On September 9, Charlie Weber and I traveled to Bermuda for the offcial launch of the long-awaited Bermuda Connections Resource Guide for Classrooms, funded by a generous grant from the Bank of Bermuda Foundation and produced under the auspices of the Bermuda Ministry of Culture, Community Affairs and Sports, and the Center. The guide includes a 278-page class-room handbook, a videotape (which Charlie produced), an audio CD, a map of Bermuda, and an interview guide in poster form. It draws on the research for and presentations at the Bermuda Connections program of the 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the ?eldwork projects of the students of Bermudian teachers who had been fellows at the Smithsonian during the Festival.

The launching of the guide represents the culmination of a collaborative process between Smithsonian and Bermudian cultural staff, Bermudian educators, students and their families, community researchers, and, of course, tradition-bearers that began with the very first conversations in preparation for the Festival program. In project after collaborative project at the Center, it is clear that the reciprocal learning that takes place in the process of producing something—whether it be a Festival or another vehicle for cultural education—is just as important as the product. We think that the creation of the Bermuda Connections guide is a model for partnerships between cultural agents and educators, community artists, scholars, and students.

To our delight, the Bermuda Connections project as a whole has been nothing less than transformative. The Minister of Culture, the Hon. Dale D. Butler—a long-time researcher, writer, and outspoken advocate for Bermuda's local culture—has enthusiastically endorsed the hiring of a folklife specialist for the island. Among other projects, this individual will work on joint cultural heritage tour-ism initiatives with the Ministry of Tourism. The Hon. Terry Lister, Bermuda's Minister of Education, will oversee the dissemination and use of the Bermuda Connections Guide as a central resource in all Bermuda class-rooms in the school system. Officials at the Department of Education are making plans for a Web-based version of the guide for home-schoolers as well as supplements geared towards the primary school population. With the addition of a biennial Bermuda Homecoming folklife festival component, Bermuda's yearly Agricultural Exhibition will now become the "Annual Exhibition." Like proud grandparents, we will be cheering the Bermudians on in their new ventures.

Special thanks to the Hon. Terry Lister; Grace Rawlins, director of Community and Cultural Affairs; cultural officer Heather Whalen; Jackie Aubrey, Bermuda-based Festival coordinator; Llewellyn Simmons, Bermuda Department of Education social studies officer; teacher fellows Lisa DeSilva, Nicole Douglas, Eugene Hastings-Durham, Sharmaine Nusum, Deirdre Dawn Ross-Nwasike, Tonetta Spring, Louise Tannock, and Anthony Wade; Jennifer Hinds from the Bermuda Royal Gazette; Dr. Nicola O'Leary, Bermuda National Trust; Lisa Falk, writer/teacher trainer; researcher Shirley Pearman; John Paulsen, Mark Grisham, and Rob Schneider; Linda Smith, Sue Durrant, and music researchers Ron Lightbourne and Vejay Steede, who worked on creation of the first-ever audio CD surveying the music of Bermuda. 

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