This school year at HBRHS has brought a lot of change for me personally, and it has kept me busy! In late July, my teaching schedule changed due to staffing changes in the Social Science department. With these changes I am now teaching A.P Government and our new elective course of Modern U.S. History, in addition to my previously taught U.S. History course. While these changes were exciting, they were also scary as I quickly had to turn our department’s plans for the new course into a reality.
Modern U.S. History was created to spend more time learning about the events in U.S. history over the past 30 years as history continues to grow! We were excited to introduce a history elective for students who wanted to learn more about our country’s history.
In addition to learning deeper about the past 30 years of our country’s history, this course also provided greater flexibility to try new things. I saw this as an opportunity to implement something new that would connect my students to the community. I had always envisioned implementing a service-learning project into our department’s curriculum, but struggled to find a fitting place. Now, I had the perfect opportunity, I just needed to identify a need for the project to help satisfy; I immediately thought of reaching out to the Hinckley Historical Society to see if there was an opportunity for collaboration.
Fortunately, the Historical Society enthusiastically supported the proposed collaboration and we met to discuss what type of service they could use for their museum. Luckily, we both had a similar idea in mind: recording oral history of Hinckley residents. The Historical Society had been provided a grant from META to purchase the necessary equipment for such a project which was used to record the interviews; all they needed were some students to complete the project.
As the school year began we continued to discuss how the project would turn out as well as the logistics of recording the interviews. There was a lot that we had to figure out on the fly to make this work, but we knew it would be worth it. My first semester class of five students greeted the project with enthusiasm. They were excited to help someone tell their story and create a product that would be on display and contribute to their community’s history. I appreciated their enthusiasm tremendously as this made the extra work required to make this work immediately worth it.
When the day of our first interview came, I did not know what to expect. Would my students confidently ask questions? Would the interviewees feel comfortable to open up to us? Was the space we set up going to be serviceable for the project? Fortunately, our first interview turned out great! Sandi Frost and Pete Wassman, our first interviewees, had great perspectives to share and stories to tell. They reminisced of Hinckley through the years, and how it had been a great community to them. To my luck, the following interviews all provided similar accounts while sharing a new detail, story, or experience. We really were putting together a strong local history.
As the first semester ended and it was time to view my student’s final projects, I was thrilled to see that the work we had put in had paid off: They created a final product worthy of proud display in the Hinckley History Museum. Their hard work and dedication to the project was very encouraging to me as I decided that we would continue to make it a part of our curriculum.
We wrapped up filming interviews for this semester last week and are currently working on editing our second round of oral history videos to add to the museum’s collection. Throughout every interview I have sat behind the camera taking in all of the information, personal anecdotes, and the history of the town that I work in. It has been an incredibly rewarding experience for me and I am so happy that we have found a way to help preserve and tell the stories of Hinckley’s residents.
If you are interested in viewing the projects, they are currently on display at the Hinckley History Museum. We will continue to add more oral history videos after each semester. I encourage all to stop by not only to learn about the history of some of Hinckley’s residents and individuals who helped shape the town’s history, but also to see the hard work of our high school students. It takes a lot of work to create these accounts so I hope many of you will stop by to appreciate what our students have put together!
There are many people that I have to thank for helping to make this meaningful project possible. Sharron Isola from our tech department has been the MVP of this project for teaching the students how to edit videos and providing tech support during the editing process. Principal Brandon Kriesch for helping me work out the logistics of making this project possible. The members of the Hinckley Historical Society (Bob Pritchard, Catherine Bartels, and Jennifer Klaumbauer) for hosting us at the museum and helping organize the interviews as well as displaying them. Our secretaries at HBRHS, Mrs. Langston and Mrs. Porter, for welcoming our interviewees into the building. The interviewees themselves for opening up and sharing their stories for us to record for this project. Finally, my students for embracing a different learning experience and fully committing to the project.
Thank you all for the support!
Written By: Nick Sullivan, HBR High School History Teacher