“Hands-On” Cultural History

On Friday, May 3, 2024, an interdisciplinary, interdepartmental, and intercollegial one-day workshop for high-school teachers entitled “Hands-On Cultural History: An Opportunity for Experiential Learning” sponsored by the Institute for the Humanities along with the Montclair Oral History Project — HOLA (Historia Oral de los Latinos y Archivo Digital) — took place on campus. It was conducted by Drs. Raúl Galoppe, Anne Edstrom, and Antonella Calarota-Ninman, members of the Spanish and Latino Studies Department, Dr. Stephen Ruszczyk, Department of Sociology, Dr. Fernando Naiditch, Department of Teaching and Learning, and Ms. Melissa Ziobro, Director of Public History at Monmouth University and curator of the University’s Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music.

Raúl Galoppe and Stephen Ruszczyk described how the Oral History Project at Montclair State University (HOLA) began when a group of students and faculty members came together with a shared passion for the stories, memories, and experiences of Latinos in the New Jersey area. They explained how the rich and dynamic archive of oral histories that are available on the HOLA website (https://holamontclairstate.org/), can be used to educate, inspire, and connect people across generations and communities and be implemented in a wide variety of classroom settings.

A group of three students who had conducted oral history interviews in fulfillment of a class project for Antonella Calarota-Ninman shared a set of inspiring and uplifting stories about what they had learned from the experience.

Melissa Ziobro demonstrated the fascinating range of oral history archives that are publicly available on the web that can be used by teachers to connect a whole variety of subjects with the reality of lived experience. She also provided a wealth of valuable tips on how to go about conducting oral history interviews and how to prepare students to do so.

Finally, after lunch, Anne Edstrom and Fernando Naiditch shared several specific strategies for integrating the oral history materials on the HOLA website into hands-on activities courses such as Social Studies, History, Spanish, and English. Participants also brainstormed ideas for, and shared experiences of, implementing oral history into their own teaching.