Veterans find Uni High students to be eager interviewers Vietnam veteran Steve Allen, right, didn’t talk much about his years in combat when he returned from the war. “When we came home, the atmosphere wasn’t conducive to speaking of being a veteran. There were places that were actually hostile to us,” he said. An infantry commander in Vietnam, he began reconnecting with members of his platoon after the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1982.
Stratton student leaders help teach classmates Illinois Public Media staffers were back at the Stratton Leadership & MicroSociety Magnet School in Champaign for a second year, helping a new group of students learn reporting and video production skills. This school year, three students who mastered skills last year are helping teach classmates who are new to the project. Fourth grader Michael Gbor is the student manager of Stratton’s TV production studio. He’s fielded questions like how to set up the cameras and how to make sure subjects are framed correctly in the camera lens. “Sometimes, they forget to push ‘record,’ ” he said.
Third grader Waylon Demkov and fourth grader Fatima Ramirez are assistant managers. WILL’s Henry Radcliffe, who worked with Stratton students two days a week in the TV studio, said he appreciated having the student managers to field basic questions, leaving him free for more in-depth instruction. IPM’s educational outreach director, Molly Delaney, is back at Stratton teaching media literacy, with tailored lessons for each grade level. Video bonus: Watch one of the students’ newscasts. will.illinois.edu/annualreport
When University Laboratory High School students asked to interview him about his military service for a WILL radio documentary, he didn’t know what the 12- and 13-year-old students had heard about the war and learned in their textbooks. “But those kids were wonderful,” said Allen, who is retired from his work as a school guidance counselor in Newman, Ill. “They were open and sincere, and I think they were truly interested and willing to learn.” Terry Hairrell, who was drafted and served in Vietnam in 1967-68, had a similar experience. “I guess it made me feel important that the younger generation wanted to know what a bunch of old guys, men and women, went through,” he said. He found the students were particularly interested in a soldier’s everyday life in Vietnam. “I told them about how we would rig plastic explosives to heat up our C-rations,” he said. “They seemed really interested in that.”
The students’ hour-long documentary, From the Frontlines to the Home Front: Inside Views of the Military 1940-2012, along with a series of shorter reports, aired on WILL Radio in November. Students invited the public to a special interactive discussion about the changing military at the Champaign Public Library where participants listened to parts of the students’ interviews and discussed issues raised by them. Uni teacher Janet Morford said students get a great response each year when they conduct interviews for an oral history project with WILL Radio. “The richness of every project comes down to the incredible conversations these interviewees are willing to have with these young students,” said Morford, who helped the students produce the pieces, along with WILL’s Dave Dickey. Audio bonus: Listen to the students’ radio stories and documentary online. will.illinois.edu/annualreport 13