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LEILA FADEL, HOST:
It's Friday, and this week we hear a StoryCorps holiday tradition called The Great Thanksgiving Listen. It's where young people sit down to record interviews with their elders using the StoryCorps app. For the past 10 years, Stacy Flannery's history students at Glenbrook South High School near Chicago have collected conversations.
STACY FLANNERY: My students have recorded literally thousands, and I have listened to every single interview from start to finish.
WILLIAM FONTANA: Three, two - and there we go. OK. This is my grandmother. Say hello.
NANCY SCHIED: Hello.
FLANNERY: One that stands out is a student who said that her beloved uncle came back from Vietnam and told his family, I don't want to talk about it ever again. So I said to her, it's been a long time, and maybe he would be open to talking to you about it.
MEGAN STETTLER: Was there a moment when you remember being really scared?
ROY LIEBERGEN: Yeah. We had some fights that scared the living hell out of you.
FLANNERY: He had picked up a coffee on the way to the interview, and you can hear him crunching the Styrofoam cup as he's talking because it is so difficult for him, but he's doing it for his niece because he loves her.
LEANDRO ARREDONDO: Hello. My name is Leandro Arredondo. I am 16 years old, and I am in the TV room of my grandfather's house.
RAMIRO PRUDENCIO: My name is Ramiro Prudencio. I'm 86 years old.
FLANNERY: I wish everyone could see the smile on my face because I love the way he helped Leandro see that some of the most difficult things could potentially be the best things that ever happened to us.
PRUDENCIO: I lost my right eye. My accident - I want to repeat for emphasis - was never a handicap for me. It was an incentive, and I think it has guided very much of my life.
FLANNERY: There is one person I wish I could have interviewed, and that is my grandfather, George Flannery. I'm one of eight, and my grandfather had a unique ability to make all of us feel like we were the center of his world. So I'm honoring my grandfather by making sure my students interview the important people in their lives. What I believe the world needs more than ever is connection. And one of the things I'm hearing more and more in the interviews is that they're living in a world where conversation isn't valued. And I cannot tell you how many times someone has said, no one has ever asked me this. And my students - they know that the meaning is only going to increase with time. And that feels good.
FADEL: Stacy Flannery and her students in Glenview, Illinois. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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