October 15, 2025 • 49 mins
What if a 10-minute story from the past could make today’s headlines finally click? We sit down with David Olson, Director of Education at Retro Report, to unpack how short documentaries and first‑person voices turn history into a powerful lens for understanding civics now—without turning classrooms into battlegrounds. David shares why narrative structure matters, how unintended consequences make the best teachable moments, and why the “40-word” version of a story can distort what students think they know.
We trace vivid examples—the Berlin Airlift’s path to NATO, the real stakes behind the McDonald’s hot coffee case, and camp newspapers from Japanese American incarceration that list baseball scores next to a military draft notice. Along the way, David lays out practical routines for tackling fast-moving news: mapping what we know, what we think we know (with sources), and what questions still stand. We dig into primary sources as a safer foundation for hard conversations about political violence, polarization, and rights, shifting authority from opinion to evidence.
You’ll also get a first look at timely classroom tools: a new film on the 2008 financial crisis for students born after it, an eye-opening exploration of Island Trees v. Pico and who decides what stays on library shelves, plus upcoming pieces on Tiananmen, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and America 250. Every resource is free, scaffolded for diverse learners, and built with teacher feedback through Retro Report’s ambassador network.
If you’re a civics, history, ELA, or social science teacher looking to connect past and present with less risk and more clarity, this conversation is your playbook. Dive into the full library at retroreport.org, share these resources with a colleague, and tell us which story helps your students “get” the world today. And if you found this helpful, follow, rate, and leave a review—your support helps more educators find practical, free tools that work.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:01):
Welcome back to the Arizona Civics Podcast.
I am stoked to interview myfriend, my Civics Dusty
colleague, David Olson, whocurrently works for Retro
Report.
David and I'm quoting Mattbecause in the age of amazing
(00:22):
networking, we were both part ofthe iCivics Network.
We both kind of transitioned outof teaching and we've kept in
touch.
He's come to Arizona to do lotsof really cool things.
So David, thank you so much forbeing here.
Can you start by introducingyourself and telling us about
Retro Report's mission ofconnecting past events to the
(00:44):
challenges of today?
SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me, Liz.
I really appreciate being here.
All of the things, or at least90% of them, are true.
So uh I, you know, have longenjoyed uh working with you and
seeing all of the amazing thingsyou've been able to do in the
civics world.
Um, and it's a pleasure to talkto you.
So uh yes, before I get intoretroport, a little bit about my
(01:08):
backgrounds.
Um, I came to this particularposition um uh really through a
combination, right?
One of being a longtimeclassroom teacher.
Um I've I've actually taught ata bunch of different levels.
I I started my career as amiddle school teacher, and man,
was that an adventure.
Um, I spent the bulk of myteaching career as a high school
(01:32):
teacher.
Um, I taught at a uh large uhurban public school in Madison,
Wisconsin.
Um, I've also taught communitycollege courses, I've taught
some undergraduate courses.
Um so usually I tell people like13 to 35.
That's my uh my wheelhouse ofstudents.
(01:52):
Um, and then as you mentioned,like during my time in the
classroom, um, you know, civicsand history is a passion of
mine.
So uh I was able to getconnected with places like
iCivics to be part of theireducator network.
Um, done work with the NationalConstitution Center, um, done uh
a lot of work with PBS, wrotesome lessons for some Ken Burns
(02:17):
films, and uh done you know somecool webinars and things like
that with them.
So all of those were sort ofstepping stones to uh my current
position, which is uh directorof education at Retroport.
Um, and when I made thistransition a few years ago, uh
the way I describe it is sort oflike switching my day job and my
side gig, right?
(02:38):
Uh my day job was classroomteacher, my side gig was I do
this other stuff uh to not onlymake myself a better teacher,
but also promote history andcivic education.
Now that's what I do full time,and then when I can, uh I find
my way into a classroom and youknow, teach a class here and
there.
So um what we do at Retro Reportuh is uh primarily our goal is
(03:03):
to create short form documentaryfilms really with the goal of
trying to connect past andpresent.
Um, and so our our job infinding and crafting and telling
these stories is to demonstratethat there is a connection
between history and what'shappening in our world today.
(03:24):
So uh I would say a typicalretro report sort of goes one of
two ways.
Either we start with this storyfrom the past, uh, a great
example.
We have a this amazing filmabout the Berlin airlift, um,
and a guy named Gail Halverson,who is known as the chocolate
bomber, right?
A guy who tied up littlepackages of chocolate bars,
(03:44):
dropped them to children uh inWest Berlin during the blockade.
Um, and we tell this story fromhistory, and then we connect it
to the present.
We say, here's why this is stillrelevant to us today, right?
And really the Berlin airliftand these early actions uh of
the Cold War, of trying tofigure out what is this uneasy
(04:06):
tension uh between the US andthe West and the Soviet Union
gave birth to NATO, right?
And I probably don't have totell your listeners, uh, NATO
still pretty relevant, somethingthat has been in the news
lately, something that we shouldunderstand what it is, why it
exists, what's the historybehind it?
(04:27):
Um, and we can grapple withquestions of what should NATO
do?
Should it still exist?
What role should it have whenthere's conflict in Europe or
elsewhere?
Right?
So that's one example.
Another example would be uh westart with here's this thing
happening today, and then we askthe question, what's the history
(04:48):
and the backstory that helps usunderstand it to put it in
perspective?
Yes, right?
So really, those are you know,it's kind of two sides of the
same coin, but the goal here ishow can I make connections
between history and the worldthat I live in now?
And and honestly, this was wasand and still is when I'm in the
(05:10):
classroom, one of one of thethings I love to focus on.
Um, I generally started, I don'tknow, 90% of my classes by
asking my students the samequestion.
I would say, what's going on inthe world?
What do we need to know?
Right.
Because I wanted students tocome to class and talk about the
(05:30):
news and be able to say, I sawthis thing, I don't really
understand it, what's happeninghere?
Or I saw this thing, I think Iknow what's going on.
And then as a class, we go, ooh,is that what's going on?
Or do we need to do we need tofind more sources?
Do we need to evaluate oursources?
(05:50):
And I know sometimes thehesitation uh of teachers in in
doing that of saying, oh no, wecarve out time for current
events, is oh, am I gonna haveenough time?
Is it is it gonna be worth it?
Is it gonna connect to mystandards?
The answer is yes.
It is gonna be worth it.
It is like honestly, the wayit's gonna connect to your
(06:12):
standards is your students areactually gonna understand the
history better when they can go,oh, I get why this thing is
happening, right?
It might not happen that day,but inevitably, two, three
weeks, 10 weeks down the line,they're gonna go, oh, that was
like that thing that happened inthe news.
Or I get why the political partysaid that, or I get why this
(06:37):
country uh has this relationshipwith this other country, right?
That we have to understandhistory in order to understand
our present.
Um, and so our work at RetroReport, number one, is we create
short documentary films to tryto tell that story, and then job
number two, uh, this isprimarily where I come in, is to
(07:01):
create the classroom resourcesso that a teacher can use that
seven, 10-minute video to beable to address here's this
thing we're learning about inhistory or civics or geography
or environmental science.
SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
And so, listeners, if you listen to the podcast
before this, I talked to LiamJulian and he talked about why
teachers are afraid to teachcivics in classrooms.
And to me, retro report is adirect answer to teachers of
here are things that areready-made, they're classroom
friendly.
I'm looking at uh the frontpage, right, of retro report
(07:40):
right now, and there issomething on vaccine skepticism,
there's something on thefinancial crisis.
Like there are so many thingshere that connect and that
again, and I think that youknow, we have a unique view
because both of you and I didmiddle school, we did high
school, right?
We know what that's like to belike, I want to make sure that
(08:03):
the things that I use in myclassroom are legit, they're
classroom friendly, andeverything you have is because
you used to be a teacher.
And before we go, I do want totalk about how you utilize
teachers because I think that'sso important.
But so retro rapport oftenhighlights the unintended
consequences of history, right?
(08:24):
Why is that focus important?
And how do you decide whichstories to tell?
SPEAKER_00 (08:31):
So I think the unintended consequences part, I
mean, honestly, part of how thatmakes its way into what we do uh
is because frankly, it makes fora great story, right?
Those are the engaging stories,those are the hey, didn't turn
out like we thought it wouldkind of stories, right?
(08:52):
Uh I mean, this is this is thereason that we read great works
of fiction.
This is the reason why we go seethriller movies in uh the movie
theater.
It's because we go, oh, therewas a twist, there was something
else that we didn't foresee uhthat was gonna happen here.
Um and honestly, the the waythat we try to do that, and and
(09:15):
I think one of the things thatmakes Retro Report different
than a whole lot of other greatresources out there is that what
we do is we try to focus onstory and narrative.
So uh a typical Retro Reportfilm, what you're gonna see,
because again, we're trying toconnect past and present, what
(09:35):
you're gonna see is multipleinterviews, ideally first-person
interviews, right?
We want to hear from the peoplewho lived or made the history.
Now, sometimes that's notpossible, right?
I have teachers a lot, uh, UShistory teachers who are like,
what do you have from thefounding era?
(09:56):
And it's like, well, we have acouple things, but it's really
hard uh when you know, when wego to make a film about the
election of 1800, sadly, thosecandidates no longer with us.
Right.
So ideally, we want to pairfirst-person narratives.
Uh, we'll couple that with uhexperts, right?
(10:16):
It's it's great when we hearfrom historians, academics,
those folks.
And then the last thing we wantto include there is primary
sources, right?
We want to see how did thingslook, feel, sound at the time,
right?
And so a lot of our work, whichis like post-war US history
connected stuff, um, it's greatbecause we've got video.
(10:38):
We can look and see how did thenews cover it in that moment?
Uh, you know, what was the mediasaying?
What is, you know, can we getfootage from the actual event uh
to sort of get that message?
Um, you know, some greatexamples of the sort of
unintended consequences ones.
Um, I mean, there's there'smany, uh, some of the ones that
(11:00):
immediately jump to mind.
One of my favorites is we have afilm that gets a lot of use
about the McDonald's hot coffeelawsuit.
SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
Um my gosh, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (11:09):
Yeah, it's a yeah, right.
So this is a story that at leastin part because of how the media
covered it, uh, we all think weknow.
Turns out I encourage you to gowatch our video.
Uh, it's great.
Um there's more to that story,right?
(11:29):
Uh, this is not just a case ofan overly litigious person
going, I burned myself on yourcoffee, McDonald's paying me
millions of dollars.
Um that's not the actual truthof that story.
Um, but the thing that that I Ilove, my favorite chunk of that
(11:51):
film, um, is we talked to uhsome veteran reporters, uh,
including one guy who talkedabout how the I'm gonna so
you'll have to fact check me onthe on the numbers here because
it's okay, I'm not gonna getthem exactly right.
I'd have to go look at thetranscript.
But he says something like whenthis original story was
(12:11):
reported, right, after the theinitial verdict, in a major
American newspaper, it washundreds and hundreds of words
long, right?
But this was a sensational storythat gets picked up everywhere.
So it goes from several hundredwords or over a thousand words
(12:32):
down to 200 words to, you know,back in the day of physical
newspapers.
This was that tiny little blurbof we've got 40 words to tell
you what happened in this story.
And that's the story that madeits way around the world.
The 40-word version, not thethousand-word version, right?
(12:53):
And there's a big difference inwhat you can tell, in what you
can communicate in nuance,complexity, and truth in 40
words versus a thousand words,right?
And so, if nothing else, uh partof what that story tells us is
we should dig a little deeper,right?
We should we we shouldn't dependon the headline.
(13:16):
Uh, we should we should go, youknow, I should go find out for
ourselves, do some additionaldigging, see what else we can
learn uh about stories thathappen in history.
Um, another great one, uh we sothis actually has been in the
news a bit.
Um back in the I think it was1960s, uh, there was a very
(13:41):
famous book uh by a guy namedPaul Ehrlich called The
Population Bomb, uh, whichbasically said, hey, within the
next uh couple decades, we willoutstrip the carrying capacity
of the globe.
We will have mass famine,starvation, and death because
there are too many people.
(14:02):
Um today, uh, you look aroundthe globe, not only have we gone
from, you know, I think at thetime around 4 billion, 5 billion
people to over 8 billion people,um, but we have plenty of
countries around the globe thatare trying to figure out how to
promote uh population growth,right?
Uh and figure out how do we getbirth rates up.
(14:25):
Um, so this is, you know,another one of those of like,
what kind of policies did wemake and create based on a work
that was proven to not becorrect, right?
Now, clearly there are stillenvironmental factors and things
like that that that populationgrowth challenges the population
(14:47):
growth poses.
But when a person says in 20years we're all gonna die
because uh there are too manypeople living on this planet,
and now we have double thenumber of people, like clearly
that was that was an incorrectuh assumption.
SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
So you talked about primary sources.
Your work with Library ofCongress really emphasizes
primary sources, and I thinkeverybody in the civics and
civil studies world, when theyhear primary sources, like yes,
right?
How can teachers use thesematerials to help students think
more critically about historyand current events together?
SPEAKER_00 (15:25):
Um I'll address this.
I'll I'll I'll talk a little bitabout the the project as well.
And then do you put links in inshow notes, Liz?
SPEAKER_01 (15:33):
Sure do.
SPEAKER_00 (15:34):
Okay, brilliant.
Well, we will connect to thiswonderful collection we have.
Yes.
Um so you you mentioned you knowyour previous podcast uh guest.
Um talked about you know some ofthat fear and hesitation that
teachers have, right?
Yes.
Um, you know, teaching civics,it's hard.
Um if for no other reason, Imean, we we are having this
(15:58):
conversation on October 1st, uh,early afternoon.
Uh, we are 12 hours, 12-ishhours into uh government
shutdown, right?
Yep.
Um I guarantee you there arewhat tens of thousands of civics
and government teachers aroundthe country who are like, uh,
(16:18):
how am I gonna here we go?
Yeah, how am I gonna explainwhat a government shutdown is?
How am I gonna explain like uhwhat is the lawmaking process
and the budget writing processthat got us here so that my
sixth graders or my tenthgraders can understand what any
of this is, right?
Okay, so number one, teachingcivics is hard.
(16:40):
Number two, teachers sometimesare scared to wade into this
minefield.
I think I think that one of thebiggest fears that teachers have
is when their students go homeand say, my teacher said fill in
(17:00):
the blank, right?
We as teachers, I I mean, I knowthousands of them, by and large,
they are really excellentpeople, okay, who are dedicated
to their craft and who want todo right by their students.
A teacher cannot control whathow a student finishes that
(17:23):
sentence, right?
The my teacher said, fill in theblank.
And that's right, that's where alot of teachers end up receiving
criticism, right?
Something was misconstrued.
Now, granted, there have beenplenty of teachers who've said
things they shouldn't have said,but there's that fear of what
(17:44):
are my how are my studentscommunicating what I think the
intent of this lesson is.
Okay.
One of the ways to sidestep atleast a part of that problem, is
use primary sources.
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (18:01):
Instead of standing in front of your class saying,
here's the here's the real storyabout X.
Well, let the people of the timetell you their perspective.
Let's use images and cartoonsand song recordings and
photographs and governmentdocuments to tell the story in
(18:26):
that moment, right?
It's a fundamentally differentstatement out of the student's
mouth, right?
On one hand, if you compare myteacher said dot dot dot versus
we read or we saw photographs ofthis event.
Uh, we we read or listened to aninterview with a person who was
(18:50):
there and here's what they said,right?
Now, that is not a cure-all, butthat is absolutely a safer
approach, right?
It is a different conversationin homes across America when
it's here's what the documentssay, here's what the people who
lived it say, as opposed tohere's what my teacher said.
(19:13):
So that's that's something thatthat you know we take into
account not only in ourfilmmaking style, but also in
how we construct the materialsthat go with our films, right?
Um, so a great example of this.
Uh, we have a this wonderfulfilm about uh the legacy of the
Koromatsu decision, uh aboutJapanese American incarceration
(19:37):
during World War II.
Um again, there's some amazing,like unknown or very, you know,
lesser known uh pieces of thatstory, and how we get from uh
the incarceration of 120,000Japanese Americans in the 1940s
to reparations, payments paid tothem and their descendants, uh
(20:02):
signed into law by Ronald Reaganin the 1980s.
Like there's there's a there's acouple really interesting steps
along the way, but uh this isone of those times where you
know I found uh absolute primarysource gold, right?
So uh Library of Congress hasthis amazing collection of
(20:24):
historical newspapers um calledChronicling America.
You can search stuff all the wayback to the 1700s through the
1960s, and some of thenewspapers that they have uh
digitized include a set ofhistorical newspapers from
Japanese internment camps.
So these are newspapers produceduh by people who were imprisoned
(20:49):
in these camps.
Um, and they they talk about notonly the the sort of news of the
day, but they chronicle birthsand deaths and weddings.
They talk about the the resultsof uh their camp baseball teams
uh against each other.
There's some amazing stuff inthere.
Um and in June, I was using uhusing some of these resources
(21:16):
and showing a clip from our filmand then some primary sources
related to this.
Um, and I I clicked on one ofthe newspapers, I think it was
from uh June, when was it?
June 27th, 1942.
Um, and one of the articlestalks about how that coming week
(21:37):
at the camp itself, uh, theywere going to be holding the
military draft for all young menbetween 18 and I think it was
maybe 25.
And to see in a in this documentthat people who have been
(21:57):
removed from their homes andimprisoned now are going to be
subjected to the military draftto fight for the country that
has imprisoned them.
I mean, that's like put that infront of students and go, what
is you know, what do we make ofthis?
What questions do you have?
(22:17):
I mean, I have a millionquestions, right?
Sure do.
But that's I I think that's oneof those things where that
primary source tells us a whole,I mean, it tells us some things,
it it sparks many questions, butthat's pretty powerful, right?
Uh that's that's something thata primary source can do.
(22:40):
That uh, you know, if you if youput that side by side with just
a a talking head historian whosaid, Oh, we even subjected uh
incarcerated prisoners to thedraft.
Like uh it's different to see itin writing, uh to see it next to
articles about, you know, here'swhat happened in our camp
(23:01):
yesterday.
Uh it hits different.
So the the bigger picture, thisuh this Library of Congress
project, um, the way it cameabout was uh we'd actually done
this pilot with uh a schooloutside of New York City um
called the Windward School.
Um it's a a school thatspecializes in working with
(23:23):
students with uh languagedisabilities.
So uh primarily dyslexia, butbut a few others as well.
Um and they go through, theythey utilize um uh a specific
way to teach students uh uhcritical analysis and writing
strategies.
It's called the Hockmann method.
(23:43):
Um and so we we had approachedthem and worked out this pilot
where uh we said, hey, you youfolks use uh all sorts of short
articles with students wherestudents go through, they
annotate, uh, and then theyrespond to a writing prompt,
right?
Uh they have to come up withtheir thesis, they have to
provide supporting evidence,they have to link it, all of
(24:05):
that sort of thing.
Um, and so the the impetus ofthis project was, hey, would you
be willing to try using ahandful of short videos
occasionally in place of theshort articles that you've been
using?
And the folks at Windward werelike, yeah, this would be great.
We'll we'll try it out.
Uh, we'll work this into how wecreate our resources and report
(24:27):
back.
Well, they reported backshockingly, uh, that students
really liked using short videos.
Uh, it was a great break fromanother article, right?
And so uh they used these, theycreated some of the resources
and said, this this works reallywell.
Uh, this, you know, is a solidway to go about teaching um this
sort of critical analysis andthen construction of uh an
(24:50):
expository paragraph and thatsort of thing.
So what we did then was we tookthis sort of pilot project, uh,
applied for a grant uh from theLibrary of Congress, a teaching
with primary sources grant, andsaid, we want to take 25 of our
films um that cover sort ofpost-reconstruction to
present-day US history, plentyof civics connections in there
(25:13):
as well.
What we're gonna do is we'regonna create these scaffolded
resources for students uh at youknow different levels of their
writing and analysis.
We're gonna couple it with aprimary source pack for each of
these and put them all togetherso that uh within a classroom,
(25:33):
uh almost no matter sort of whatlearning differences a teacher
would have in front of them,they would have sort of multiple
versions to work from to say,let's watch this seven-minute
video.
Uh then, you know, about uh theGreat Depression or the Cold War
or civil rights era, that sortof thing.
(25:53):
We're gonna watch the video, uh,we're gonna analyze primary
sources, and then we're gonnarespond to uh a writing prompt.
Um, and uh this grant hasenabled us not only to create
this set of resources, but alsoto go out and actually do
professional development with uhwith teachers.
And hopefully now, uh if we getyear two and three funding um as
(26:17):
we move forward uh to be able todo it with districts um and and
really get these materials intothe hands of teachers to say,
look, there's great stuff, it'sfree, uh, it will help you meet
the needs of all sorts ofdifferent learners in your
classroom.
Um, and it's really engagingstuff.
SPEAKER_01 (26:38):
I love that you brought up Koramatsu because I
don't know that a lot of peopleknow that the state of Arizona
had Japanese internment camps.
Um and it it again, like showingthat they have baseball leagues,
like there's so many things thatwe can show.
And I love where you're like,what questions do you have,
right?
Because it really allows thestudents to dig in.
(27:00):
Unfortunately, another thingthat's connected to Arizona is
political violence.
Um and I don't want to talknecessarily about current day,
but you know, our congresswomanGabrielle Giffords was a victim
of political violence.
Unfortunately, we're seeing it alot more, or it feels like a lot
more lately.
(27:21):
So in your video on politicalviolence, you show that tensions
over democracy really do go backto the founding era.
How can teachers use theseparallels to make sense of
today's polarization in theirclassroom?
Because again, teachers areafraid to talk about it.
We we've seen people lose theirjobs over things.
So, how can teachers use thesevideos and again use these past
(27:44):
events to really um make senseof it?
SPEAKER_00 (27:49):
Yeah.
I you know, I I don't have theperfect answer and the perfect
response here because I I don'tthink it exists, right?
Nobody does, exactly.
I mean, uh the dealing just as amember of society in a country
where political violence is areality is tough.
(28:10):
And then to turn around and totry to provide context and
understanding and space forquestions and opinions in a
classroom about politicalviolence is really, really hard.
Yes.
I again, this you know, getsback to my sort of operating
(28:32):
ethos in the classroom of wewant to understand history in
order to understand today.
You cannot understand the worldyou're living in without
understanding history, andhistory is just not as
meaningful unless you can findways to connect it to your
(28:55):
present, right?
And so this is one again, youyou referenced a film we have uh
that really looks at you knowessentially how political
violence has been part of UShistory since the beginning.
Um now, certainly we can pointover our history to waves, ebbs
(29:17):
and flows.
Uh, I've seen a lot ofconversation recently about uh
the 1970s as a time oftremendous turmoil recently.
Um, you know, if we go back tothe founding era, right, uh what
leads us to revolution, at leastin part, are some acts of
(29:39):
political violence.
Um the the time frame in betweenwinning the revolutionary war
and the creation of theconstitution is marked by and
the the drive to theconstitution is hastened by
political violence, right?
Shea's, I mean, I would argueShea's rebellion um.
(30:00):
I don't know.
I I know some people say, oh,it's it's maybe a little
overhyped, but I it might be oneof the 10 to 15 most important
events in US history in terms ofits outcome, right?
When you when you convince agroup of 13 states, which really
operate like their ownindependent countries, to say,
(30:22):
see, there's danger afoot, youneed a stronger national
government, we must cometogether.
That's a pretty big deal andchange.
And then, you know, once we havethe constitution, there's plenty
of political violence thatoccurs between then and the
biggest act of politicalviolence of a country going to
(30:44):
war with itself, right?
And so, really, that's you know,in 10 minutes, the video tries
to tell this story and say,look, this, you know, whether
it's an arc or a straight line,or I don't know.
I'm not, I don't, not great atgeometry.
It's there, right?
It's it's been part of us sincethe beginning.
Um, certainly not to say likeit's a good thing, uh, but it's
(31:08):
but it's but it's there, it'ssomething we have to contend
with and to understand howpolitical violence has had an
effect in the past should helpus understand the impact of
political violence today.
SPEAKER_01 (31:24):
And I I appreciate that you're like, there's no
right answer here.
I think when we look at eventsof today, teachers sometimes
feel like they have to have theanswer now.
And it's it's the same argumentI've had with scholars where
it's like, how long does thepresident have to be out of
office for you to be able tojudge their right?
We we sometimes get caught inthis presentism of I need to
(31:48):
know everything now.
And it's it's impossible.
It's a lot.
And I love that you'reconducting, like, let's take it,
let's take a breath and lookback and understand, you know,
why.
And then again, I I love thatyou say asking like all the
questions you have.
And teachers, if you're asked aquestion that you don't know,
(32:10):
it's perfectly fine to say, Idon't know.
That's a really great question.
Because we don't have to knoweverything.
SPEAKER_00 (32:16):
And I and I think, you know, if for teachers trying
to deal with breaking news.
Um and and this is I I mean,this is this is a a for a uh
history or civics and governmentteacher, this is a daily issue.
Right.
Yes.
But when when you have one ofthose big events that bubbles up
where you know students havethoughts, have questions, um,
(32:39):
have seen snippets on TikTok andInstagram or wherever, right?
This is a great time.
Use that whiteboard in the frontof your room and make a list of
what are the things that wethink we know, what are our
sources of that information?
What are the things wedefinitely don't know?
(33:01):
And what are the things that wehave questions about that we,
you know, that we don't evenknow we don't know, right?
And and you know what?
Your questions list is probablygonna be the longest.
And there are some of thosequestions you may never answer.
Um but that's the I mean, that'sthat's what learning is, right?
That's how and that's how wemake that's how we make sense of
(33:25):
the world that we live in,that's how we make sense of
history.
Um that's you know, teachingstudents to be uh quality
consumers of news andinformation, uh, to be able to
analyze and and dissect storiesuh and and figure out what what
(33:45):
is it that we know and don'tknow.
And I, you know, it's one ofthose, again, I I could be on a
up on a soapbox all day uharguing for these sorts of
things, but I you know I thinkit's important so that the next
time that there is a big pieceof news, don't shy away.
(34:06):
Don't as hard as it is, don'tinterject of here are here are
my thoughts and they must beright.
Right?
Yes, but let's figure out whatdo we know, what do we think we
know, or what are the sources,what are the questions we have.
And you know what?
(34:26):
You can come back to that theday after, the day after, the
following week, and update thosethings.
Um granted by the next week it'sprobably gonna be replaced with
the next issue event,controversy.
Uh, but you know, that's I mean,that that's what social studies
is.
Uh we we gotta figure out how weinteract with each other and uh
(34:50):
inhabit this world and livetogether in societies.
Uh, if we don't spend at least alittle time uh figuring out
what's happening outside of theclassroom uh and talking about
it, I you know, I don't knowwhat we're doing here.
SPEAKER_01 (35:05):
And that kind of cognitive mapping is critical
for building critical thinkers,building media literacy, because
even if you can't answer thequestions, you've now taught
your students to hear somethingand to say, hmm, I wonder, I
wonder where the source is, Iwonder what else I don't know.
And again, we're creatingresponsible consumers of of
(35:29):
media, and that is so important.
So looking ahead, what upcomingretro report stories?
So I know we talked about likethe 2008 financial crisis, uh,
the Americans with DisabilityAct, Supreme Court cases.
Do you think what do you thinkis going to be most impactful
(35:49):
for teachers and students?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:51):
Um, so some of the things we we have coming down
the pike.
Well, our our most recent filmwas about the 2008 financial
crisis.
Um, this is definitely one ofthose areas where I'm like, I
was already a professional, likehad a real job and lived through
this.
How can we be teaching this ashistory?
Uh, and then you know, you lookin your classroom of 10th
(36:14):
graders and go, oh, you know,you people were babies.
You don't you don't know aboutthis.
Um, so that one was uh recentlyreleased.
The one that will be releasedprobably by the time uh this
podcast uh is out in the wild,um, looks at a uh kind of little
known Supreme Court case uhcalled the Island Trees uh
(36:36):
school district versus Pico.
SPEAKER_01 (36:38):
Um I'd never heard of that.
SPEAKER_00 (36:40):
Yeah, so it it's actually the Supreme Court case,
really the only one that dealswith the constitutionality and
First Amendment aspects of bookbanning.
Um, so here this looks back tothe 1970s um Island Tree School
District.
Uh, it's in Levittown, New York,on Long Island.
(37:01):
Um, and here it was a highschool student who uh
essentially sued his schooldistrict for removing uh items
from the school library.
Um, his claim was he had a FirstAmendment right uh to have those
resources available in theschool library.
Um now, the the unfortunate partuh for teaching this, right, is
(37:26):
that this is one of those timeswhere the Supreme Court does not
give us like a nice cleanopinion.
We don't get the like, oh,here's the quote I can use for
all time that lets meunderstand, you know, there's no
separate, uh is inherentlyunequal line in Island Trees V
Pico.
In fact, it is such a fracturedopinion.
There are there are sevendifferent opinions that are
(37:48):
offered or authored in thiscase.
Um, we get a plurality thatbasically says, like, yeah,
students have some FirstAmendment rights to be able to
access information, but this ismessy.
Well, you know what?
It's messy currently, everywherein the country.
Um, and so one of the things wehave students do is uh analyze
(38:11):
this issue from a coupledifferent perspectives um to
come up with an argument aboutwho is it that should decide,
right?
Do we put that at the federalgovernment level, the state
government, the school boards?
Should we leave it to familiesand the community, right?
Grappling with those issues ofwho does and should have the
(38:34):
power.
Um, we have students, uh, youknow, part of it is we want
students to go to their look attheir own school district policy
uh to analyze like how do thesedecisions get made, right?
And so this is one that I mean,my hope, right?
We are we aim to be a anonpartisan uh organization,
(38:56):
right?
Um, we do not take the stancethat like book banning is good
or book banning is terrible.
We want to tell you aninteresting and engaging story
from history, tell you, guesswhat?
This is still with us today.
It's something we're stillarguing about, and create an
activity for students to do someof this mental heavy lifting and
(39:21):
grappling with this issue forthemselves.
So that one should be out verysoon.
Uh, upcoming films, uh, oneabout uh Tiananmen Square, um,
one about the Americans withDisabilities Act.
Uh we also are finally, it'staken us a little bit, but we're
we're getting cooking on some uhsome new films and materials
(39:43):
that'll be connected to uhAmerica 250 that sort of look at
that you know, revolution to theConstitution time period.
Um those uh a little bit furtherout, probably uh spring, um, but
but definitely things that we'rewe're hard at work on.
Um, you know, and my my goal isthat uh, you know, we every week
(40:07):
we're we're putting somethingnew out into the world uh for
teachers and students.
Um we we try to release a newfilm uh usually a couple times a
month.
Um we have new lessons andactivities that are connected to
our films, new ones just aboutevery week.
Um and our goal is, you know, II would say history and civics
(40:31):
are our our bread and butter,our our wheelhouse.
Um but we have a ton of greatresources.
If you're a geography teacher,if you're an English teacher, I
mean the book ban ones, we'vegot a separate lesson uh for
English classrooms as well.
Um, you know, we've got greatstuff for uh science courses,
(40:52):
for psychology courses.
So um whether you are listeningto this and you're uh a civics
teacher, wonderful.
If you're not a civics teacher,we probably have something for
you.
Um, but share this, you know,share this with your colleagues
because they'll find some greatvideos, some great lessons uh
that are entirely free that youcan uh put to use in your
(41:13):
classroom.
SPEAKER_01 (41:15):
I love that.
And my last question for youbecause you and I know how
important it is for educators tobe involved, I know that retro
report really leans on teacheradvisors, ambassadors.
So if I am currently a teacher,whether I'm a civics teacher or
an English teacher, because hereat the Center for American
Civics, we do believe thatcivics belongs everywhere and it
(41:37):
all ties in together.
If I'm like, oh my gosh, Ilistened to David, like this
sounds so cool as a teacher.
How can I get involved?
What are some ways for Arizonateachers and I mean teachers
around the country, right?
To get involved and help RetroReport make the things they have
even more classroom friendly andbetter.
SPEAKER_00 (41:58):
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh thank you for asking thatquestion.
Allows me to make my pitch toteachers.
Um, so we have uh a coupledifferent teacher advisory
groups.
Um, the you know, my ethos hereis we can't serve teachers
unless we actually listen toteachers.
(42:19):
Um so we we have uh you know ourour biggest group, uh it's a
group of uh retroportambassadors.
Uh it's about 300 teachers fromstates all across the country,
including some wonderful Arizonaeducators.
Um, what we ask of teachers isto uh use some of our materials,
tell us about them.
(42:40):
Uh, did it work?
What did you like?
What did you not like?
Um, to help us spread the wordto other educators and share our
resources and provide usfeedback.
Tell us what are the things youneed in your classroom?
Uh, what can we create to makeyour life easier?
Um, and in exchange for this,beyond our undying gratitude,
(43:03):
um, you know, we provide youwith a non-life-changing sum of
money.
I mean, it's a stipend.
It is not gonna, you're notgonna retire on the uh retro
report ambassadorship, but wewant to make sure you know that
that your time and expertise uhis valued.
So there's a stipend, we sendyou some great swag, um, you
(43:24):
know, we hopefully provide somesome great opportunities for
folks through uh you knowvirtual PD and other
experiences.
Um and then honestly, uh, youknow, if if there are teachers
or district leaders who arelistening to this, um, you know,
we do professional development,um, you know, things obviously
(43:47):
uh uh approaches for uh workingwith primary sources, approaches
for integrating current eventsuh into the classroom.
Um, you know, we're we're happyto do custom PD for folks as
well.
Um and and sometimes we can dothat at no cost if it's uh with
a grant, otherwise, you know, wecan do it at low cost for folks.
(44:09):
Um, so yeah, all of ourresources are entirely free.
They always will be.
Um, and our goal really is to toreach as many teachers as
possible and uh continue tolisten to teachers so that we
can uh keep making moreresources that uh that have a
home and classrooms across thecountry.
SPEAKER_01 (44:29):
And teachers, if you're listening to this,
hopefully you've been on RetroReport's site.
I've actually been kind ofcruising it uh while listening
to David because I want to makesure that, you know, between
David and I, we put as manylinks for you in our show notes
that really show um what ourfriends at Retro Report are
doing.
And I, you know, for us at theCenter for American Civics, we
(44:51):
really focus on the founding.
And that's kind of our jam.
And I appreciate that we havepeople in the civics world that
do things like current eventsand you know put them together
with history.
And I think I'm sorry, I don'tthink, I know my favorite thing
about the civics world is we alloffer something a little bit
(45:11):
different.
Um, and we're all each other'sbiggest supporters.
So, David, thank you so much fortaking the time to chat with us,
to tell us about Retro Report.
Um, listeners, if you havequestions, I I know maybe I
shouldn't say this, and if not,I'll cut it out.
But David's easy to reach.
And he, you know, I think forboth of us, because we are
(45:34):
classroom educators, if I have ahundred emails, but I have two
from teachers, the ones fromteachers are the ones I always
answer first.
So never hesitate to reach outfor help or anything like that.
David, you are a superstar.
And I I really do appreciate youbeing on our podcast, all the
things you do for the teachersof Arizona, but also the
(45:55):
teachers um from around ourcountry.
SPEAKER_00 (45:58):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me,Liz.
And if folks want to learn more,I'm I mean, I'm probably a
terrible salesman.
I don't think I've plugged ourwebsite enough.
Go to go to retroreport.org.
Uh, you can find the fulllibrary.
We have over 300 films, most ofwhich have ready-to-use lessons
and activities.
Uh, if you have individualquestions or things you're
(46:19):
looking for or feedback based onwhat you heard, um, as Liz
mentioned, you can reach out tome directly.
Uh, my email is simple.
It's dolson o l atretroreport.com.
Uh, let me know what you think.
Let me know if there are storiesthat we ought to tell uh or
things that you absolutely needin your classroom that you think
(46:40):
we should create.
SPEAKER_01 (46:42):
Awesome.
Thank you.
Welcome back to the Arizona Civics Podcast.
I am stoked to interview myfriend, my Civics Dusty
colleague, David Olson, whocurrently works for Retro
Report.
David and I'm quoting Mattbecause in the age of amazing
(00:22):
networking, we were both part ofthe iCivics Network.
We both kind of transitioned outof teaching and we've kept in
touch.
He's come to Arizona to do lotsof really cool things.
So David, thank you so much forbeing here.
Can you start by introducingyourself and telling us about
Retro Report's mission ofconnecting past events to the
(00:44):
challenges of today?
SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me, Liz.
I really appreciate being here.
All of the things, or at least90% of them, are true.
So uh I, you know, have longenjoyed uh working with you and
seeing all of the amazing thingsyou've been able to do in the
civics world.
Um, and it's a pleasure to talkto you.
So uh yes, before I get intoretroport, a little bit about my
(01:08):
backgrounds.
Um, I came to this particularposition um uh really through a
combination, right?
One of being a longtimeclassroom teacher.
Um I've I've actually taught ata bunch of different levels.
I I started my career as amiddle school teacher, and man,
was that an adventure.
Um, I spent the bulk of myteaching career as a high school
(01:32):
teacher.
Um, I taught at a uh large uhurban public school in Madison,
Wisconsin.
Um, I've also taught communitycollege courses, I've taught
some undergraduate courses.
Um so usually I tell people like13 to 35.
That's my uh my wheelhouse ofstudents.
(01:52):
Um, and then as you mentioned,like during my time in the
classroom, um, you know, civicsand history is a passion of
mine.
So uh I was able to getconnected with places like
iCivics to be part of theireducator network.
Um, done work with the NationalConstitution Center, um, done uh
a lot of work with PBS, wrotesome lessons for some Ken Burns
(02:17):
films, and uh done you know somecool webinars and things like
that with them.
So all of those were sort ofstepping stones to uh my current
position, which is uh directorof education at Retroport.
Um, and when I made thistransition a few years ago, uh
the way I describe it is sort oflike switching my day job and my
side gig, right?
(02:38):
Uh my day job was classroomteacher, my side gig was I do
this other stuff uh to not onlymake myself a better teacher,
but also promote history andcivic education.
Now that's what I do full time,and then when I can, uh I find
my way into a classroom and youknow, teach a class here and
there.
So um what we do at Retro Reportuh is uh primarily our goal is
(03:03):
to create short form documentaryfilms really with the goal of
trying to connect past andpresent.
Um, and so our our job infinding and crafting and telling
these stories is to demonstratethat there is a connection
between history and what'shappening in our world today.
(03:24):
So uh I would say a typicalretro report sort of goes one of
two ways.
Either we start with this storyfrom the past, uh, a great
example.
We have a this amazing filmabout the Berlin airlift, um,
and a guy named Gail Halverson,who is known as the chocolate
bomber, right?
A guy who tied up littlepackages of chocolate bars,
(03:44):
dropped them to children uh inWest Berlin during the blockade.
Um, and we tell this story fromhistory, and then we connect it
to the present.
We say, here's why this is stillrelevant to us today, right?
And really the Berlin airliftand these early actions uh of
the Cold War, of trying tofigure out what is this uneasy
(04:06):
tension uh between the US andthe West and the Soviet Union
gave birth to NATO, right?
And I probably don't have totell your listeners, uh, NATO
still pretty relevant, somethingthat has been in the news
lately, something that we shouldunderstand what it is, why it
exists, what's the historybehind it?
(04:27):
Um, and we can grapple withquestions of what should NATO
do?
Should it still exist?
What role should it have whenthere's conflict in Europe or
elsewhere?
Right?
So that's one example.
Another example would be uh westart with here's this thing
happening today, and then we askthe question, what's the history
(04:48):
and the backstory that helps usunderstand it to put it in
perspective?
Yes, right?
So really, those are you know,it's kind of two sides of the
same coin, but the goal here ishow can I make connections
between history and the worldthat I live in now?
And and honestly, this was wasand and still is when I'm in the
(05:10):
classroom, one of one of thethings I love to focus on.
Um, I generally started, I don'tknow, 90% of my classes by
asking my students the samequestion.
I would say, what's going on inthe world?
What do we need to know?
Right.
Because I wanted students tocome to class and talk about the
(05:30):
news and be able to say, I sawthis thing, I don't really
understand it, what's happeninghere?
Or I saw this thing, I think Iknow what's going on.
And then as a class, we go, ooh,is that what's going on?
Or do we need to do we need tofind more sources?
Do we need to evaluate oursources?
(05:50):
And I know sometimes thehesitation uh of teachers in in
doing that of saying, oh no, wecarve out time for current
events, is oh, am I gonna haveenough time?
Is it is it gonna be worth it?
Is it gonna connect to mystandards?
The answer is yes.
It is gonna be worth it.
It is like honestly, the wayit's gonna connect to your
(06:12):
standards is your students areactually gonna understand the
history better when they can go,oh, I get why this thing is
happening, right?
It might not happen that day,but inevitably, two, three
weeks, 10 weeks down the line,they're gonna go, oh, that was
like that thing that happened inthe news.
Or I get why the political partysaid that, or I get why this
(06:37):
country uh has this relationshipwith this other country, right?
That we have to understandhistory in order to understand
our present.
Um, and so our work at RetroReport, number one, is we create
short documentary films to tryto tell that story, and then job
number two, uh, this isprimarily where I come in, is to
(07:01):
create the classroom resourcesso that a teacher can use that
seven, 10-minute video to beable to address here's this
thing we're learning about inhistory or civics or geography
or environmental science.
SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
And so, listeners, if you listen to the podcast
before this, I talked to LiamJulian and he talked about why
teachers are afraid to teachcivics in classrooms.
And to me, retro report is adirect answer to teachers of
here are things that areready-made, they're classroom
friendly.
I'm looking at uh the frontpage, right, of retro report
(07:40):
right now, and there issomething on vaccine skepticism,
there's something on thefinancial crisis.
Like there are so many thingshere that connect and that
again, and I think that youknow, we have a unique view
because both of you and I didmiddle school, we did high
school, right?
We know what that's like to belike, I want to make sure that
(08:03):
the things that I use in myclassroom are legit, they're
classroom friendly, andeverything you have is because
you used to be a teacher.
And before we go, I do want totalk about how you utilize
teachers because I think that'sso important.
But so retro rapport oftenhighlights the unintended
consequences of history, right?
(08:24):
Why is that focus important?
And how do you decide whichstories to tell?
SPEAKER_00 (08:31):
So I think the unintended consequences part, I
mean, honestly, part of how thatmakes its way into what we do uh
is because frankly, it makes fora great story, right?
Those are the engaging stories,those are the hey, didn't turn
out like we thought it wouldkind of stories, right?
(08:52):
Uh I mean, this is this is thereason that we read great works
of fiction.
This is the reason why we go seethriller movies in uh the movie
theater.
It's because we go, oh, therewas a twist, there was something
else that we didn't foresee uhthat was gonna happen here.
Um and honestly, the the waythat we try to do that, and and
(09:15):
I think one of the things thatmakes Retro Report different
than a whole lot of other greatresources out there is that what
we do is we try to focus onstory and narrative.
So uh a typical Retro Reportfilm, what you're gonna see,
because again, we're trying toconnect past and present, what
(09:35):
you're gonna see is multipleinterviews, ideally first-person
interviews, right?
We want to hear from the peoplewho lived or made the history.
Now, sometimes that's notpossible, right?
I have teachers a lot, uh, UShistory teachers who are like,
what do you have from thefounding era?
(09:56):
And it's like, well, we have acouple things, but it's really
hard uh when you know, when wego to make a film about the
election of 1800, sadly, thosecandidates no longer with us.
Right.
So ideally, we want to pairfirst-person narratives.
Uh, we'll couple that with uhexperts, right?
(10:16):
It's it's great when we hearfrom historians, academics,
those folks.
And then the last thing we wantto include there is primary
sources, right?
We want to see how did thingslook, feel, sound at the time,
right?
And so a lot of our work, whichis like post-war US history
connected stuff, um, it's greatbecause we've got video.
(10:38):
We can look and see how did thenews cover it in that moment?
Uh, you know, what was the mediasaying?
What is, you know, can we getfootage from the actual event uh
to sort of get that message?
Um, you know, some greatexamples of the sort of
unintended consequences ones.
Um, I mean, there's there'smany, uh, some of the ones that
(11:00):
immediately jump to mind.
One of my favorites is we have afilm that gets a lot of use
about the McDonald's hot coffeelawsuit.
SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
Um my gosh, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (11:09):
Yeah, it's a yeah, right.
So this is a story that at leastin part because of how the media
covered it, uh, we all think weknow.
Turns out I encourage you to gowatch our video.
Uh, it's great.
Um there's more to that story,right?
(11:29):
Uh, this is not just a case ofan overly litigious person
going, I burned myself on yourcoffee, McDonald's paying me
millions of dollars.
Um that's not the actual truthof that story.
Um, but the thing that that I Ilove, my favorite chunk of that
(11:51):
film, um, is we talked to uhsome veteran reporters, uh,
including one guy who talkedabout how the I'm gonna so
you'll have to fact check me onthe on the numbers here because
it's okay, I'm not gonna getthem exactly right.
I'd have to go look at thetranscript.
But he says something like whenthis original story was
(12:11):
reported, right, after the theinitial verdict, in a major
American newspaper, it washundreds and hundreds of words
long, right?
But this was a sensational storythat gets picked up everywhere.
So it goes from several hundredwords or over a thousand words
(12:32):
down to 200 words to, you know,back in the day of physical
newspapers.
This was that tiny little blurbof we've got 40 words to tell
you what happened in this story.
And that's the story that madeits way around the world.
The 40-word version, not thethousand-word version, right?
(12:53):
And there's a big difference inwhat you can tell, in what you
can communicate in nuance,complexity, and truth in 40
words versus a thousand words,right?
And so, if nothing else, uh partof what that story tells us is
we should dig a little deeper,right?
We should we we shouldn't dependon the headline.
(13:16):
Uh, we should we should go, youknow, I should go find out for
ourselves, do some additionaldigging, see what else we can
learn uh about stories thathappen in history.
Um, another great one, uh we sothis actually has been in the
news a bit.
Um back in the I think it was1960s, uh, there was a very
(13:41):
famous book uh by a guy namedPaul Ehrlich called The
Population Bomb, uh, whichbasically said, hey, within the
next uh couple decades, we willoutstrip the carrying capacity
of the globe.
We will have mass famine,starvation, and death because
there are too many people.
(14:02):
Um today, uh, you look aroundthe globe, not only have we gone
from, you know, I think at thetime around 4 billion, 5 billion
people to over 8 billion people,um, but we have plenty of
countries around the globe thatare trying to figure out how to
promote uh population growth,right?
Uh and figure out how do we getbirth rates up.
(14:25):
Um, so this is, you know,another one of those of like,
what kind of policies did wemake and create based on a work
that was proven to not becorrect, right?
Now, clearly there are stillenvironmental factors and things
like that that that populationgrowth challenges the population
(14:47):
growth poses.
But when a person says in 20years we're all gonna die
because uh there are too manypeople living on this planet,
and now we have double thenumber of people, like clearly
that was that was an incorrectuh assumption.
SPEAKER_01 (15:05):
So you talked about primary sources.
Your work with Library ofCongress really emphasizes
primary sources, and I thinkeverybody in the civics and
civil studies world, when theyhear primary sources, like yes,
right?
How can teachers use thesematerials to help students think
more critically about historyand current events together?
SPEAKER_00 (15:25):
Um I'll address this.
I'll I'll I'll talk a little bitabout the the project as well.
And then do you put links in inshow notes, Liz?
SPEAKER_01 (15:33):
Sure do.
SPEAKER_00 (15:34):
Okay, brilliant.
Well, we will connect to thiswonderful collection we have.
Yes.
Um so you you mentioned you knowyour previous podcast uh guest.
Um talked about you know some ofthat fear and hesitation that
teachers have, right?
Yes.
Um, you know, teaching civics,it's hard.
Um if for no other reason, Imean, we we are having this
(15:58):
conversation on October 1st, uh,early afternoon.
Uh, we are 12 hours, 12-ishhours into uh government
shutdown, right?
Yep.
Um I guarantee you there arewhat tens of thousands of civics
and government teachers aroundthe country who are like, uh,
(16:18):
how am I gonna here we go?
Yeah, how am I gonna explainwhat a government shutdown is?
How am I gonna explain like uhwhat is the lawmaking process
and the budget writing processthat got us here so that my
sixth graders or my tenthgraders can understand what any
of this is, right?
Okay, so number one, teachingcivics is hard.
(16:40):
Number two, teachers sometimesare scared to wade into this
minefield.
I think I think that one of thebiggest fears that teachers have
is when their students go homeand say, my teacher said fill in
(17:00):
the blank, right?
We as teachers, I I mean, I knowthousands of them, by and large,
they are really excellentpeople, okay, who are dedicated
to their craft and who want todo right by their students.
A teacher cannot control whathow a student finishes that
(17:23):
sentence, right?
The my teacher said, fill in theblank.
And that's right, that's where alot of teachers end up receiving
criticism, right?
Something was misconstrued.
Now, granted, there have beenplenty of teachers who've said
things they shouldn't have said,but there's that fear of what
(17:44):
are my how are my studentscommunicating what I think the
intent of this lesson is.
Okay.
One of the ways to sidestep atleast a part of that problem, is
use primary sources.
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (18:01):
Instead of standing in front of your class saying,
here's the here's the real storyabout X.
Well, let the people of the timetell you their perspective.
Let's use images and cartoonsand song recordings and
photographs and governmentdocuments to tell the story in
(18:26):
that moment, right?
It's a fundamentally differentstatement out of the student's
mouth, right?
On one hand, if you compare myteacher said dot dot dot versus
we read or we saw photographs ofthis event.
Uh, we we read or listened to aninterview with a person who was
(18:50):
there and here's what they said,right?
Now, that is not a cure-all, butthat is absolutely a safer
approach, right?
It is a different conversationin homes across America when
it's here's what the documentssay, here's what the people who
lived it say, as opposed tohere's what my teacher said.
(19:13):
So that's that's something thatthat you know we take into
account not only in ourfilmmaking style, but also in
how we construct the materialsthat go with our films, right?
Um, so a great example of this.
Uh, we have a this wonderfulfilm about uh the legacy of the
Koromatsu decision, uh aboutJapanese American incarceration
(19:37):
during World War II.
Um again, there's some amazing,like unknown or very, you know,
lesser known uh pieces of thatstory, and how we get from uh
the incarceration of 120,000Japanese Americans in the 1940s
to reparations, payments paid tothem and their descendants, uh
(20:02):
signed into law by Ronald Reaganin the 1980s.
Like there's there's a there's acouple really interesting steps
along the way, but uh this isone of those times where you
know I found uh absolute primarysource gold, right?
So uh Library of Congress hasthis amazing collection of
(20:24):
historical newspapers um calledChronicling America.
You can search stuff all the wayback to the 1700s through the
1960s, and some of thenewspapers that they have uh
digitized include a set ofhistorical newspapers from
Japanese internment camps.
So these are newspapers produceduh by people who were imprisoned
(20:49):
in these camps.
Um, and they they talk about notonly the the sort of news of the
day, but they chronicle birthsand deaths and weddings.
They talk about the the resultsof uh their camp baseball teams
uh against each other.
There's some amazing stuff inthere.
Um and in June, I was using uhusing some of these resources
(21:16):
and showing a clip from our filmand then some primary sources
related to this.
Um, and I I clicked on one ofthe newspapers, I think it was
from uh June, when was it?
June 27th, 1942.
Um, and one of the articlestalks about how that coming week
(21:37):
at the camp itself, uh, theywere going to be holding the
military draft for all young menbetween 18 and I think it was
maybe 25.
And to see in a in this documentthat people who have been
(21:57):
removed from their homes andimprisoned now are going to be
subjected to the military draftto fight for the country that
has imprisoned them.
I mean, that's like put that infront of students and go, what
is you know, what do we make ofthis?
What questions do you have?
(22:17):
I mean, I have a millionquestions, right?
Sure do.
But that's I I think that's oneof those things where that
primary source tells us a whole,I mean, it tells us some things,
it it sparks many questions, butthat's pretty powerful, right?
Uh that's that's something thata primary source can do.
(22:40):
That uh, you know, if you if youput that side by side with just
a a talking head historian whosaid, Oh, we even subjected uh
incarcerated prisoners to thedraft.
Like uh it's different to see itin writing, uh to see it next to
articles about, you know, here'swhat happened in our camp
(23:01):
yesterday.
Uh it hits different.
So the the bigger picture, thisuh this Library of Congress
project, um, the way it cameabout was uh we'd actually done
this pilot with uh a schooloutside of New York City um
called the Windward School.
Um it's a a school thatspecializes in working with
(23:23):
students with uh languagedisabilities.
So uh primarily dyslexia, butbut a few others as well.
Um and they go through, theythey utilize um uh a specific
way to teach students uh uhcritical analysis and writing
strategies.
It's called the Hockmann method.
(23:43):
Um and so we we had approachedthem and worked out this pilot
where uh we said, hey, you youfolks use uh all sorts of short
articles with students wherestudents go through, they
annotate, uh, and then theyrespond to a writing prompt,
right?
Uh they have to come up withtheir thesis, they have to
provide supporting evidence,they have to link it, all of
(24:05):
that sort of thing.
Um, and so the the impetus ofthis project was, hey, would you
be willing to try using ahandful of short videos
occasionally in place of theshort articles that you've been
using?
And the folks at Windward werelike, yeah, this would be great.
We'll we'll try it out.
Uh, we'll work this into how wecreate our resources and report
(24:27):
back.
Well, they reported backshockingly, uh, that students
really liked using short videos.
Uh, it was a great break fromanother article, right?
And so uh they used these, theycreated some of the resources
and said, this this works reallywell.
Uh, this, you know, is a solidway to go about teaching um this
sort of critical analysis andthen construction of uh an
(24:50):
expository paragraph and thatsort of thing.
So what we did then was we tookthis sort of pilot project, uh,
applied for a grant uh from theLibrary of Congress, a teaching
with primary sources grant, andsaid, we want to take 25 of our
films um that cover sort ofpost-reconstruction to
present-day US history, plentyof civics connections in there
(25:13):
as well.
What we're gonna do is we'regonna create these scaffolded
resources for students uh at youknow different levels of their
writing and analysis.
We're gonna couple it with aprimary source pack for each of
these and put them all togetherso that uh within a classroom,
(25:33):
uh almost no matter sort of whatlearning differences a teacher
would have in front of them,they would have sort of multiple
versions to work from to say,let's watch this seven-minute
video.
Uh then, you know, about uh theGreat Depression or the Cold War
or civil rights era, that sortof thing.
(25:53):
We're gonna watch the video, uh,we're gonna analyze primary
sources, and then we're gonnarespond to uh a writing prompt.
Um, and uh this grant hasenabled us not only to create
this set of resources, but alsoto go out and actually do
professional development with uhwith teachers.
And hopefully now, uh if we getyear two and three funding um as
(26:17):
we move forward uh to be able todo it with districts um and and
really get these materials intothe hands of teachers to say,
look, there's great stuff, it'sfree, uh, it will help you meet
the needs of all sorts ofdifferent learners in your
classroom.
Um, and it's really engagingstuff.
SPEAKER_01 (26:38):
I love that you brought up Koramatsu because I
don't know that a lot of peopleknow that the state of Arizona
had Japanese internment camps.
Um and it it again, like showingthat they have baseball leagues,
like there's so many things thatwe can show.
And I love where you're like,what questions do you have,
right?
Because it really allows thestudents to dig in.
(27:00):
Unfortunately, another thingthat's connected to Arizona is
political violence.
Um and I don't want to talknecessarily about current day,
but you know, our congresswomanGabrielle Giffords was a victim
of political violence.
Unfortunately, we're seeing it alot more, or it feels like a lot
more lately.
(27:21):
So in your video on politicalviolence, you show that tensions
over democracy really do go backto the founding era.
How can teachers use theseparallels to make sense of
today's polarization in theirclassroom?
Because again, teachers areafraid to talk about it.
We we've seen people lose theirjobs over things.
So, how can teachers use thesevideos and again use these past
(27:44):
events to really um make senseof it?
SPEAKER_00 (27:49):
Yeah.
I you know, I I don't have theperfect answer and the perfect
response here because I I don'tthink it exists, right?
Nobody does, exactly.
I mean, uh the dealing just as amember of society in a country
where political violence is areality is tough.
(28:10):
And then to turn around and totry to provide context and
understanding and space forquestions and opinions in a
classroom about politicalviolence is really, really hard.
Yes.
I again, this you know, getsback to my sort of operating
(28:32):
ethos in the classroom of wewant to understand history in
order to understand today.
You cannot understand the worldyou're living in without
understanding history, andhistory is just not as
meaningful unless you can findways to connect it to your
(28:55):
present, right?
And so this is one again, youyou referenced a film we have uh
that really looks at you knowessentially how political
violence has been part of UShistory since the beginning.
Um now, certainly we can pointover our history to waves, ebbs
(29:17):
and flows.
Uh, I've seen a lot ofconversation recently about uh
the 1970s as a time oftremendous turmoil recently.
Um, you know, if we go back tothe founding era, right, uh what
leads us to revolution, at leastin part, are some acts of
(29:39):
political violence.
Um the the time frame in betweenwinning the revolutionary war
and the creation of theconstitution is marked by and
the the drive to theconstitution is hastened by
political violence, right?
Shea's, I mean, I would argueShea's rebellion um.
(30:00):
I don't know.
I I know some people say, oh,it's it's maybe a little
overhyped, but I it might be oneof the 10 to 15 most important
events in US history in terms ofits outcome, right?
When you when you convince agroup of 13 states, which really
operate like their ownindependent countries, to say,
(30:22):
see, there's danger afoot, youneed a stronger national
government, we must cometogether.
That's a pretty big deal andchange.
And then, you know, once we havethe constitution, there's plenty
of political violence thatoccurs between then and the
biggest act of politicalviolence of a country going to
(30:44):
war with itself, right?
And so, really, that's you know,in 10 minutes, the video tries
to tell this story and say,look, this, you know, whether
it's an arc or a straight line,or I don't know.
I'm not, I don't, not great atgeometry.
It's there, right?
It's it's been part of us sincethe beginning.
Um, certainly not to say likeit's a good thing, uh, but it's
(31:08):
but it's but it's there, it'ssomething we have to contend
with and to understand howpolitical violence has had an
effect in the past should helpus understand the impact of
political violence today.
SPEAKER_01 (31:24):
And I I appreciate that you're like, there's no
right answer here.
I think when we look at eventsof today, teachers sometimes
feel like they have to have theanswer now.
And it's it's the same argumentI've had with scholars where
it's like, how long does thepresident have to be out of
office for you to be able tojudge their right?
We we sometimes get caught inthis presentism of I need to
(31:48):
know everything now.
And it's it's impossible.
It's a lot.
And I love that you'reconducting, like, let's take it,
let's take a breath and lookback and understand, you know,
why.
And then again, I I love thatyou say asking like all the
questions you have.
And teachers, if you're asked aquestion that you don't know,
(32:10):
it's perfectly fine to say, Idon't know.
That's a really great question.
Because we don't have to knoweverything.
SPEAKER_00 (32:16):
And I and I think, you know, if for teachers trying
to deal with breaking news.
Um and and this is I I mean,this is this is a a for a uh
history or civics and governmentteacher, this is a daily issue.
Right.
Yes.
But when when you have one ofthose big events that bubbles up
where you know students havethoughts, have questions, um,
(32:39):
have seen snippets on TikTok andInstagram or wherever, right?
This is a great time.
Use that whiteboard in the frontof your room and make a list of
what are the things that wethink we know, what are our
sources of that information?
What are the things wedefinitely don't know?
(33:01):
And what are the things that wehave questions about that we,
you know, that we don't evenknow we don't know, right?
And and you know what?
Your questions list is probablygonna be the longest.
And there are some of thosequestions you may never answer.
Um but that's the I mean, that'sthat's what learning is, right?
That's how and that's how wemake that's how we make sense of
(33:25):
the world that we live in,that's how we make sense of
history.
Um that's you know, teachingstudents to be uh quality
consumers of news andinformation, uh, to be able to
analyze and and dissect storiesuh and and figure out what what
(33:45):
is it that we know and don'tknow.
And I, you know, it's one ofthose, again, I I could be on a
up on a soapbox all day uharguing for these sorts of
things, but I you know I thinkit's important so that the next
time that there is a big pieceof news, don't shy away.
(34:06):
Don't as hard as it is, don'tinterject of here are here are
my thoughts and they must beright.
Right?
Yes, but let's figure out whatdo we know, what do we think we
know, or what are the sources,what are the questions we have.
And you know what?
(34:26):
You can come back to that theday after, the day after, the
following week, and update thosethings.
Um granted by the next week it'sprobably gonna be replaced with
the next issue event,controversy.
Uh, but you know, that's I mean,that that's what social studies
is.
Uh we we gotta figure out how weinteract with each other and uh
(34:50):
inhabit this world and livetogether in societies.
Uh, if we don't spend at least alittle time uh figuring out
what's happening outside of theclassroom uh and talking about
it, I you know, I don't knowwhat we're doing here.
SPEAKER_01 (35:05):
And that kind of cognitive mapping is critical
for building critical thinkers,building media literacy, because
even if you can't answer thequestions, you've now taught
your students to hear somethingand to say, hmm, I wonder, I
wonder where the source is, Iwonder what else I don't know.
And again, we're creatingresponsible consumers of of
(35:29):
media, and that is so important.
So looking ahead, what upcomingretro report stories?
So I know we talked about likethe 2008 financial crisis, uh,
the Americans with DisabilityAct, Supreme Court cases.
Do you think what do you thinkis going to be most impactful
(35:49):
for teachers and students?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:51):
Um, so some of the things we we have coming down
the pike.
Well, our our most recent filmwas about the 2008 financial
crisis.
Um, this is definitely one ofthose areas where I'm like, I
was already a professional, likehad a real job and lived through
this.
How can we be teaching this ashistory?
Uh, and then you know, you lookin your classroom of 10th
(36:14):
graders and go, oh, you know,you people were babies.
You don't you don't know aboutthis.
Um, so that one was uh recentlyreleased.
The one that will be releasedprobably by the time uh this
podcast uh is out in the wild,um, looks at a uh kind of little
known Supreme Court case uhcalled the Island Trees uh
(36:36):
school district versus Pico.
SPEAKER_01 (36:38):
Um I'd never heard of that.
SPEAKER_00 (36:40):
Yeah, so it it's actually the Supreme Court case,
really the only one that dealswith the constitutionality and
First Amendment aspects of bookbanning.
Um, so here this looks back tothe 1970s um Island Tree School
District.
Uh, it's in Levittown, New York,on Long Island.
(37:01):
Um, and here it was a highschool student who uh
essentially sued his schooldistrict for removing uh items
from the school library.
Um, his claim was he had a FirstAmendment right uh to have those
resources available in theschool library.
Um now, the the unfortunate partuh for teaching this, right, is
(37:26):
that this is one of those timeswhere the Supreme Court does not
give us like a nice cleanopinion.
We don't get the like, oh,here's the quote I can use for
all time that lets meunderstand, you know, there's no
separate, uh is inherentlyunequal line in Island Trees V
Pico.
In fact, it is such a fracturedopinion.
There are there are sevendifferent opinions that are
(37:48):
offered or authored in thiscase.
Um, we get a plurality thatbasically says, like, yeah,
students have some FirstAmendment rights to be able to
access information, but this ismessy.
Well, you know what?
It's messy currently, everywherein the country.
Um, and so one of the things wehave students do is uh analyze
(38:11):
this issue from a coupledifferent perspectives um to
come up with an argument aboutwho is it that should decide,
right?
Do we put that at the federalgovernment level, the state
government, the school boards?
Should we leave it to familiesand the community, right?
Grappling with those issues ofwho does and should have the
(38:34):
power.
Um, we have students, uh, youknow, part of it is we want
students to go to their look attheir own school district policy
uh to analyze like how do thesedecisions get made, right?
And so this is one that I mean,my hope, right?
We are we aim to be a anonpartisan uh organization,
(38:56):
right?
Um, we do not take the stancethat like book banning is good
or book banning is terrible.
We want to tell you aninteresting and engaging story
from history, tell you, guesswhat?
This is still with us today.
It's something we're stillarguing about, and create an
activity for students to do someof this mental heavy lifting and
(39:21):
grappling with this issue forthemselves.
So that one should be out verysoon.
Uh, upcoming films, uh, oneabout uh Tiananmen Square, um,
one about the Americans withDisabilities Act.
Uh we also are finally, it'staken us a little bit, but we're
we're getting cooking on some uhsome new films and materials
(39:43):
that'll be connected to uhAmerica 250 that sort of look at
that you know, revolution to theConstitution time period.
Um those uh a little bit furtherout, probably uh spring, um, but
but definitely things that we'rewe're hard at work on.
Um, you know, and my my goal isthat uh, you know, we every week
(40:07):
we're we're putting somethingnew out into the world uh for
teachers and students.
Um we we try to release a newfilm uh usually a couple times a
month.
Um we have new lessons andactivities that are connected to
our films, new ones just aboutevery week.
Um and our goal is, you know, II would say history and civics
(40:31):
are our our bread and butter,our our wheelhouse.
Um but we have a ton of greatresources.
If you're a geography teacher,if you're an English teacher, I
mean the book ban ones, we'vegot a separate lesson uh for
English classrooms as well.
Um, you know, we've got greatstuff for uh science courses,
(40:52):
for psychology courses.
So um whether you are listeningto this and you're uh a civics
teacher, wonderful.
If you're not a civics teacher,we probably have something for
you.
Um, but share this, you know,share this with your colleagues
because they'll find some greatvideos, some great lessons uh
that are entirely free that youcan uh put to use in your
(41:13):
classroom.
SPEAKER_01 (41:15):
I love that.
And my last question for youbecause you and I know how
important it is for educators tobe involved, I know that retro
report really leans on teacheradvisors, ambassadors.
So if I am currently a teacher,whether I'm a civics teacher or
an English teacher, because hereat the Center for American
Civics, we do believe thatcivics belongs everywhere and it
(41:37):
all ties in together.
If I'm like, oh my gosh, Ilistened to David, like this
sounds so cool as a teacher.
How can I get involved?
What are some ways for Arizonateachers and I mean teachers
around the country, right?
To get involved and help RetroReport make the things they have
even more classroom friendly andbetter.
SPEAKER_00 (41:58):
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh thank you for asking thatquestion.
Allows me to make my pitch toteachers.
Um, so we have uh a coupledifferent teacher advisory
groups.
Um, the you know, my ethos hereis we can't serve teachers
unless we actually listen toteachers.
(42:19):
Um so we we have uh you know ourour biggest group, uh it's a
group of uh retroportambassadors.
Uh it's about 300 teachers fromstates all across the country,
including some wonderful Arizonaeducators.
Um, what we ask of teachers isto uh use some of our materials,
tell us about them.
(42:40):
Uh, did it work?
What did you like?
What did you not like?
Um, to help us spread the wordto other educators and share our
resources and provide usfeedback.
Tell us what are the things youneed in your classroom?
Uh, what can we create to makeyour life easier?
Um, and in exchange for this,beyond our undying gratitude,
(43:03):
um, you know, we provide youwith a non-life-changing sum of
money.
I mean, it's a stipend.
It is not gonna, you're notgonna retire on the uh retro
report ambassadorship, but wewant to make sure you know that
that your time and expertise uhis valued.
So there's a stipend, we sendyou some great swag, um, you
(43:24):
know, we hopefully provide somesome great opportunities for
folks through uh you knowvirtual PD and other
experiences.
Um and then honestly, uh, youknow, if if there are teachers
or district leaders who arelistening to this, um, you know,
we do professional development,um, you know, things obviously
(43:47):
uh uh approaches for uh workingwith primary sources, approaches
for integrating current eventsuh into the classroom.
Um, you know, we're we're happyto do custom PD for folks as
well.
Um and and sometimes we can dothat at no cost if it's uh with
a grant, otherwise, you know, wecan do it at low cost for folks.
(44:09):
Um, so yeah, all of ourresources are entirely free.
They always will be.
Um, and our goal really is to toreach as many teachers as
possible and uh continue tolisten to teachers so that we
can uh keep making moreresources that uh that have a
home and classrooms across thecountry.
SPEAKER_01 (44:29):
And teachers, if you're listening to this,
hopefully you've been on RetroReport's site.
I've actually been kind ofcruising it uh while listening
to David because I want to makesure that, you know, between
David and I, we put as manylinks for you in our show notes
that really show um what ourfriends at Retro Report are
doing.
And I, you know, for us at theCenter for American Civics, we
(44:51):
really focus on the founding.
And that's kind of our jam.
And I appreciate that we havepeople in the civics world that
do things like current eventsand you know put them together
with history.
And I think I'm sorry, I don'tthink, I know my favorite thing
about the civics world is we alloffer something a little bit
(45:11):
different.
Um, and we're all each other'sbiggest supporters.
So, David, thank you so much fortaking the time to chat with us,
to tell us about Retro Report.
Um, listeners, if you havequestions, I I know maybe I
shouldn't say this, and if not,I'll cut it out.
But David's easy to reach.
And he, you know, I think forboth of us, because we are
(45:34):
classroom educators, if I have ahundred emails, but I have two
from teachers, the ones fromteachers are the ones I always
answer first.
So never hesitate to reach outfor help or anything like that.
David, you are a superstar.
And I I really do appreciate youbeing on our podcast, all the
things you do for the teachersof Arizona, but also the
(45:55):
teachers um from around ourcountry.
SPEAKER_00 (45:58):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me,Liz.
And if folks want to learn more,I'm I mean, I'm probably a
terrible salesman.
I don't think I've plugged ourwebsite enough.
Go to go to retroreport.org.
Uh, you can find the fulllibrary.
We have over 300 films, most ofwhich have ready-to-use lessons
and activities.
Uh, if you have individualquestions or things you're
(46:19):
looking for or feedback based onwhat you heard, um, as Liz
mentioned, you can reach out tome directly.
Uh, my email is simple.
It's dolson o l atretroreport.com.
Uh, let me know what you think.
Let me know if there are storiesthat we ought to tell uh or
things that you absolutely needin your classroom that you think
(46:40):
we should create.
SPEAKER_01 (46:42):
Awesome.
Thank you.
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CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.