Listening to voices from the past is a great way to add meaning to a history or literature lesson plan. I found this useful link to 92 historical interviews and was reminded of Mr. D, my favorite teacher from high school. He was amazing.
We were required to read the front page of the newspaper every day and tested over the material when we came to class. Can you even imagine a teacher getting away with that in today's schools? Parents and students would be in a continual uproar for sure! Although a lot of students did complain back then, it didn't make any difference. (Oh, yeah. Times have really changed.)
Mr. D was serious about his subject and unstoppable in his approach to teaching. He made history come alive by pretending to be characters from our history book. He added humor to his reenactments by strutting around the room and including personality traits that I'm sure some of the people didn't really have. Of course, he didn't have access to YouTube in the sixties. Even if he had, I'm not sure I would have preferred the real deal over him.
However, not all of us can act, so it's nice to have choices.