This digital story recording was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student documentary initiative, called "Stories: Yes." The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
Students in Campbell County, Tennessee, worked with the Campbell County Historical Society in Lafollette to produce this story about education and learning in the past compared to classrooms today.
Narrator (00:20): Our stories surround us in many forms. We find them in well-crafted books about long-kept family secrets. In stories of hidden heritage, hard times, good times, forgotten peoples, and life threatening situations. Our stories are written within the margins of small diaries and daily journals. They are found in photo collections and manuscripts, reflecting the routine and the special experiences of life in Appalachia. Composers tell our stories through the sounds of their music and the words of their lyrics. Our stories walk the stage in original plays by local playwrights. They live on painted walls and are embroidered into handmade quilts. The bits and pieces of our stories are discovered in yellow newspapers and among treasured letters, home. There are so many ways to learn our stories, but best of all, our stories are carried in the memories of our people linked to the past and intertwined with the present, with hints and lessons for our future stories. By looking at what was and what is, we can plan for our communities of tomorrow in the place we call home.
Narrator (01:43): So we listen, we learn, and we prepare ourselves to live the best stories we can. When we set out to learn about and compare educational systems of yesteryear to our own experiences today, we discovered that reading, writing, and arithmetic are only parts of schooling in an Appalachian rural community. They are important, but back in the day, an 80-year-old minister learned that you can talk to your tomatoes, a teacher learned that relatives are neighbors and neighbors are relatives, a judge learned that the electric pedal is fiction, and a mayor learned that a stubborn 600 pound farm animal can be a good teacher. Even borrowing a hen's egg to swap for a bag of candy and daydreaming are good tools for working out the challenges of growing up.
Donnie Poston (02:38): All children come with different personalities and one of the things I've learned so much, over the years, the training that I used to seek out would be like, as far as a graduate work and those types of, what do my kids need more from me? Not so much that I've got a degree at the end of my name with adding money. What can... What additional training do I need to help meet some of those personality issues, some of those character things that people would consider flaws? What can I be to them, to help them to absolutely have a good experience? You know, the least restricted environment that they have does not come easy. And so it takes a lot of preparation as an educator, as a parent, as just a friend.
Jordan Heatherly (03:32): With us also with learning disabilities, do you think it is easier without them to teach them or do you think it's just pretty much the same and you just kind of have to handle it a little bit different?
Jordan Heatherly (03:32): With us also with learning disabilities, do you think it is easier without them to teach them or do you think it's just pretty much the same and you just kind of have to handle it a little bit different?
Asset ID: 2022.09.01
Find a complete transcript: www.museumonmainstreet.org
