Carlos in the Spotlight

“Let’s try creating a round robin story today,” said Carlos’s fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Wade. “That’s a kind of story where one person starts off with a few sentences, then a new person tells the next part. We pass the story on, until the last storyteller ends it.”

She looked around at the class and asked, “Who wants to start?”

Hands shot up, but Carlos made himself as small as he could in his seat in the back row, hoping he wouldn’t get picked.

At home, Carlos never stopped talking. There, he spoke Spanish. Everyone else did, too: his parents, his older brother Luis, neighbors in the building, even other people on the block.

When he was home, Carlos told fantastic stories and made everyone laugh. But every day on the bus ride to school, he lost his voice.

It wasn’t that Carlos couldn’t speak English. He was born in the Bronx and knew English as well as he did Spanish. He even translated for his parents whenever they needed help. But in school, the words didn’t come.

Could it be that his English got used up when he was helping his parents? Or maybe his brain got tired of switching back and forth? Sometimes, he worried that the other kids would laugh at the accent that sneaked into his voice when he got excited.

All Carlos knew was that he just felt too shy to talk in class, to be in the spotlight.

But now Ms. Wade was looking right at him. “Carlos, I know from our writing assignments that you like telling stories. That one about the talking banana made me laugh so hard!”

Carlos kept his head down but, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other kids turn and stare.

“A talking banana?” cried Elena, who sat in front of Carlos. She turned around and giggled, “I want to hear that one!”

“Me, too,” shouted Duane, the class clown, from his seat in the front row. “That sounds bananas!”

Ms. Wade shushed Duane but was smiling when she turned again to Carlos.

“So, would you like to start, Carlos, or would you rather be one of our listeners today?” Ms. Wade asked.

Carlos looked around, and saw all the kids waiting for his story, with smiles as wide as Ms. Wade’s. He opened his mouth to say, “I’ll just listen.” But that’s not what came out. Instead, Carlos heard himself begin, “Once there was a talking banana in Ms. Wade’s class. He sat right in the front row.”

Carlos heard Duane snicker, but it was a good sound—a happy, laugh-together kind of sound, not the kind Carlos worried about.

“That banana was always bragging,” Carlos continued. “One day, the banana told everyone that he could jump over the tallest kid in class. Now, this banana was a tiny little plátano, and the tallest kid in class was… so tall her head touched the ceiling!” he announced. “Ten feet tall! But that banana didn’t care. He waited until recess, yelled ‘Banana-rana-fo-fana!’ and ran straight at that ten-foot-tall kid, and then…”

Carlos stopped.

Half the class was laughing. The others shouted, “Then what? What happened? !”

Ms. Wade held up her hands and said, “Quiet, everyone! We’ll find out when the round robin ends.” She winked at Carlos, then said, “Elena, maybe you can take the next part.”

Carlos sat back in his seat, feeling ten feet tall himself. He had found his voice!

Oral Histories

Everyone has stories to tell. When we share our stories with others, we give them a peek into how we have become who we are.

Coralie Carlson was a journalist. For her job, she researched important things that were happening and wrote about them, so everyone could know about what was going on in the world. One of the reasons she liked her job was that she got to ask people questions and hear them tell their stories.

"It’s an insight into whole other worlds that you never would have known existed before,” she said. “I find it fascinating.”

It's not just journalists who ask people questions and listen to their stories. Anyone can interview another person about his or her experiences. When a person does this and records the answers, it's called collecting an oral history. An oral history can be recorded with an audio recorder, a video camera, or by writing down what a person says.

Ms. Carlson collected an oral history from her mother-in-law. She learned about the 71-year-old’s memories of growing up in Bulgaria during World War II. Without the oral history, those memories could be lost.

“It’s not until you get down to the level of a person’s story that you really understand what happened,” Ms. Carlson said. “It brings things to life.”

One famous oral historian was named Studs Terkel. He interviewed men and women from all walks of life. In one of his books, Working, he interviewed a wide variety of people about their jobs. He spoke to them about what they did for work and how they felt about it. In the book, he wrote down their words exactly as they were said.

He interviewed a farmer who spoke about worrying that the weather might hurt his crop. A sanitation worker talked about how exhausted his job made him. A welder spoke about how much he enjoyed working with his hands.

Mr. Terkel said he was especially interested in the uncelebrated people who “never made the traditional history books” when he was interviewed by the Chicago History Museum.

Mr. Terkel believed that learning about people’s experiences was important. He said it could help us avoid repeating past mistakes.

One organization, StoryCorps, encourages everyone to become an oral historian. StoryCorps operates recording studios where people can bring someone they know or would like to know better, and interview that person. StoryCorps sends a copy of each interview to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., where it is archived.

As of 2013, StoryCorps had collected more than 45,000 interviews. The organization says the interviews help people become more connected and remind them of their “shared humanity.” Historians of the future will be able to use the archive to understand the experiences of people today.

StoryCorps suggests that participants prepare a list of questions to ask during their interviews. For example, a son can ask his mother what has been the happiest moment in her life. He can ask her what person has had the biggest influence on her and how her life has turned out differently from what she expected.

Some young people use the interviews to learn more about their family history. Oral history can be a great way to learn about family members you never had the chance to meet.

Each year, StoryCorps organizes a National Day of Listening on the day after Thanksgiving. People who participate record an interview with someone they care about. The organizers say it is a good way to celebrate the holiday season. They say sharing memories can be a better gift than the kinds of presents you wrap in wrapping paper.