ORAL HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM
| Oral History as an Educational Methodology (Sources) | ||
When I began teaching history in 1991 I vowed that the fundamental goal of each of my classes would be to teach students how to be historians; to create, as historian Carl Becker once said, "a useable sense of the past." Since 1991, and at three different schools, my students have been conducting the "American Century Project." Pre-collegiate oral history projects are not limited to students who, in this case, live in an area overflowing with elite interview subjects. A detailed description of this project can be found in the article "Teaching Students How to Be Historians: An Oral History Project for the Secondary School Classroom" featured in The History Teacher August, 2000. The use of oral history as an educational and historical methodology can be further explored in "The Student Oral Historian in the A.P. United States History Classroom" (June, 2004) and in Dialogue with the Past: Engaging Students and Meeting Standards Through Oral History (AltaMira Press, 2004).
An oral history project allows students to become a producer of historical knowledge rather than a passive absorber of historical information. Oral history can be effectively integrated into a wide range of courses across all disciplines as a means to assess both skills and content while at the same time empowering students with their own learning. A fundamental goal of this web site is to not only make accessible the rich archives of student oral history projects to a world wide audience but to also provide educators an opportunity to reinvigorate the teaching of history through the integration of an oral history project into their classroom. In consideration of the time constraints placed on teachers, as well as the need to meet state and national standards, this site provides all that is needed to implement and conduct an oral history project. All that is left is to find enthusiastic students who want to participate in the preservation of history; such students invariably exist in each of our classrooms or programs.
Glenn Whitman
Project Coordinator
gwhitman@saes.org
Particpate in the Oral History Forum at History Matters
Become a member of the Consortium of Oral History Educators (COHE) dedicated to the effective implementation of oral history as an educational methodology.
Consortium
of Oral History Educators
"Preparing the Next Generation of Oral Historians"
The Association of Oral History Educators is an organization dedicated to
the effective implementation of oral history as an educational methodology.
The motivation of AOHE grew from the interest in and the expanded use of oral
history as an instructional strategy in settings from the grade school classroom
to the graduate school seminar. AOHE's goals are designed to promote professional
standards for student research, sponsor the production and sharing of curricular
materials, and support the acquisition of quality student oral history interviews.
Dr. Barry
Lanman
The Consortium of Oral History
Educators
P.O. Box 24 Ellicott City, MD 21041
AOHELanman@aol.com