David Isay, founder of StoryCorps, talks to Michele Skalicky about The Great Thanksgiving Listen.
Skalicky: we're talking today about the great Thanksgiving. Listen, for people who don't know what that is, what is the great Thanksgiving? Listen.
Isay: Hi, Michele. The Great Thanksgiving Listen is a tradition that we started 11 years ago when we developed the StoryCorps app. Most people are familiar with StoryCorps from the booth that — we have booths that we have traveling the country where people come in and record with the help of a facilitator. And we developed this app 11 years ago, which makes it possible for anyone, anywhere, anytime to record a StoryCorps interview on your mobile phone with a loved one and with one tap upload it to the Library of Congress. So, we've had hundreds of thousands of people participate in The Great Thanksgiving Listen. This is an educator, largely an educator generated holiday where, high school social studies, usually, and English teachers assign their students to record a loved one over Thanksgiving break, kind of as the most fun and probably meaningful gift you can give.
Skalicky: I was going to say, I mean, this is it's not just a school project. It's something that will maybe live on for generations. Why should someone take part in this project?
Isay: Well, and it certainly will live on for generations. You know, the Library of Congress 500 years from now if we're around, our great-great-great-great-great-grandkids, will listen to these stories and get to know their ancestors through their voice and this conversation. I always think that, you know, the soul is kind of contained in the human voice. So, it's a very visceral way of remembering someone, of collecting the, truth of who someone is. People should do this because listening to a loved one reminds them that they matter and won't be forgotten, which is all any of us wants to know. You know, one of the kind of StoryCorps sayings is listening is an act of love. And it's a really profound and simple and wonderful way of telling someone that they mean something to you by looking them in the eyes and taking the time to ask the most important questions. Who has been kindest to you in your life? How do you want to be remembered? Who are your parents? Those kind of questions, which, and they're the kind of questions we don't, you know, normally ask loved ones over the course of kind of our regular interactions with them.
Skalicky: So, it sounds like everybody has a story. It may not be huge, an earth shattering story, but everybody has a story. How can somebody get started thinking about what they might want to ask?
Isay: So, if you go to thegreatthanksgivinglisten.org, that has sample questions and yes, you do want to prepare before you do the interview. It's very simple. But take a look at the questions we also have for educators. We have lesson plans and permission slips and anything and everything a teacher could use or might need to assign this as something to do over Thanksgiving break.
Skalicky: And what do you think kids get out of this? What do you think they take away from, you know, taking the initiative to do this? I mean, I know they're being asked to do this as an assignment, but what do they get out of an assignment like this?
Isay: I think it's a way of — it's funny, you know, it's been around for 11 years now. So, in the course of my kind of day to day interacting with people, I'll meet people who have done this, who are adults now who I'm meeting with for one reason or another. And, you know, they, they say that it is, you know, one of the more memorable things that they did in high school or the most memorable thing. And they've captured the stories of someone oftentimes who maybe, you know, may have passed away. So, I think that kids get the opportunity to have, you know, the privilege of using as you and I know, you know, it's a privilege to be able to ask people questions with the help of a microphone, and they get to experience that at a young age. They may not appreciate it quite yet, but they will at some point. I mean, when I was a very young teenager, I recorded my grandparents and my great aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving, and we had a tape recorder around the house. This was many, many decades ago. And I don't, I can't remember if it was a reel to reel or an early cassette deck, but I recorded them and then many years later went looking for it and I couldn't find it. And I still to this day, when I go to my mom's house, will look for that tape. So, part of what happens with these interviews, going to the Library of Congress that, you know, nobody can make that mistake again. Each one of these will be preserved forever. So, it's a bit of a, for kids, they may not realize how important it is, but someday they will.
Skalicky: I have a similar story where I interviewed my grandpa right before he passed away. And I think something happened with the tape where I didn't get the interview. And so, what a great opportunity this is for young people to be able to get to know someone in their family or a loved one, and have that preserved forever. So, this has been happening for 11 years, as you said, how many people have taken part in this so far?
Isay: I don't know the exact number, but it's been hundreds of thousands.
Skalicky: Do you have advice for someone thinking about having their class do this assignment?
Isay: Yeah, I, you know, I think, you know, one of the — part of what we give to educators are StoryCorps stories that you can show in the classroom. I think that seeing some stories, hearing some stories can be helpful so that kids can kind of...wrap their brains around what they're going to do. I think going over the questions with the young people is helpful. Practicing with the app in the classroom, if you're allowed to have cell phones in the classroom, can be helpful. So, and then just having a chance to ask the students, you know, who is it that you would want to honor by listening to them? Whose story do you want to capture? And that always that's a very generative conversation that can lead to a kind of really interesting moments in the classroom as people think about that.
Skalicky: And beyond The Great Thanksgiving Listen, you know, could you have imagined this many years later that StoryCorps would have taken off as it has? no StoryCorps.
Isay: I didn't imagine. When we started StoryCorps, we thought of it as a 10-year project. And it was about a year into StoryCorps that I was having dinner with someone who was like, why are you only going for 10 years? And I said, you're right. Why are we going for only 10 years? So, this is going to be, it is surprising how this thing has grown. But there's also, and I think it's hopefully it's going to go on for a long, long time, but there's a lot of work to be done. I mean, I think StoryCorps as a whole is about creating empathy in this country. And there's plenty of work to be done on the empathy side, as you know, so we're going to keep fighting this fight.
Skalicky: All right. And if somebody wants to find out more about The Great Thanksgiving Listen, how can they do that?
Isay: So, all you have to do is go to thegreatthanksgivinglisten.org, and there's everything you could ever want to know about the Great Thanksgiving Listen.
Skalicky: All right. Well, Dave, thank you so much for talking to me. I really appreciate it.
Isay: Good to talk to you. Happy holidays.
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