It’s the beginning of a new school year. Classroom teachers
are considering the building of healthy
classroom communities, a spaces that works for everyone. A number of us here at
SAI have been hired to work at a school that is welcoming a whole new sixth
grade student body along with a few new sixth grade teachers. Everyone is
talking about forging strong communities in the school as well as the
classroom.
Each
storyteller will be paired with an individual teacher for three storytelling
sessions. The purpose and goals of these workshops are to introduce students to
the art of storytelling, the structures and components of storytelling and how
stories are conveyed in a myriad of ways. We will be telling stories and
demonstrating how comprehension and emotion are conveyed through such things as
voice, facial expression, body movement, specific vocabulary, sentence
construction, etc. At the conclusion of the workshops, the students will produce
a piece of writing which the classroom teacher and the storyteller will develop
collaboratively.
We
have been asked to frame our workshops around the concept of community. Hmmm.
Personally, I can’t wait to talk with my
teacher to find out how she defines, discusses and works with ‘community’.
Will she focus on community values, community rules, community support, and individual
responsibilitiesin a community? There are so many ways to contemplate
community.
Of
course stories are the perfect vehicle to look at community. All stories have
come out of community. Storytelling is a community event. I've spent the summer
trying to find a way to narrow my list of stories in order to choose the
perfect few ‘community’ stories I will tell.
As
it happens, one of my summer reads was Radiance
of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah. One theme the book explores is ways of
rebuilding a community devastated and dispersed by war. One of the ways evoked
is through storytelling and keeping the stories of the community. An elder
woman, Mama Kadie, the community's story keeper, mentors Oumu, a young girl. “It
isn’t about knowing the most
stories, child, it is about carrying the ones that are most important and
passing them along. I have already decided to tell you all the stories I carry.” (p35)
A
powerful scene in the book occurs when the children of the village find a dead
body in the river... the river where they go to bathe and get drinking water.
That night all gather as Mama Kadie tells a story of the water spirits and how
they behave. All listening are trying to make sense of the horror of the day.
Another
book I read this summer was Heroes and
Heroines by Mary Beck. This is a collection of Tinglit Haida legends. Beck writes
in her Forward:
"The
myths and legends were told and retold at potlatches, less formal gatherings,
as family pastimes, even as bedtime stories. But their entertainment value was
secondary. Here, as elsewhere, the important function of myth and legend was to
pass the knowledge and traditions, morals and mores from the old to the young, maintain social cohesion and continuity,
keep the culture alive and flourishing... In their parallels to the myths and
legends of other cultures, they reinforce the one-world concept. Through them
we see that human needs, reactions and values are essentially the same
everywhere, and that human beings, wherever they live, have found similar ways
of explaining life and transmitting their concepts." (Ix, x)
So,
in the service of building a narrative community, which stories will I pass on?
Which stories will best illustrate the benefits and difficulties of living in a
community? Which stories will provoke engaged discussions around the various
aspects of community?
We
storytellers must keep in mind that we are NOT teaching ‘community.’
That is the role of the teachers. We are teaching the communication skills
inherent in the oral art of storytelling. However, as professional storytellers
we can search out and choose stories that complement, enhance and extend the work of the teachers.
Two
stories come to mind right away. One
is ‘Stone Soup’ and all of its variants. Here is a story that
reveals the deliciousness of collaboration and working together in community. The
other is Aesop’s ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ or it’s
literary cousin, Fredrick by Lionni. What are an individual’s responsibilities in society? What is equal pay for
equal work? How do we handle those who may not
be ideal community members?
Excellent
discussions of both Stone Soup and Fredrick can be found at the site
TeachingChildrenPhilosophy.org.
I
would love to hear what others are thinking about ‘community’
and what stories are rolling around in their minds. Please respond.
Julie Della Torre
