by Gregory Sharrow, Ph.D., Vermont Folklife Center

COMMUNITY WORKS NOTE: The following excerpts from Greg Sharrow's workshop handbook are used here with his permission. To acquire a complete copy of this useful handbook, contact The Vermont Folklife Center at Gamaliel Painter House, Box 442, Middlebury, Vermont 05753 (Phone 802-388- 4964). Community Works will continue to excerpt parts of the handbook in future.

What are oral history (SEE VFC example "I Buried My Own Leg") local history, and folklife? Oral history is a method, not a particular body of data. It involves collecting and recording information directly from people. This information is based on people's memories of their own firsthand experience and the experiences of others. The content of an oral history interview is unlimited--you can interview almost anyone and come up with all sorts of information on a vast variety of topics. An interview can focus on (among other things) --a person's life history --the history of a community --the history of an occupation --the history of an ethnic group --the history of a social issue, i.e. racial discrimination --the history of everyday life Decisions about content are shaped by the interests of the interviewer, the expertise of the interviewee, and the purposes of the project. Some historians consider oral history materials to be a kind of "add-on" to conventional political and economic history, useful only for adding personal perspectives to a larger and more significant record of the past. From this perspective oral history materials are of limited utility and must be carefully checked because of the inconsistency and fallibility of human memory.

Folklorists (and some historians), however, see oral history as a unique opportunity to explore dimensions of human experience which conventional history has consistently overlooked and to record history as it is perceived and understood by ordinary people. From this perspective materials collected through interviews represent the flesh and bones of a wholly different kind of history--a history written "from the bottom up" instead of from the top down. Local history is, of course, the history of a particular place and often focuses on such topics as settlement (and pre-settlement) history, local business and industry, schools and churches, notable local people and events, transportation and communication, social life, tragedies, biography and genealogy. Town and church records, diaries, account books, local newspapers, and other written records are usually the primary resource materials from which local history is written. But local history also relies on personal reminiscences as an important resource for information and thus has much in common with oral history. Local historians are often interested in family history and genealogy as well--areas of inquiry which again rely heavily on oral history as a research method.

Folklife is a less familiar term which has to do with the informal culture of everyday life, in the past as well as in the present. Folklife represents a very broad category which can perhaps best be described as culture with a small "c". Things which people learn face-to-face in informal settings--at home, in the workplace, on the playground--by word of mouth, imitation, or observation--are all an integral part of folklife. From such occupationally-based knowledge as training oxen or carving granite, to family holiday celebrations, storytelling and food traditions, folklife is about people in action and the things that they know and can do. Why are oral history, local history, and folklife important for teachers? We all know that children learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process. Much history instruction has fallen short of this ideal because teachers were confined to a single textbook. Good teachers, however, devise ingenious ways to enliven even passive textbooks by dramatizing battles and building models. But textbook history is always ready-made and all of the most exciting work--locating, analyzing, and interpreting primary resource materials--is left to the historian.

Exploring local history, by contrast, empowers students to become historians themselves and gives them the opportunity experience how history is written. Just as science instruction always includes laboratory time giving students the opportunity to work as scientists, so history and social studies instruction should offer a comparable field-based experience. The study of local history and folklife offers the opportunity for a hands-on, experientially based encounter that makes history real, relevant, and meaningful. studying one's hometown also fosters a heightened sense of place--as students learn to see evidence of the past in the familiar landscape of the present that knowledge creates a special feeling of connection. The study of local life is for many students a validation of their own culture and the skills, knowledge, and traditions they've learned at home; as the Foxfire program has demonstrated local research enhances students' sense of self-worth by fostering their appreciation of their own cultural heritage.

The research folklorists do is called fieldwork. It includes observing people and participating in their activities, studying documents and artifacts in libraries, museums, and archival collections, taking photographs, measuring buildings and objects, recording events on film and video, and tape recording interviews with people. Although many of these methods are appropriate for local history as well as folklife research, in these workshops we are emphasizing the oral history interview because of its many classroom benefits. First and foremost oral history brings people face-to-face--in this case children and older adults--thus promoting intergenerational contact and communication.

The oral history interview is a structured interaction which fosters the development of important intrapersonal communication skills. And as children listen to older people reminisce they often hear about experiences with which they can personally identify. Not only does this help break down barriers between young and old but it encourages children to reflect on their own lives and learn more about themselves. As an added benefit children often develop strong and lasting friendships with the people they interview and sometimes come to know and appreciate older family members in new ways. Finally, local history and folklife research offer a great variety of opportunities for interdisciplinary instruction.

The projects we propose in these workshops pair the study of history and culture with the arts, but other combinations will work equally well. An interview project focused on diet and nutrition or doctors and hospitals, home remedies, and the treatment of disease--now and then--would further the objectives of a health curriculum. Weather lore and the traditional knowledge of both woods and farm--of wild and domestic plants and animals--would add an important dimension to a science curriculum. And the language arts curriculum would be enriched by a study of regional dialect, proverbs, jokes, riddles, and other forms of folk speech, not to mention the array of reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills which would come into play when presenting the results of any research project. In the next issue, look for pointers in: "How to Do Oral History Research..."