DISCOVERY PROJECTS

An Interview with Sara Pulaski
Teacher, Twinfield Union School, Vermont

We were so intrigued by Sarah's ability to evolve her project that went to interview her. The following is excerpted from that interview conducted by Gregory Sharrow, April 12, 2005

"And looking at how you can manipulate information was sort of terrifying. That there isn’t really a true picture that isn’t constructed by somebody else. So if you are creating a tribute to a person or aspects of a person, it’s an illustration of a person, it is not—it is not that person."

Sarah Pulaski: I took the Institute [Discovering Community] and I liked it so much that I wanted to integrate things. I tried to pull as many components as I could together and I didn't even think about it. I just really-I was profoundly moved by the power of audio and what that can do and the intimacy that you can have with a voice. That was key for me, allowing people to listen to the voices that the kids chose I thought was really, really key and very important for validating them and their experience and validating the community. One of the things I went into the whole process thinking about was honoring our community and really looking at who is here and honoring all those people.

I knew that I would be teaching a unit I hadn't taught before and so I had been kind of grappling with that, you know, from June on. Like, I've got to teach this history unit. I haven't done this before. And so I thought, okay, this is a way I can go into it. So the initial thing was looking at the towns and doing it in a new way.

There wasn't that much of a planning process. I took the components that I wanted, and then I had Maria, who is this phenomenal person I work with. She's a librarian and the media person at the school and she does a lot of work with technology, and she had wanted to take the course. So I felt kind of fearless because she's such a wonderful person. I knew she would help me make it happen, she would help me put pieces into place.

And I didn't even know that John [the music teacher] was as great as he was until we talked and he was like, “Yeah, I'm taking this on.” I didn't even know he had all these-he has done all this work with sound editing and he has a little recording studio in his classroom. He has kids recording rap, you know, and making their own CDs in his classroom. So it was just like a harmonic convergence. And then my teammate Peter was teaching fourth grade for the first time and he was like, “Okay, whatever you want to do, I'll do it.” I had all these people who were helping.

So I talked to Marie and I said, “This is what I want to do. I want to do this Teacher in the Community thing.” And she was like, “Great! Let's go for it.” And I had it planned and going before the school year started and I actually said in my letter-because I always send a letter to my new students-I said this is the project. And I explained it to the parents. I had them try to have somebody selected even before the school year started, so we hit the ground running, right at the beginning of the school year.

But we were weaving in a lot of things because we did a whole Vermont history piece. And at the same time we were visiting the towns and learning about the history of the towns and doing all these different field trips and doing the writing pieces, too, so there was a lot going on. If we had just been doing the audio pieces and the interviews I don't think that would have taken us as long. If that had been in isolation, I think it would probably have taken us about a month.

Because to edit the pieces...there was thirteen-fourteen-in my class at that time and fourteen in Peter's class, and each of our classes were editing for like an hour a day for a week. And then they went back for a second week, for stragglers or kids who were absent or kids who struggled. And we made a lot of mistakes. There were some really basic things that we could have done that we didn't do. Like we should have had Audacity [the audio editing program] up on the LCD projector and just showed the kids how to do it. But instead we had them all at their computers and we were trying to explain it and run from kid to kid. Those kinds of bungling things that I wouldn't do next time.

And it was interesting to see who the kids picked [for their teacher in the community]. I mean, most kids picked their parents, but there were other kids who picked day care providers who were really key in their life. And there was a forester. And one kid chose her sister. So that was really interesting. And one girl, she's an amazing kid, wanted to choose nature and have nature's role in the community. And I was like, “Yes! Of course!” We could record the sounds of the wind, you know, we could record the sounds of water and have it be this whole far-out thing. But instead I pushed her to do a person because I was thinking ethnography, people, you know.

When I look at it [the Teachers in My Community project] I think it was validating for the kids because they all brought forth some part of themselves and some part of their life that they thought was really important. So in that sense, I think, it was them showing what their piece of the community was, and in that way it had value. And it was a nice lens to look at local history through, that this is history, what's happening right now is history. What's happening with your grandma, with her cool flame decals on her truck. That's part of our town history, and she's a happening person now, you know. But I think for the kids it was hard for them to see the relevance to academics because their lives feel very separate somehow from what happens in school. I don't know, it's hard to put in words. Do you know what I'm saying?

Greg Sharrow (interviewer): That their lives are important.

Sarah: Right. They are history and they are the community and it's not some-it's not just the firemen and the policemen and the town clerk's office, it's the people who live in these apartments and those houses and that farm and the people who move in and out and the home schoolers. You know, it's everybody.

As far as the audio editing part, I don't know if the final product really reflects what the kids chose that well because they were just getting used to the technology. I mean, with some of the kids, they got it, but with some of the other kids, you know, they were kind of muddling through and just splicing something together, and so it just ended up being like an accident or accidental art. But a lot of the kids, with the imagining their towns in the future piece, which was the writing piece, they got a lot out of that. I had them-and this was through the course, too-imagining one thing that you would like to see change with our towns and imagining what the ripple effects would be and how that would change everything. That was really tangible for them.

But the ethnography piece, I guess I was uncomfortable with it in the course. The idea of recording people and that whole thing was really a turnoff, honestly, when I first got to the course. Because it just feels so invasive. Like I feel like there's a barrier and there's privacy and so that sort of went against my grain a little bit, and I was turned off to the whole idea of ethnography. But then as we got into looking at it my whole idea of what history is and community is really changed, and I saw the value of doing it in an authentic way and having good techniques for doing it. So it started to make a lot more sense to me. I don't know if I'm making sense, but it became appealing and the importance of documenting people's lives in an objective and an accurate way seemed very important, you know, without skewing it.

And looking at how you can manipulate information was sort of terrifying. That there isn't really a true picture that isn't constructed by somebody else. So if you are creating a tribute to a person or aspects of a person, it's an illustration of a person, it is not-it is not that person. There was something disturbing about that because you'd have to have a lot of trust in the artist who was constructing the project, but, by the same token, it seemed so much more like an art form and I could appreciate that. I just equated it with painting or writing a memoir or something like that. Then it didn't seem like a violation of somebody. It was like a portrait.

The whole project was just fun to do, you know, and the technology is not overwhelming. It's usable and I have it and I know how to use it. It's a nice to integrate the technology and it's a nice way of giving kids another way to present.

But the kids just did a wonderful job and they were kind of fearless with the whole thing. They ended up making really nice projects and they did very, very well. And I was very moved that so many people came out for this. You know, all of these people participated in this and they signed the releases and they were willing to go on the web, you know, and give their time. That was very touching, that people were so generous. And I think that that's something that should be said, just a thank you to the people in the community, in the Twinfield community, for being teachers in the community and for giving their time. And to the kids for doing such an awesome job.

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