St. John Bosco CC ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Recording our Past

History is all around you We all live in communities with "elderly" people. One day those people will be us! One day someone will say to you for the first time "was it like that in your day?"! Elderly people are an incredibly important source of historical memory. They are our links with a time which is long gone in Ireland and the world. They are the people who survived without a mobile phone, without television, who drew water from a well, got an orange for Christmas, received Physical Punishment in school, had to bring a sod of turf to school every day, and had to walk the 5 miles to get there! To name just a few things.

Learning Intention To carry out an interview with an elderly person- a family member, neighbour, family friend. To find out as much as possible from them about their memories of growing up, what school was like, what pastimes they had, what Ireland was like, etc. To record this interview using some form of digital media. Doing this Project should prove helpful in 3rd Year when you study the section called "Social Change in 20th Century Ireland", which is about how the way people live has changed".

Recording Options Audio- Use some sound recording device. This could be your smartphone or any other sound recording device. Audio-Visual: Again this could be the video function on your smartphone, or a camcorder, etc. Finished interviews should be able to be emailed to me to an address you will get at a later point. Alternatively I will accept it on a memory key but I'd rather not (I don't particularly want to have to deal with dozens of memory keys, plus there are virus issues about that!)

As a last resort I will accept a written interview (i. e As a last resort I will accept a written interview (i.e.: written answers to questions asked), but you will lose marks for this because the point of this project is use of digital media for history! So, come up with solutions to any challenges this may present- don't just say you "can't". The finished recording should be approx. 10-15 mins long at least. Your interview can be a "general" interview about various topics and memories or, the person might have particularly interesting memories of a particular aspect of their younger life (perhaps their memories of their work, their memories of serving in the army, etc, their memories of farming in their childhood for instance) so you might decide to just focus on one such area. It's up to you!

Give it time! Working on something like this takes time. You can't bombard an elderly person with loads of questions. Actually the point is not to ask loads of questions- the point is to ask a few important ones and then allow the person to do the rest, ie: talk! So begin by seeing if they are willing to work with you. Then get some ideas from others about what you could ask them. Then arrange when you will first interview them (remember this might require 2 or 3 visits). Perhaps the first time you might decide not to record anything, just to get a feel for things. Or you may decide to just record everything and edit afterwards. Remember it's up to you- you are in charge. You are the historian on this one!

Overview This will be worth 25% of your FEBRUARY MID-TERM! Yes, you read that correctly. This deserves time to do it well and it should not impact on your Christmas Exams. However, the deadline will be towards the end of January. A few students will be chosen to give make a presentation to the class on their Research. You are getting that time because you NEED that time to do it well! You can work on this with one other student if you wish ( i.e.: 2 students producing one interview) Obviously, the older the person is the better in terms of when they will be talking about. At the very least you should be looking to interview someone born in the 1940's- but earlier is even better.

Data Protection Any recordings are for School Assessment purposes only and will not be published or broadcast. It is important that you inform your interview subject of this. On your recording it should clearly say YOUR NAME, INTERVIEWEE'S NAME, AND THE DATE/LOCATION OF INTERVIEW.