My Story Matters: History Takes the Stage

Bess O'Brien and eight students spent April 8 crafting a provocative and entertaining revue that wrapped up the big conference. Tackling three big issues -- the arts, gay marriage, and violence -- the students on stage took on the personas of figures from earlier days, and commented audaciously in those voices.

Bess, who is an award-winning film and stage director and producer, e-mailed afterward: Thank you! The kids were great and it was a lot of fun!

Here's the list of contemporary issues that the group first brainstormed:

*First Black President
*Gay Marriage
*Intelligent Design -- Texas
*Child Left Behind -- education
*Invasion of Iraq/Bombs/North Korea
*Religion Reform/Separation of Church & State
*Immigration
*Economy and Recession
*Jazz or Hip Hop/Rap
*Texting/cell phone/language/twittering/FaceBook/MySpace
*Shootings/Hand guns/Video games/aggressive games
*Global warming & how it is affecting VT: sugaring / Burlington Best City
*Divorce

Sounds global to me ... Then participants brought out figures from history and wrestled with what they did and didn't know about those other times and voices, to come up with dramatic streams of commentary:

Charlotte Bronte - writer - "Jane Eyre" - 1700s
Obama - first Black President - 2009
Duke Ellington - jazz - piano / Duke Ellington orchestra / speakeasy
Martin Luther 1600 - brought on Protestant Reform./Catholic reform
Henry VIII - six wives -- ruled England - 1400s? - started Church of England - wanted to divorce wife Anne
Jesus Christ - the son of God - Messiah - can walk on water?
Winston Churchill - Second World War - Lead - Prime Minister England
Hitler - We knew! - Evil -- World War II -- very smart! - he wanted to go to art school and Dad wouldn't let him
Anne Frank - World War II - teen who wrote book!
Harriet Tubman - Underground Railroad, African
Clara Barton - Civil War - started the Red Cross
Whoopi Goldberg - Sister Act, Color Purple -- Canadian, lived in Vt
Madonna - major rock star
Hillary Clinton - first feminist candidate - Sec'y of State
John Lennon - Beatle -- assasinated ... conspiracy?
Abe Lincoln - major - top hat - Civil War - end of slavery
Albert Einstein - major inventor - Special Theory of Relativity/Newton idea/The Bomb, E = MC2
George Washington - first President of United States
Kennedy -- 1960s - assassinated, 1963 -- Catholic
Shakespeare - major playwright
Roosevelt?
Oscar Wilde - gay playwright
George Bernard Shaw - major playwright
Sylvia Plath - daring poet - 1950s - Bell Jar - committed suicide - Ted Hughes
Virginia Wolfe - "Mrs. Dalloway" - committed suicide

Special moments that hit me hard were listening to "Sylvia Plath" give advice about avoiding violence; John Lennon pleading for peace; Madonna on "the arts." What did you hear or say?

[Hey Alexis -- thanks for letting us use the conga drum! It added a lot ...]

Were You There on April 8? Your Story Matters!

[photo: Melody Walker brings her Wabanaki life to the stage as the conference keynote]
We had 181 people at My Story Matters, the first history conference for high school students and teachers held at Lyndon State College on April 8. A hundred and thirty-six of the people there were students -- awesome!

Were you there? Did you cook with Lauren Anderson, sort through Census records with Tony Booth, try out some interviewing with Peggy Sapphire? It would be great to hear from you if you worked with Caro Thompson on how to generate compelling video, or with Cyndy Bittinger on the "what if" of Grace Coolidge, Dorothy Thompson, and Anne Frank. More, more, more!

So use the Comments button here, and make your voice heard. Keep an eye on the blog, too, because soon we'll be able to post links to the amazing narratives that some of you recorded in the My Story Matters History Booth.

I'm counting on you to speak up. Beth