Reclaiming School Histories: Oral Histories as Tools for Restorative Educational Inquiry

• In Event: Reclaiming the Past to Reimagine Education

Abstract

This presentation explores how oral history methodology was used in a graduate-level “History of American Education” course to uncover the local histories of schools through the voices of educators, administrators, and community members. In this assignment, students conducted research into their school’s origin, leadership, pedagogical evolution, demographic shifts, and cultural transformations. Many students conducted oral history interviews—often for the first time—with longtime teachers, principals, or alumni, adding critical, lived perspectives to their research.

Oral histories allow students to reconnect with counternarratives of their schools and center community-based knowledge in historical research.

Drawing on selected student examples and feedback, this presentation shows how oral histories helped illuminate both the overt and hidden curricula of schooling and inspired students to imagine reparative futures for their educational communities. This paper models how foundations research and curricula can move beyond theory to enact practices of restorative educational inquiry.

Author

• Asia Symone Thomas, Augusta University