John Michael Pabian

Oral History and Genre as Framework for Meaningful Educational Research

JOHN MICHAEL PABIAN

It is remarkable how much history has been written from the vantage point of those who have had the charge of running – or attempting to run other people’s lives, and how little from the real life experience of people themselves. (Samuel, 1975, p. xiii)

The October 22 cover of EducationalLeadership (2022), published by the Association for Curriculum Development (ASCD), sets forth a timely and noteworthy call for action, headlined by a banner heralding: The Education Profession: CHANGING the Narrative (2022). In an age where rethinking and reimagining almost everything is everyday fare, the headline seems to make sense as teachers in classrooms find themselves and their students roiled and ricocheted players in turbulent landscapes where everything is questioned while solutions remain elusive. The EducationalLeadership issue brings forth research and commentary from writers, administrators, and consultants, all calling for action on issues such as teacher shortages, low educator morale, teacher flight, and difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers of color. There are calls to: modernize teaching, enhance the experiences of Black children in schools as a means for incentivizing those children to choose teaching as a profession, and even a suggestion to launch what would be the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for education, an “all-in” approach to redefining and supporting teachers and their work. Research supporting these efforts is foundational to the calls for change; however, the voices that remain absent from the conversation are those of the men and women who are undertaking the work of teaching students in classrooms.

Building on interview-based research for my doctoral dissertation, ElementaryVoices ofCityTeachers, HistoricPerspectives, andContemporaryMeanings (Pabian, 2014), this paper posits that teacher voice brought forward in an oral genre of history-telling, is illuminative for insight examining the LifeANDTimes of classroom teachers. The methodology and examples set forth in this paper demonstrate significant wattage for shining light upon and sharing the lived experiences of teachers and the work they do in meeting the needs of children. This proposed methodology strives to break the “historic silence” (Rousmaniere, 1997, p. 4) concerning teacher work. Teachers’ voices are and have always been conspicuously absent from investigations in the field of educational research; however, in this moment of profound concern, teachers need to be heard from as prime influencers for changing the narrative surrounding public education. No person or entity can or should plunder this task from those

performing the work. Deeper understanding of this moment in education requires listening with both ears to the people who have met the challenges and trials of recent history; they must be heard. And heeded. This paper provides a window into matters of oral history, genre, methodology, data presentation, and analysis as tools for gaining insight into the lives and experiences of public school teachers.

A Note on Method: Oral History as Qualitative Research

In choosing oral history as a qualitative method, there is a striving to learn from teachers the significance and meaning they take from their work with children. Having served as a school principal, I understand the appeal that quantitative data holds, as well as the data-

In choosing oral history as a qualitative driven impulse of looking method, there is a striving to learn from teachers the at numbers as they inform significance and meaning they take from their work practice. with children. Having served as a school principal, I understand the appeal that quantitative data holds, as well as the data-driven impulse of looking at numbers as they inform practice. Studies reporting the success and failure of programs abound in the literature; however, the words of the people who implement those research-based initiatives are unheard. Valerie Yow (2005) endorses oral history as a qualitative research method. She posits that “The qualitative researcher learns about a way of life by studying the people who live it and by asking them what they think about their experiences” (p. 7). Addressing the operational definition of “meaning”, researcher Joseph Maxwell (1996) identifies qualitative research as an effective vehicle for establishing meaning, which he defined as “including cognition, affect, intentions, and anything else that can be included in what qualitative researchers often refer to as the “participants’ perspective” (p. 17). As a form of qualitative research, Berg (2009) notes that oral histories are “extremely dynamic” (p. 311), while pointing out that they lead to increased understanding of narrators’ lives, creating connections between past experience and the present. Delamont (2002) refers to a long qualitative tradition in social science related to collecting oral evidence and life histories on folk cultures, deviants, criminals, “elderly survivors of ‘proud old lineage’ and dying cultures such as the Kwakiutl or the Yanomano” (p. 128). Metz (1984) advances the case for qualitative study of teacher narratives as she writes, “Teachers’ life experiences and the cultural and structural demands of their work setting - the shape for their behavior – with fateful consequences for their students” (p. 199). Glesne (2006) endorses oral history, positing the usefulness of interviewing “in search of opinions, perceptions, and attitudes toward some topic” (p. 80). Extending this thought, Glesne invites interviewers to probe teacher memory with the purpose of learning about their perceptions and attitudes concerning legislative mandates on classroom practice and the impact of those initiatives on teachers and children. She concluded that by listening to narrators, researchers have “the opportunity to learn about

what you cannot see and to explore alternative explanations of what you do see is the special strength of interviewing in qualitative inquiry” (p. 81).

Patton (1990) defines purposeful sampling as a strategy, where particular narrators and settings are chosen for information regarding events for which they hold particular knowledge. As research for my dissertation, I conducted three separate in-depth interviews with four female elementary school classroom teachers who worked in the same school district between the years of 1964-2014. At their request, I created pseudonyms for the narrators, while changing the name of the district where they worked. Maxwell (1996) writes that, “Selecting those times, settings, and individuals that can provide you with the information you need to answer your research questions is the most important consideration in qualitative sampling decisions” (p. 70). Narrators for this study provide eye-witness perspective for educational movements, initiatives, and legislative mandates, covering a period of almost half a century. I here will leave the definition of the term “city teacher” to the narrators whose recollections of long commitments to urban students will better define that term than other definitions put forward by those further from the scene. Furthermore, from this vantage point, these city teachers bear witness to the advent of federal initiatives, many aimed at remediating conditions prevalent in city schools. These initiatives include: Special Education, Bilingual Education, Title I, Title IX, “A Nation at Risk,” “Goals 2000,” The NCLB Act, and—most recently— ”Race to the Top.” These narrators also witnessed great changes at the state, district, and schoolhouse level. Yow (2005) pointed out the value of testimony from people at the scene. “Historians cannot stop with asking questions about how things are but must always concern themselves with the general question, how did things get to be the way they are?” (Yow, 2005, p. 9). The participants are well positioned to articulate this process of change as it played out in classrooms over a period of 50 years.

Oral History as Genre

Oral historian, Alessandro Portelli (1994) puts forward a notion of oral history as genre. More specifically, he identifies oral history as a genre of genres, where oral forms such as anecdote, poem, “war story,” or commonplace maintain in a process where “readers are always constantly reminded of the oral origins of the texts they are reading” (p. 25). In reporting data, I looked for support in Portelli’s definition of oral history as “a genre of discourse in which orality and writing have developed jointly in order to speak to each other about the past” (p. 25). This genre, according to Portelli, searches for a place where biography and history meet. Portelli understood, as did noted oral historian, Studs Terkel (1972), that oral history “expresses an awareness of the historicity of personal experience and of the individual’s role in the history of society (p. 26).” The genre of history telling becomes more than the clichéd term “life and times,”usuallyapplied tobiography;rather, oralhistoryexists as a genre ofLife ANDTimes with the “most important word being the one in the middle” (Terkel, 1972, p. 26).

Historically, teachers are hidden in plain sight. While unions bring awareness to issues of compensation and working conditions, the silence regarding classroom life and practice is resoundingly and deafeningly muted. Alessandro Portelli (1994), building on research regarding the importance of personal memory represented in historical context, identified oral history as a genre of “history-telling” (p. 26). He wrote that thematic focus distinguishes oral history from other interview-based approaches: He identified this focus as “the combination of the narrative form on the one hand, and the search for a connection between biography and history between individual experience and the transformation of society on the other” (p. 25). Portelli, disputing notions held by Nevins (1938) and other positivist critics, found that oral history is at its most authentic when it listens to narrators who are not “recognized protagonists in the public sphere” (p. 26). Teachers naturally fall into this context of unrecognized protagonists. Teachers indeed are prime actors in the lives of children and society at large; however, their work is largely unreported. During the middle of the last century, noted sports columnist, Jimmy Cannon entertained and informed readers with columns beginning with the assertion: “Nobody Asked Me, But…” Here I extend Cannon’s lead to matters such as: “NobodyAsked Me, but I know distance learning does not work for 3rd graders”. Or “Nobody Asked Me, but my 2nd graders are losing ground with the new research-based math program”. And perhaps, “NobodyAsked Me, but the literacy coach has many bromides but few solutions for helping my students to read better”. Examined through the generic lens of Life AND Times, the stories and experiences brought forward in further discussions with teachers at the scene may incite investigation into computer-based learning; the effectiveness of standardized, publisher-created math programs; or the efficacy of models for classroom coaches.

Teachers indeed are prime actors in the lives of children and society at large; however, their work is largely unreported.

The Power of Story: History Telling

I am reporting here the transcript of my first interview with retired educator, Linda Hodnett. When I arrived at Mrs. Hodnett’s home for our first interview, she offered me a seat in a small, comfortable living-room, appointed with soft chairs, several shaded lamps, an array of hung family photographs, and two whirring fans that presently held their own against the surging heat of a July morning. We were about to begin when a ringing phone intruded. “Let me shut that off,” she said. “I would like to get started” (L. Hodnett, personal communication, July 30, 2013)

“How did you become a teacher (J. M. Pabian, personal communication, July 30, 2013)?”

My family was loaded with teachers. And my mother and father thought that was the job, because you’ve got summers off, and if you ever had a family, it’s the perfect job. That was my father’s answer to everything. My father was a cop. But he thought teachers…actually what else can a woman do? Basically, that was his thinking; and then it was true. You never thought about law school. You thought—there were three things available to me when I went to college. I could have been a teacher, a nurse, or typing—a secretary.

And it seemed like that’s what everybody was doing. Those that went to college went with me to a state college. There weren’t many and some of them went into nursing. And the rest….I’m not sure. My friends went to Boston State; a couple of them went to Salem State for teaching. But I think I went to Boston State with about five from my senior class. And….I was the only one who lasted. Maybe there was one other….there were just two of us who lasted. I graduated from college in 1965.

We all had to take a test—the National Teacher’s Exam. And after the National Teacher’s Exam, I had my scores sent to Schofield, and then I got a message to come to the school committee headquarters, and I was interviewed by the whole committee. They all sat there, and I sat in front of them, and they threw questions at me. Friends had told me at school, at Boston State, that there was a new bill out there—the Willis Harrington or something like that—a new education plan out there. I’m not too sure of that name, Maybe…Harrington something, I don’t know. So, they said at school, “You better read up on that, you know, because they’re going to throw some questions at you about that, and you have to be ready for it.” So, we all did. We all read up on it, and I came in front of the school committee and sat down, and they only asked one question: “How do you discipline? Do you yell at them?’ “You know, and I just looked at them, you know.” And, you know, naturally I said. “That’s not discipline.” That’s, you know… “‘Oh, good I agree, I agree.’” That was it. That was my interview. (L. Hodnett, personal communication, July 13, 2013)

“How old were you” (J. M. Pabian, personal communication, July 30, 2013)?

Twenty-one.

I drove down to the Putnam School after I got the job in the springtime to see what it looked like. I don’t think I had ever seen that school before. And so, I drove to the school and took a look, and the kids were out at recess, and I looked at the buildings, and I said, “Hmm….” The school was in the poorest area of Schofield. But anyway, I got a letter from the school committee saying I was assigned to the fourth grade. I said, “Oh good, I think I’d like fourth grade.” Then I got a telephone call from Dr. Howell [principal]. He reassigned me, because somebody else wanted the fourth grade. So

evidently I was low man on the totem pole, which is the way things were run years ago. And so he said, “Second—you’ve got second grade.” So, I said, “oh, alright,” you know. What can I do? I didn’t know anything about anything, so I figured I’m starting out fresh. First question—”When can I come in and get some books?” “What do you want books for?” Alright. And I said, “Well, you know, I’d just like to…” “Oh, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it.” So, I got nothing. (L. Hodgett, personal communication, July 30, 2013)

“What about the first day of school” (J. M. Pabian, personal communication, July 30, 2013)

On the first day of school, we all sat around and, still, I wanted to see my classroom. No, they didn’t show me my room, no, you had to stay there for the meeting. The important thing that they put out was who got…who had to do milk money, who had to do, you know, all those jobs. Someone had to do bulletin boards for the whole school, Maybe it was monthly, I don’t know. And picture money, and whatever else teachers were responsible for….so, I got the milk money. (Sighs)

I don’t even think milk was a nickel. I think it was like three cents, four cents, something like that. The tough part about that is I had to collect the money from everyone, bring it to the bank myself during school hours. I had to go to the bank on Main Street. I had to leave school and get the money to the bank. I could not deposit— because I got pennies, and nickels, and dimes. I could not use that change. I had to transfer it all to bills. So, I used to go home with a pocket full of change. Anyway, every morning the milkman left the milk for 300 kids at my classroom door. You know, I almost always got the count right. My second graders distributed the milk to the classrooms, and when I was short, one of the kids in my room who had paid, gladly donated milk so the numbers matched. I complained about that job when I started to get my…..I complained about that. I think I had it for two years.

I finally saw my classroom. It was the auditorium with the stage up in the back, so during the year, anytime anybody wanted to do anything, I was at the front of the room; all rehearsals and performances were in the back of the room.

I knew nothing about the kids, had no information at that particular time. They hadn’t sorted records and sent anything down to me. And all of a sudden, I noticed, during the day, we were going out to recess, and I noticed going up the stairs, somebody having problems walking. Well, I found out later I had a student that had …I don’t think it was MD, (muscular dystrophy). I had no information about that. He and his brother were in the building together. He was put in my room because there’s no handicap entrances or anything for anyone. And I was downstairs, so he had to crawl up the stairs on his hands and knees. That frightened me. He was a wonderful young boy;

actually, he died five or six years later…. Awful…Very Sad.

“No books?” “No books?” “They’re coming.” “No crayons?” “No pencils?” The Assistant Principal said, “I’ll get to it.” Carole Camuso (a more experienced teacher in the building) came into her classroom. She had a second-grade classroom the year before me; she had books and desks. I didn’t even have desks at the beginning. For a while, my class just sat around on the floor, and then they brought desks down from every classroom in the school. So, I had desks the first day, by the end of the day. Yeah. They brought desks for the classroom. So, what if they were fifth or sixth grade, and my second graders were sitting in them.

There’s…the first year. I was told I had 20 kids. Up to that point, they all had high student numbers. I was hired to bring the numbers down. Yeah. And quite frankly, it hasn’t veered from that much my whole time. That’s the good thing about Schofield (L. Hodgett, personal communication, July 30, 2013)

“Can you describe your relationship with the principal during that first year?” (J. M. Pabian, personal communication, July 30, 2013)

Dr. Howell wrote our evaluations; we never saw anything. He used to come and stand at my door. And, seems like I wore short skirts, so…that was on my evaluation. And it wasn’t a negative thing. And, again, that was my evaluation. He never saw a lesson. I never got copies of evaluations. If you wanted to see them, you had to go up to the main office. Yeah. That’s what he told me verbally.

Yeah. And then, he used to come in with a yardstick and measure my skirt to see if it got any shorter. But he was just kidding around. Education man… He was a nice, older man, let’s put it that way. I liked him, you know. He didn’t know what I did. I didn’t know what he did. I didn’t know what to expect at that time. If I walked into something like that now, I probably….but then I just figured, well, that’s the way, you know? I know what I’m doing. I’m doing my job.

If something bothered me, if I didn’t feel right about something…, I’d go to Carole Camuso or Paula Brodette….they were a year ahead of me, and they had a year’s more experience than me. And they were in the third grade at that point, so I used to say, “Well, I’m doing this with the second graders. Does this get them ready for your third grade?”That’s all we had years ago. And we made…, and I am still close friends with those people. And thank God there was a group of us like that because, if there wasn’t, it would have been a horrible job. (L. Hodnett, personal communication, Ju;y 30, 2013)

Historian, Richard Altenbaugh (1992) points out:

Students, and often administrators, were transient, but teachers likely remained “in their classrooms and school buildings year after year, sometimes decade after decade” (Altenbaugh, 1992a, p. 1). In that unique position, they witnessed continuity and change in school policies; pedagogical theories and practices; student attitudes and cultures; and family roles, values and structure. They seldom remained passive; as historical actors, they shaped schooling in many different ways (Altenbaugh, 1992a; Cuban, 1993; Johnson, 1984; Montgomery, 1981. (2)

Mrs. Hodnett was more than honest in noting that, “I can’t wait to get started.” Over the course of three interviews, she maintained a spirited focus as she catalyzed a nuanced dance between her experiences and the passage of time. She conducted an orchestra of memory as backstory, and personal testimony resounded against a backdrop of authenticity. We learn of a cascade of calamities, where preparation for teaching matters little in a workplace overseen by an administrator who utilizes fear, autocratic incompetence, and sexist behavior, shielded behind the curtain of a doctoral degree in oratory arts. Her phrases imply resignation and regret concerning her choice of profession, her role in the school, and her exposure to workplace culture and conditions at the school.

More from Mrs. Hodnett: Dads as Heroes

Our final portrait of Mrs. Linda Hodnett is one of an experienced, city teacher who has changed schools and forged a long and successful career working with children. Years of experience have brought her to a place at the turn of the 21st century, where her notions of family expand to include all people who come together to form a unit based on love and caring for one another. She speaks fondly of Rasheed.

I was able to observe Rasheed in the second grade before me, and he had a real difficult time with the classroom, with the teacher, and I guess it was easy for the teacher to send him out. I am usually very good with these kids, and my thought is when I found out I was getting Rasheed. He had missed a year of school. So, I thought to myself, wow, I’m going to have to not only watch the discipline but also make up for what he missed in the second grade. So, I don’t know whether I saw the father or one of the fathers the first day of school and, you know, he came up and was pleasant. Dressed very nicely. And I told him, I said, you know, “I’m going to need your support for Rasheed to make it through the third grade.” He said, “We’re willing to do anything.” So I said, “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

And…Yes. You know, again, the other teacher I just felt was a phony….she claimed he scared her. Rasheed had come a long way. When he entered the school,

he was put in the program for emotionally damaged children. He and his brother had been…you know, sexually abused and nearly starved to death by parents on drugs.

So, these two young guys come along, and they save these kids. I don’t think they were used as a resource by the second-grade teacher except when Rasheed got into huge problems; then they had to come up. But anyway, you know, and starting right off at the very beginning, they were the best resources .Another great resource is having a phone in the room. I don’t use it to call parents; I have the children call their parents. Rasheed was willing to do anything except work, ok? And would use any excuse when it came to homework with dad at home, the dads at home. “We don’t have homework; we don’t have anything to do.” You know? I needed to hold him accountable for his work. So, and into school he comes, “Uhh, the dog ate my homework” or something like that. Likable, though and very, very smart. And he would hold on. I would say “the dog?” or whatever it was….”Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Till it came to the point where, “Better call your father.” “He’s not at work today.” “He’s not? Just call anyway so I can know.” He cried; he called the dad. I got on the telephone the last minute with the dad. He said “I’m sorry.” I said “Eh—I’ll send it home tonight. Tonight, he has two ‘homeworks to do.” Okay. So, and there was a homework book that went home every single night. I wrote in the homework book, the dad would write in the homework book, so I would know exactly what was going on. And I had the code. And I had sent the code home. And they wrote on the thing that they would be glad to help in any way. Please let them know if anything’s going on. And Rasheed…you know, his marks were Bs and Cs when he left and, quite frankly, he could have been As if he put a little effort into it. He got along well with the kids .Whenever he demonstrated mastery in something, I let him help other kids. He will be a politician someday, I suppose. (L. Hodnett, personal communication, July 30, 2013)

This excerpt is taken from the third interview with Mrs. Hodnett. I asked her to look back on students who stood out in her memory. Rasheed came to mind immediately. She places the story as taking place in either 2003 or 2004, 20 years after she was transferred from the Putnam to the Hawthorne School and occurring in her 40th year of teaching, She is a good storyteller, and her anecdotes are colored with crisp dialogue, ironic twists, and clichés that Portelli (1994) referred to as “a personal effort at composition in performance” (p. 24). She establishes for herself and her audience the dialogic manner in which she will make meaning from her experience with Rasheed and his family. She has told us about the professional pride she takes in teaching children who challenge other teachers. “I am usually very good with these kids, and my thought is when I found out I was getting Rasheed, he had missed a year of school” (L. Hodnett, personal communication, July 30, 2013).

It is evident that Mrs. Hodnett likes Rasheed and expects him to do well. However, she has more to say as she embraces a complex notion of personal courage. She tells us a story

about heroism as two fathers become life savers for two abused children. Mrs. Hodnett, whose career has spanned four decades, finds a moment when her personal view of family connects to the reality of Rasheed’s life with his two dads. She escapes the confines of her classroom, becoming in the narrative a protagonist who understands this transformational moment in social history. Utilizing the genre of history-telling, Hodnett provides readers with a vibrant, gritty, dialogue, connecting subject-related biography to theme-related testimony…her Life ANDTimes.

Implications for Further Work

Having worked in and around public-school classrooms for over half a century, I certainly have my own recollections regarding meaningful moments working with students. Due to the pandemic, in my current role of program supervisor for teacher candidates at the Graduate School of Education, I was charged with observing teacher candidates and their students using ZOOM. The teacher candidate, demonstrating mastery of cooperative learning using break out rooms, had her 5th graders involved in a jigsaw focused on the Bill of Rights. I was able to travel with the teacher into one of these rooms, where the kids were creating a poem based on their knowledge regarding Freedom of Speech. As the activity moved forward, a young man announced that he would be leaving the group because as he clearly stated, “I have been wanting to clean my room, so I’ll see you all later.” The work continued, but the world had changed or had it? For decades, students have in one way or another demonstrated their immunity to efforts at engaging them…that wasn’t new; however, with the click of a mouse, this fifth grader left the “building” to engage in a task loathed by most children his age.

This snapshot is pure anecdote. Educational researchers, Dougherty (1999) and Altenbaugh (1997), tell us that oral history holds promise as an effective method of inquiry for educational research. However, they cautioned researchers that oral history will remain merely a series of anecdotes until researchers develop a conceptual framework for analysis of oral data. I am betting on the power of story seen through a generic framework of Life AND Times to bring the lives of teachers and their work into high definition. Nobody asked me, but teachers earn the right to tell their own stories.

References

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. John Michael “Mike” Pabian is a career educator, who, after graduating from Boston College in 1972, served 34 years as a teacher, athletic coach, assistant principal, and principal in the Somerville, Massachusetts School District. Mike entered the field of higher education in 2004 as an instructor at the Lesley University School of Education, where he also earned a doctoral degree in 2014. Mike’s dissertation, ElementaryVoices ofCityTeachers, examined, through the lens of oral history, the lives and careers of four female classroom teachers, who worked in urban schools between the years of 1964 and 2014. Beyond his work as an educator, Mike has served as a consultant in the fields of curriculum design and media literacy for the A&E television network, Time Warner Cable, and Turner Learning. A winner of three Crystal Apples and the A&E Network’s National Teacher award, he has won acclaim for his work on integrating technology into middle school classrooms. Mike has also been the recipient of a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his study of the Negro Baseball Leagues. While at Lesley, Mike has developed and taught both online and face-to-face courses in social studies integration, practicum/seminar, and baseball and the American experience. More recently, he has presented his research on philosophy and baseball at the Cooperstown Symposium for Baseball and American Culture. He resides in Bedford, Massachusetts with his wife, Clare.

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