On the Other Foot was an interesting passage because it discussed the importance of knowing the flip side of oral histories; Stephen Sloan starts off describing an incident in which the interviewee seemed irritated that it was very clear that the interviewer was only doing the oral history for a grade and how unfortunate it was. He goes into detail about an experiment he did with one of his classes to make the students understand what it feels like to be “on the other foot.” The students reported that when they were interviewed, they feel self-conscious, uncomfortable when there was eye contact, embarrassed when they could not answer certain questions, and very aware of how the interviewer was acting. After such an experiment he concluded that it was important that the interviewer maintained a proper etiquette while doing oral histories so that they could get the best oral history possible. Some tips he gave were: asking questions the narrator has a high likelihood of knowing, figuring out how to ask questions to get an adequate answer not what to ask, and maintaining proper mannerisms in order to not sway the response of the narrator. I agreed with what Sloan concluded and I think that we could learn from last semester’s oral histories as well as this passage in order to be better interviewers for our project; we also have to keep in consideration the differences in how to treat our narrators versus how the students in Sloan’s class would have liked to be treated.

              This article pointed out some excellent points and acknowledged that the interviewer plays a major part in how well the oral history will go. In listening to an oral history from last semester, the interviewer sounded monotone and not all that interested, they read the questions from the script word for word without adding much spin to acknowledge what the narrator had said previously and it made for an uncomfortable setting. These flaws could have easily been prevented by reading a passage such as this one; I felt as though the quality of the oral history would have been improved dramatically just by paying attention to the key points Sloan mentioned in this article. We have to remember that our narrators are humans, and though the oral history is about them, the interview still needs to be a conversation. Humans need input in a conversation, whether that be in the form of showing interest, or rewording your question.

              In analyzing the responses of the students, I had to realize that not everything they said would apply to the residents of Optimist Park. For instance, the students felt uncomfortable when there was immense eye contact; I think that is a generational circumstance. Older generations (in America) generally see eye contact as a form of respect while our generation doesn’t stress on eye contact as much. I would, of course, judge their reaction to eye contact but go in with the idea that they would feel comfortable with it. What I do think the students had in comments with the residents of Optimist Park is that they felt embarrassed when asked questions they couldn’t answer; I think we have to be really conscious of this while conducting our oral histories. Older people have a sense of pride they don’t like to be tampered with and find it rude to ask questions that are out of their range of knowledge/experience. I think it was important for us to have gone over our interview questions to make sure they were appropriate and answerable.

              In conclusion, I felt as though Sloan pointed out an aspect of oral histories that we oftentimes don’t think about: the interviewee’s perspective. It is very important to make sure the narrator of the oral history feels like their words are meaningful and that the interviewer isn’t doing anything to compromise that. The student’s feedback on what it was like to be interviewed proved to be helpful, but some aspects have to be put in consideration when interviewing a different demographic of people, such as eye contact. I do feel like I received tips about doing things that I would have otherwise not thought to do from this passage, like trying not to fully play the “audience” role, but instead be very interactive. I feel as though this article would have helped the previous semester but I’m glad that I had the opportunity to read it and I will definitely be utilizing some of the techniques mentioned.