Inspired by the OHMA workshop “Empowering Youth Through Indigenous Stories” with Sara Sinclair and Suzanne Methot, Margie Cook decided to try her hand at creating teaching materials designed to empower fellow oral historians. 

As oral historians, our responsibilities are manifold: we’re accountable to our narrators, the communities they are a part of, and more often than not, we are responsible for shepherding our narrators’ oral histories into repositories or other archives adhering to the principles of ongoing consent, transparency, and ethical codes so that others can listen and learn from their stories in years to come. We also spend a great deal of time thinking about and discussing the practice of reciprocity and the many shapes and forms it may take, informed by the communities in which we work. Earlier this year, our Oral History Fieldwork class was assigned to read the article, “Good Intentions: Grappling with Legacies of Conflict and Distrust Surrounding a Native American Oral History Project One Generation Later” by Melanie Shell-Weiss. 

For those unfamiliar with the piece, it’s a cautionary tale about the Grand Rapids Native American Oral History Project (NAOHP) that fell disastrously short in its commitment to the West Michigan Native American community whose oral histories were being collected for posterity. The NAOHP was conducted by the predominantly white staff of the Grand Rapids Public Library (GRPL) in the early 1970s; many of the best practices we’ve developed through trial and error had yet to be considered, much less put into practice. Educational booklets were produced from these collected oral histories, edited and authored by a non-Native academic. Eventually, they were culled together and published as The Tree That Never Dies: Oral History of the Michigan Indians. 

I revisited Shell-Weiss’ piece again after the OHMA workshop “Empowering Youth Through Indigenous Stories” with Sara Sinclair and Suzanne Methot. What I found compelling about their work together—Sinclair as the editor of the Voice of Witness book, How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America and Methot as the curriculum specialist who developed free lesson plans for teachers as an accompaniment to the book—was how they used oral histories as a foundation to create educational materials “designed to challenge oppressive power dynamics.” 

I appreciated that as an indigenous interviewer-editor, Sinclair honored the life stories of her narrators by presenting them not as victims, but as powerful individuals, helping to restore the collective memory of these communities that were fractured and disrupted by colonialism—and as an indigenous educator, Methot could draw on her extensive experience working on issues that impact Indigenous communities to craft curricula for the classroom setting. Unlike the GRPL who recruited a non-Native academic unfamiliar with the practices and customs of the West Michigan Native American tribe to work on what would become The Tree That Never Dies, Methot and Sinclair continue to challenge long out-dated norms in academia while upholding key tenets of reciprocity: together they act as a conduit for these stories—with integrity and respect always at top of mind—to help to fill a substantial gap in academic and mainstream discourse surrounding the “Native American Story.” Both books are geared towards using

oral history as a foundation for educational purposes. As the success of How We Go Home demonstrates, much has changed in the discipline since the 1970s, but like Shell-Weise points out in her piece: 

“Debates concerning appropriate research methods for carrying out interviews, including consent processes and ownership, still present challenges in interdisciplinary settings, even though best practices for collecting Native American oral histories today are well defined.” 

Inspired by the lesson plans Methot created, and the philosophy that informs them (they are at once self-reflexive and very accessible), I was motivated by my responsibility as an oral historian to continue facilitating and expanding the conversation around reciprocity and using oral history as a vehicle to challenge oppressive power dynamics. I’ve selected one of Methot’s lesson plans and adapted it for other oral historians (or anyone curious for that matter!) in hopes of fostering new insights in their own work. 

What I propose through the accompanying lesson plan, in keeping with Methot’s curricula; reflexive and approachable, is to continue our efforts to improve Oral History best practices. Not only from an Indigenous-context, but for the field-at-large. If I could riff on a current meme making its rounds on the Internet: "How it started vs How it's going": GRPL's project would be how-it-started and How We Go Home and the curricula it inspired would be how-it's-going. In other words, these are two contrasting bookends of a particular debate around the intersection of academia, consent, and oral history (and to no lesser extent its effect on indigenous communities and their collective histories). It’s a debate that is by no means over yet, but has vastly improved since GRPL’s doomed attempt at collecting Native American oral histories. 

Disclaimer: I want to make known this is a thoroughly unscientific interpretation based on my own experience and knowledge. More than anything, I intend these exercises to be fun, playful, and in the true spirit of oral history, to do no harm. 

Margie Cook is a current OHMA student. She works for the Arts and Culture arm of the Brooklyn Public Library where she has led and supported programs aimed at promoting cultural inclusivity through the free exchange of knowledge.