"What They Can Teach Us": Curating Archived Oral Histories for Secondary and Postsecondary Education

Abstract

We argue that a carefully curated and contextualised collection of oral histories can be an effective learning tool in secondary and post-secondary education. We present ‘What They Can Teach Us’, an online educative resource that re-uses four interviews from 1993 with German women who migrated to Canada in the 1950s. By applying source criticism to extant oral histories, we explore some of the complexities around the interpretation and multi-temporality of the interviews. Using so-called historical thinking concepts in the lesson plans, we show that even short oral history excerpts can allow students to engage deeply with processes of historical thinking. It encourages them to question the veracity of sources and analyse the retrospective and changing nature of memory and narrative."We are grateful to the Waterloo Centre for German Studies and the Research Office at the University of Winnipeg for generously funding the creation and maintenance of ‘What They Can Teach Us’ (www.whattheycanteachus.ca).