the auspices of the Verse Society. Yet internally there has been change––orperhaps not so much change as evolution, particularly in teaching approaches. The verse schoolsthemselves have made substantial progress in the area of pedagogy; moreover, society hasbecome more and more demanding in this regard, and there is a growing call for professionalismin the management of verse schools.In the wake of this trend, another concept related to the bertso-eskola that has beenmaking headway of late is that of verse-making as a leisure activity. The verse school isincreasingly seen as a place and activity for people’s free time. This new perspective entails aneed for such schools and promoters to adapt their structures, organization, and resources to thenew demand. Of course, this must be done without losing sight of the special nature of theiractivity, continuing to serve as a center for the practice and enjoyment of verse improvisation asa group activity and a central pillar holding up the cultural dynamic centered on the tradition ofbertsolaritza.Verse Schools as Centers for the Transmission of Bertsolaritza and CultureThe countrywide bertso-eskola movement represents one of the most important initiativesin bertsolaritza throughout the Basque Country in recent decades. Culture and language are basicto a people’s identity, and if we know how best to pass these on to coming generations we shallhave sown our people’s future. In the Basque Country, bertsolaritza has been an importantcultural manifestation permanently linked to the country’s language and folk culture. But manycultural manifestations are commonly affected by a generation gap, and bertsolaritza is noexception. This is even more notable in the case of a minority culture, and the culture thatsurrounds the Basque language is precisely that. The Basque language community is small, withonly 600,000 speakers, but the main difficulty is that the Spanish and French states apply lawsand policies that are constantly creating obstacles to the advancement of Basque culture. That iswhy, from the viewpoint of the Basque language and cultural movements, it is so important tosupport initiatives such as the verse schools, whose goal is the preservation and continuation ofBasque cultural expressions.Nowadays the verse schools involve many of those who will be centrally responsible forbertsolaritza in the future: bertsolariak, experts, masters of ceremonies, organizers, bertso-eskola teachers, judges, and promoters. Of the 38 bertsolaris competing in the 2005Championship, only one had not been to verse school, and most of the participating judges alsohad verse-school connections. These institutions are the cornerstone of the contemporary edificeof bertsolaritza, whereby youngsters can learn, have fun with, and absorb the art of singingBasque verses in a context of teamwork and play, leading to and consolidating affective, cultural,social, and professional engagement. In the verse schools two-way transmission ultimately takesplace––while youngsters learn to love and come to participate in the verse tradition, by doing sothey also incorporate bertsolaritza into their own contemporary lives and culture.68                    AGIRREAZALDEGI AND GOIKOETXEAMap of Verse Schools and Plans for the FutureAfter 25 years of growth and development of the movement in response to contemporarysocial needs, there are currently about 90 verse schools across the length and breadth of EuskalHerria’s seven provinces, with an enrollment of about 800. As a faithful reflection of the presentsociolinguistic and political situation, there are naturally more verse schools in those areas wherethe language has the most support.Araba Bizkaia Gipuzkoa Nafarroa LapurdiNafarroabehereaZuberoaVerseschools5 15 45 20 6 1 2 Men 13 75 235 74 22 8 11StudentsWomen 17 39 186 83 32 1 0Looking toward the future, we face two big challenges. One of these challenges is thevery continuation of the verse tradition and its transmission, and this now depends on the verseschools. Even in the present age of globalization, it is to be hoped that future generations willstill have an opportunity to be acquainted with and enjoy the rich heritage that minority folktraditions and cultural movements represent.The second challenge is also a response to social realities. The original pattern ofvolunteer work in the verse schools is now starting to give way to salaried posts. There are tworeasons for this change: an increasing demand for trained teachers, and the apparent crisis ofvolunteer work in our society. This is precisely the challenge; we see the verse schools as agrassroots movement in the present and future, since that is where their greatest contribution lies.To maintain the movement’s rich diversity and quality in the future, a balance must be foundbetween militancy and paid work. Forcing the verse schools into a top-down organizationalstructure would threaten the richness, vitality, and value of each bertso-eskola and end upquashing their individuality and weakening the movement in the long run.The major short- and medium-term challenges, however, are pedagogical. There is a veryimportant project underway, under the aegis of the Verse Society, to develop a verse schoolcurriculum. Improving the quality of the verse schools is a day-to-day task calling for constantthought and reflection, which involves, among other things, developing such a curriculum, aswell as allowing for ongoing teacher training, the creation of new teaching materials andresources, innovations in methodology and content, and the promotion of new research.

Verse schools

https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/10355/65121/1/OralTradition22-2-agirreazaldegi.pdf

Verse schools

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Missouri: MOspace

University of Missouri: MOspace