This year’s History of St. Louis class got off to a powerful start through a guest speaker and a hands-on project.
Colleen Smyth of Humans of St. Louis (HOSTL) joined the junior class in Brauer Auditorium the first week of school to talk about the project and the impact of storytelling on a community. HOSTL is a nonprofit organization that shares first-person stories and photographic portraits, featuring people and places throughout St. Louis. HOSTL gives over 145,000 social media followers an intimate look into the lives and struggles of the people of St. Louis, one photo and story at a time. It is the second most popular “Humans of” site in the U.S. after Humans of New York. Stories highlight areas of economic growth, philanthropy, and small businesses. They also address race, racial equity, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, community, family, youth, aging, health, disease, education, discrimination, homelessness, poverty, cultural awareness, and more. The project is intentionally grounded in social work, public health, and documentary photography.
“No subject is off limits, so we have all kinds of stories. Love stories, stories about religion and race. No story is off-limits. But we are not out there sharing people’s opinions. We are sharing true, authentic, honest stories about people’s lived experiences,” said Smyth.
Smyth explained HOSTL’s process of choosing an area of St. Louis either not covered yet, or that hasn’t been recently highlighted, often visiting events and festivals where they know there will be a lot of people. “The goal is to cover the vast diversity of St. Louis,” she said. “We’ll pick one or two questions that we’ll ask everyone we meet on the street.” Examples of these questions are: What motivates or inspires you? When reaching a goal, did you take an unusual path to get there? What would make a tremendous difference in your life right now? Can you tell me about a relationship that has had a tremendous impact on your life?
“We are sharing people’s true feelings and emotions,” she said. “We are giving space for people to have hard conversations. Our audience can engage in the comments.”
Storytelling changes how we look at the world and our place in it.
She also has some advice for the students. It’s important to collaborate and partner. “I can go faster doing something by myself, but I can go further doing it with others.” At the same time, be factual. “We are trying to tell stories that are empowering and with dignity. We are always asking people for permission and verifying facts,” she said.
Then she asked the students to consider some questions of their own: What stories have you heard? What stories haven’t you heard and need to be told? How can you approach with a posture of curiosity?
Finally, Smyth shared lessons learned through her work with HOSTL:
- Dive deeper: ask open-ended questions and be respectful.
- Actively listen and learn: trust that the subjects and community are the experts.
- Themes: recognize commonalities while respectfully shining a light on differences
- Convey dignity and truths: A system exists—consider what you may know, what you may not know, and what you may not know that you don’t know.
- Share info: knowledge, resources, struggles, and wins; rely on a team to help create, cultivate, and celebrate.Reframe: look at challenges as opportunities.
History of St. Louis students followed up this event with a project: gathering and analyzing data to gain an understanding of what influences different perspectives on the region. Students surveyed people in their community and asked respondents both demographics questions and opinion questions. For instance, respondents answered questions about how long they’ve lived here, what are three words they can use to describe the city, and what is the most striking aspect of St. Louis. Students also collected rankings on how St. Louis compares to other cities and whether the region is on the rise or decline.
After the data was collected, math teachers joined their history colleagues to help students conduct thorough analysis. Students learned how to graph, make charts, and check whether age influences views about culture, for example.
“The goal is to get students thinking more broadly,” said Carla Federman, JK-12 History and Social Sciences Department Chair. “What are others’ perspectives, and how might their demographics and backgrounds influence those perspectives?” Students learn that they’re building a hypothesis but that they don’t have enough data to reach concrete conclusions. “We’re pushing them to think about this in terms of ‘what does this data set make us believe,’ and ‘what would we need to do to prove its validity,’ and ‘does this align with your own perceptions?’” said Federman.
The History of St. Louis class is off to a great start this year. Students are already looking forward to additional guest speakers and panels, interesting projects, and even field trips to supplement their understanding of both our region and how metropolitan areas develop across the country.