Based on the research I've been gathering for the past year, presented in my new book, oral history
emerged as the most prominent and popular, as well as arguably the most
effective, way teachers engaged their students in learning about 9/11. Several aspects made this a good fit for
teachers wanting to engage their students beyond surface, inadequate or in fact
nonexistent explanations of the events of 9/11 in most textbooks.
First oral
histories are a strong fit for the goals of peace education in general. As I note in my new book, the use of oral
histories helps students imagine themselves as participants and agents in the
unfolding drama of history, not just readers or students. From the stand point of a peace educator’s
commitment towards social justice, this is key.
Otherwise students are less able to imagine themselves as powerful
actors capable of bringing about change.
Too often students understand history as something they are removed from
that is either irrelevant to today or which they don’t really have access
to. Howard Zinn seminally warned against
this elite top-down approach to history, calling attention to the dangers of
such an approach for the health of a democracy.
Oral history is
a much more engaging approach for students than the average history textbook as
well. By asking students to gather oral
histories of 9/11 from parents, other relatives or neighbors, students
connected with the obviously painful emotional content of the material. Oral histories thus allowed students to view
history something as directly relevant to themselves, addressing a constant
concern of history teachers.
Pragmatically
speaking, oral histories also meet state and local curriculum requirements for
writing, research, critical thinking and oral presentation. In an era (at least
in the US) of standardization and “objective” testing, teachers are typically
required to demonstrate a direct connection between what they do and a particular
state objective. 9/11 is not “on the
test” in many cases so teachers wishing to address it must be creative and
sometimes even subversive when addressing it, especially if doing so in a
perceived non-orthodox manner.
Oral histories
also helped address some challenges specifically regarding teaching 9/11,
according to my qualitative data.
Because the 9/11 era remains such a controversial and politicized topic,
teachers needed way to allow students to access multiple historical views and
narratives of what occurred. Oral
histories provided for this multi-vocality as students were bound to encounter
a variety of views in their interviews.
Oral history in the classroom can also be thought of as a collective
methodology. Students learned in
community with the family members or others that they interviewed. They also strengthened/built community in the
classroom as most teachers using this lesson asked students to present what
they had found in their interviews. Oral
history also helped students understand the gravity and emotional power of
9/11, its massive significance to US history, since it allows students to
access primary sources (i.e. the people they are interviewing). Hearing the memories of the terror and shock
of that day directly from people who experienced it in the course of gathering
oral histories also allowed students to access what educators call the
“affective domain”, that is, the realm of emotion rather than mere
intellect. This is a much more powerful
and long-lasting type of knowledge. For
these reasons, asking students to gather oral histories regarding the
experiences of older friends and family on 9/11/2001 proved to be one of the
most popular lessons by those few teachers who did decide to implement a full
lesson or unit on the 9/11 era.
