View
219
Download
0
Category
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
Citation preview
Oral HistoryOral Historyin the 21st Century Classroom
Prepared for the American Federation of TeachersFebruary 2010
Today’s ObjectivesToday’s Objectives
1. Demonstrate the value of oral history as an educational and historical methodology.
2. Demonstrate that when students are empowered to be and think like oral historians, they can make lasting contributions to the communities in which they live and study.
3. Practice the oral history process.
How do we account for such lists?&
Who is missing from these lists?
Student ResponsesSeptember 2004
• George Washington• Thomas Jefferson• Martin Luther King, Jr.• Ronald Reagan• Abraham Lincoln• John F. Kennedy• Bill Clinton• Only 3 women (Eleanor Roosevelt,
Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman) were mentioned among the list of 15 students
Student Responses
September 2009• George Washington
• Christopher Columbus
• FDR
• Harriet Tubman
• Abraham Lincoln
• Hillary Clinton
What are the first ten names in United What are the first ten names in United States History that come to your mind?States History that come to your mind?
What is Oral History?
What it is:“A historical method thatcollects and preservesfirst-hand, spokenmemories throughrecorded interviews”
-Donald A. RitchieDoing Oral History
What it is not:• Journalism-“Kissing Cousins: Journalism and Oral History
(OHR, 2004)
• Folklore• Role Playing
What skills and values should we teach What skills and values should we teach students to prepare them for the world students to prepare them for the world
they will inherit in the 21they will inherit in the 21stst century? century?
• Honesty and integrity• Flexibility• Teaming• Collaboration• Inclusiveness
• Value diversity• Problem solving
(Complex, real-world)• Public Speaking• Self-discipline• Leadership
Preparing Students for their “Right Preparing Students for their “Right
Brained” FutureBrained” Future (not our Left Brained Past)
“The Six Senses”
1. Design
2. Story (Direction, Inspiration, Compelling narrative)
3. Symphony (Bringing skills and values together, Synthesis)
4. Empathy (EQ versus IQ)5. Play (Unsupervised,
unrestricted and imaginative)
6. Meaning
Preparing Students for their 21Preparing Students for their 21stst Century Century
FutureFuture
“Five Minds”1. The Disciplined Mind2. The Synthesizing Mind3. The Creating Mind4. The Respectful Mind5. The Ethical Mind
“Seven Survival Skills”1. Critical thinking and problem solving2. Collaboration across networks and leading byinfluence3. Agility and adaptability4. Effective oral and written communication5. Accessing and analyzing information6. Curiosity and imagination
Why I Use Oral History as an Educational Why I Use Oral History as an Educational MethodologyMethodology
• Trains the next generation of historians through “Cognitive apprenticeships” -Kim Porter, University of North Dakota
• Empowers student with their own learning (and confusion)
• Allows students to connect with the past that will be more enduring than
Jefferson or Lincoln
• Generates student “experts” who serve as co-teachers for the class
• Accessible to all types of learners, across grade levels, and disciplines
• Creates a more inclusive history for marginalized groups of people
• “It’s fun!” (“An underappreciated educational methodology”)
Why I Use Oral History as an Educational Why I Use Oral History as an Educational MethodologyMethodology
• No geographic limitations
“You don‘t have to be famous for your life to have history.”
-Southern Oral History Program
• Everyman [and woman] can be his own oral historian.
• An oral history project can meet and often exceeds state and national
standards of learning.
• Helps to build intergenerational bridges
• An oral history project can be integrated across disciplines, grade levels and types
of schools and programs
• Opportunity for “Service Learning” (Allowing students to make important
contributions to the communities in which they live and study)
It’s What Students Will Remember About It’s What Students Will Remember About Your Course!Your Course!
p. 10
Challenges to Bringing Oral History into Challenges to Bringing Oral History into the Classroom the Classroom
1. Time and Scheduling
69% of K-12 classroom teachers identified time and scheduling as the “most substantial obstacle to classroom use.” (1987 OHA Committee on Teaching Survey)
2. National and State Standards
3. Finding teachers willing to “share authroity” with their students and interviewee-
teachers.
4. Providing educators and students with the proper training in oral history
methodology.
Barbara TuchmanBarbara TuchmanPracticing HistoryPracticing History
Professional Historian
“Someone who has had
graduate training leading
to a professional degree
and who practices within
a university.”
“Amateur” Historian
“Someone outside the
university without a
graduate degree.”
The two need each other to help “democratize” the historical record
The Student Oral Historian: The Student Oral Historian: Preserving History Today for the Preserving History Today for the
Historians of TomorrowHistorians of Tomorrow
“. . . Do it for me and for the legion of other social scientists and historians who will come upon your students’ work ages hence--and will learn important things about your community, and how it was to live in what we, from our limited perspective, call “modern times.”
- James W. Loewen, author Sundown Towns, Lies Across America and Lies My History Teacher Told Me in the “Foreword” to Dialogue with the Past: Engaging Students and Meeting Standards Through
Oral History
Creating and Conducting an Oral History Creating and Conducting an Oral History ProjectProject
- Frank & Ernest by Bob Thaves
When Creating and Conducting an Oral When Creating and Conducting an Oral History Project Think “P”History Project Think “P”
• Preparation
• Practice (educator and student)
• Process (Principles and
Standards of the OHA)
• Product
• Preservation
• Publication
Bringing Oral History to Your Classroom or Program
Passive Oral History“An opportunity to learnfrom the actual historymakers themselves insteadof from textbooks.”
-Barry Lanman, COHE
Use of ready-made oral historysources (transcripts andrecordings)
-i.e. slave narratives from the Federal
Writer’s Project
Active Oral History
• Conducting an oral history project
• Requires extensive time and commitment
• “Authentic Doing”-Howard Levin, Urban School,
San Francisco, CA)
(1) Oral History methodology and training (on-going).
(2) Interviewee selection (Where do you find interviewees?)
(3) Pre-Interview Worksheet and meeting
(4) Research/Content Background (Research timeline)
(5) Interview Questions (Get to the “sub-text”)
(6) Interview (Location, equipment, student safety, emotional questions/responses)
(7) Interviewer/Interviewee release forms (A must!)
Oral History is a Historical ProcessOral History is a Historical Process
Ch. 5
Goal: To make a useable, accessible, and enduring primary source
“Ipod Nation”
(8) Transcription (Does every project need to be transcribed in full?)
- “At the time of the project, I can remember complaining profusely about how laborious transcription is. Here I will grudgingly admit that which did not kill me made me stronger.”
- Libby Barringer, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School Student
- Cost often necessitates Time Indexing Log rather than complete transcription
(9) Analysis/Interpretation (bias, distortions, presentism, trauma). All historical sources need to be
treated with equal skepticism.
(1) Archiving/Preservation/Publication “It becomes history when booked” (James Loewen)
The Project ProcessThe Project Process
The American Century ProjectThe American Century Projectat St. Andrew’s Episcopal Schoolat St. Andrew’s Episcopal School
www.americancenturyproject.orgwww.americancenturyproject.org
IntervieweesInterviewees650 interview tapes and transcriptions
• Sandra Day O’Connor• John L. Lewis• General John
Shalikashvili• Marion Barry• Ernest Green• Jack Valenti• Helen Thomas
• Bob Rast
• Ivona Kaz-Jepsen
• Warren Allen Smith
• Ernest Burke
• Eugenia Kiesling
• Virginia Ali
• Ann Stevens
• Joey Thompson
American Century Project ArchiveAmerican Century Project Archive
Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage - www.mdch.org
Dreyfuss Library, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School
• "Not only did it teach us about history, but it taught the larger message of respect and responsibility that come with historical knowledge.”
(Drew Saylor, SAES student)
• "In the case of my project, examining the role of women in the 1950s, my interview totally contradicted my research. I could not understand why this woman did not hate staying at home raising five children with no career or educational opportunities. I thought that I had done something wrong. What I learned, however, is that her story was one that had never been told. I told her story.“
(Amy Helms, SAES student)
Project FeedbackProject Feedback(Students)(Students)
“I got the packet today . . . I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed reading it, and how much it touched me. These are questions I’ve always wanted to ask you, and about you, and the war that I always wanted to know about, and hear you talk about. I guess it’s like Carol [son’s wife] said, “it’s easier to talk to a stranger than to talk to someone who is close to you.” I know you’ve talked to me a little about it, but never this in depth or that much about your feelings. I want you to know that after reading this, even more so now, that I thank God that my father is alive and that my children have a real grandfather instead of just a memory to hear about from me.”
The Student Oral Historian: The Student Oral Historian: Preserving History Today for the Preserving History Today for the
Historians of TomorrowHistorians of Tomorrow
“Without the student
oral historian far too
many stories would be
lost; it would be like a
library burning down.”
- Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School Student Michael Bryan with
interviewee Ernest Burke a player in the Negro Baseball League
Resources/Must Haves for Oral History Resources/Must Haves for Oral History EducationEducation
• Lanman and Whendling, Educating the Next Generation of Oral Historians
• Oral History Association (Extensive Resource Information under “Education Committee”) http://www.dickinson.edu/oha/
• Ritchie, Doing Oral History
• Whitman, Dialogue with the Past
• Wood, Oral History Projects in Your Classroom
• Become a member of the OHA or COHE
Recommended