By Jeff Murphy,
May 5, 2017
WARRENSBURG, MO (May 5, 2017) – History books are helpful, but when it comes to studying
about the Vietnam War, nothing beats the opportunity to learn about the event than
stories shared by the men and women who actually experienced it. Bringing a real-life
perspective to their history studies, Warrensburg High School sophomores this spring
participated in an innovative program with the University of Central Missouri that
allowed them to learn from and share the stories of Vietnam veterans and other individuals
who lived in the war era.
The project involved 85 students who created reports based on interviews they conducted
with primary sources that included family members and other individuals who either
served in the war or knew people who served. Project direction was provided by their
teacher, Abby Allen, with support by UCM faculty members and students in the Department
of History, Anthropology, Africana Studies and Social Studies.
The high school students’ efforts also coincided with the UCM McClure-Archives and
University Museum’s designation by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) as
a Vietnam Commemorative Partner. As such, the university is playing a role in gathering
and sharing veterans’ stories leading up to the nation’s 50th anniversary observance
of the Vietnam War in 2025. Furthering these educational efforts, UCM will host The
Wall That Heals, a mobile half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The
Wall), in Washington, D.C., June 29-July 2.
“The biggest thing I was able to take away from this experience is a different perspective…because
on my own I would have never done this,” said Ashtyn Bevans, a student in Allen’s
World History honors course who participated in the interview project. On April 26,
she was one of 12 students who made presentations before her classmates and a group
of UCM faculty, staff, students in the school library.
“Honestly, when you think about war, it doesn’t seem like a real thing,” Bevans shared,
commenting from information limited to mostly what she has read in school. “But,”
she added, “this made it feel more real and I was able to understand Vietnam in a
totally different way.”
In what UCM educators term “doing history,” the program gave Bevans and her classmates
the opportunity to expand their knowledge of the Vietnam War beyond their textbooks
by learning from veterans whom they interviewed in person and by phone during the
spring. While reaching out to veterans, Allen’s students said they made many personal
connections with those they interviewed. They learned a lot about the war, but in
many cases, more about the individuals with whom they spoke and their roles in war.
In their reports, the students noted a variety of exchanges – sometimes tearful –
about the physical and emotional scars of war. They heard stories about what it was
like to lose former high school classmates and fellow soldiers. They also learned
about the war’s psychological effects and the kinds of injuries that follow soldiers
home. Some individuals who were interviewed even shared less-frequently-told stories
about their encounters with a beautiful Vietnam landscape.
While a number of students spoke about grandparents they interviewed, they noted the
interview experience gave them an opportunity to hear their family members open up
about a topic they had seldom discussed with them previously.
“I got a lot out of this because I know my Papa so well, and I got to hear all these
stories I have never heard before. It was so interesting to think about all the things
he went through that I was completely unaware of,” said Grace Kennedy, who interviewed
her grandfather, David Rest, a retired U.S. Air Force veteran from Warrensburg.
Allen’s students entered the project by learning interviewing techniques from UCM
students who were enrolled in a social studies course taught by Star Nance, assistant
professor in education. The curriculum that was used by Nance’s students was modeled
after a curriculum that Amber Clifford-Napoleone, associate professor of anthropology
and director of the McClure-Archives and University Museum, shared with her ethnography
students. Consistent with the cooperative partnership with the DoD, Clifford-Napoleone’s
students have been interviewing area veterans on video during 2016-2017 in cooperation
with UCM’s public television station, KMOS-TV.
“These interviews will be available to the public when The Wall that Heals is on campus
as part of a kiosk at the McClure Archives and University Museum exhibition ‘Commemoration,’”
Clifford-Napoleone said.
Nance noted that the WHS-UCM project benefits university students who are preparing
to become teachers as well as the high students.
“From my perspective, this is a service learning project. My students are learning
pedagogy, then they are implementing the pedagogy, and watching high school students
do the same thing,” Nance noted. But she added that the opportunity for WHS sudents
to speak with veterans is a valuable learning tool.
“The more you can help students learn about what happened in different eras and times,
and put a real person with it, the better they will learn the content,” she remarked.
Allen said the opportunity to participate and interest shown by students “makes me
feel validated and really great” as their teacher. She will help ensure the student
work and knowledge of the Vietnam War is not forgotten.
As she noted, “In the classroom, the students have written their finals. The information
they have will be documented. I will show them how to archive their audio files so
they can be accessed 20 years from now.”
