Scholar Interviews
Questions
- Vladimir Tismaneanu: What source do you use in your classroom to help students understand the events of 1989?
- Vladimir Tismaneanu: How do you teach the letters found in Adam Michnik's book?
- Vladimir Tismaneanu: How do you teach Adam Michnik's book in the classroom?
- Vladimir Tismaneanu: How do you help your students interpret the passage you read about an independent, self-governing union?
- Bradley Abrams: How do you help students make sense of 1989?
- Bradley Abrams: What sources do you use to teach 1989?
- Bradley Abrams: What else is significant about the Declaration of the Creation of Charter 77?
- Bradley Abrams: How did the regime respond to Charter 77?
- Bradley Abrams: Why is the 28th of January remarkable?
- Bradley Abrams: How do you put the anti-Charter into context for students?
- Padraic Kenney: What is remarkable about the poem and the leaflet together?
- Padraic Kenney: How should students interpret the poem?
- Padraic Kenney: What is significant about the poem?
- Padraic Kenney: Does this poem help explain the strike?
- Padraic Kenney: How do you analyze the leaflet?
- Padraic Kenney: What is significant about the leaflet?
- Padraic Kenney: What sources help us understand the strikes?
- Maria Bucur: Is there a particular source that is important to study?
- Maria Bucur: How do students study 1989 in your classroom?
- Maria Bucur: What is difficult to understand about the "Common European Home" speech?
- Maria Bucur: What is important about Ceausescu's last speech?
- Maria Bucur: How do you help students understand Ceausescu's last speech?
- Maria Bucur: What is unique about viewing Ceausescu's last speech?
- Bradley Abrams: How do you use the Charter Declaration and the anti-Charter together with students?
Maria Bucur: How do students study 1989 in your classroom?
Transcription
The way I run the class is they read primary sources for each meeting. We have 30 meetings in the semester. They read about 25 primary sources and I have questions for each of the sources and they have choices of how many times to turn in a little writing assignment, but each person has to answer one of the questions. I usually ask about, three or four questions of each source and the questions have a gradation from sort of. The first question would be kind of a retelling of the story in their own words. A second one where they analyze what he means, for instance, by this common European home, what kind of goals does he see. And the third step would be to come up with their own interpretation how they view this speech in comparison with the Brezhnev Doctrine speech that we read for such and such date, right?
Coming at the end of the semester, it builds on accumulated knowledge that they’ve had, hopefully they’ve had, and also, kind of trying to walk them logically from simply thinking about the words themselves, what they mean, and then putting them in a context that is, both sort of suitable for, you know, what is going on in 1989 with the Soviet Union but also then thinking about the passage of time; how is this different from how things were two decades earlier?