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ROHO stresses the importance of involving students
in oral history research. Oral history has three immediate
practical benefits for students. First, oral sources
can give students an understanding of the connections
between everyday life and larger social processes of
transformation and conservation. Second, it provides
a practical hands-on methodology that authorizes students
to create original historical sources. That process
teaches them that scholarship is never a question of
going to the library and summarizing what you find
there. It always includes that, but too often students
don't get past that beginning point until very late
if ever. Finally, oral history speaks to one of the
biggest challenges to education by encouraging students
to think creatively about how to integrate their own
backgrounds, interests, and experiences into what they
are learning about the world at large. In "Invisibility
in Academe," Adrienne Rich wrote:
"When someone with the authority of a teacher…describes
the world and you are not in it, there is a moment
of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a
mirror and saw nothing."
Oral documentation challenges students to design a
research project that describes the world as they have
understood it but then to relate what they learn to
the larger image of the globe that the university has
been so good at developing. Working closely with students
benefits ROHO by opening up new research topics, while
providing students with practical research experience
that will be valuable to them after they graduate.
The most important questions facing everyone in education
today are grounded in the everyday practices of oral
history: How do we teach students to read sources for
their biases, in particular to be aware of what has
been silenced? How do we teach students to think through
the foundations of arguments they encounter and to
assess how logic, evidence, and emotion have combined
into a conviction? How does one develop common languages
for areas of shared need and interest without losing
sight of continuing differences in experience and standpoint?
What is the relation of knowledge and conviction, and
how does education shape our understanding of public
life and our responsibilities for the state of the
world? These are questions that oral history research
forces into consideration.
Since 2002 the Regional Oral History Office has organized classes that allow
students to work with faculty and professional ROHO staff on either on-going
interviewing projects or on student-designed research. Students also can
work on ROHO projects through the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program
as well as through other internship opportunities. When students know that
their work can become part of the Bancroft collections, their work is no
longer done simply to complete requirements. They are producing work that
future students and scholars will turn to for information. This section of
the ROHO web site presents information about projects and classes that have
engaged students. It also presents samples of student work completed along
with the interviews. ROHO is becoming a special place on campus where research,
education, and collection development form a seamless web, a place where
creative interaction between students and teachers leads to new research
materials permanently enriching the collections of the Bancroft Library. |
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