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    A Bridge of Stories: Risking it All to Connect Classrooms and Culture
    A Bridge of Stories: Risking it All to Connect Classrooms and Culture
    A Bridge of Stories: Risking it All to Connect Classrooms and Culture
    Ebook167 pages2 hours

    A Bridge of Stories: Risking it All to Connect Classrooms and Culture

    By Kristin Pedemonti

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    About this ebook

    “With openhearted generosity, Kristin shares not only the story of her amazing journey but complete lesson plans and valuable tips on inter-cultural work. She deepens our understanding of the culture and legends of Belize all the while imparting courage and a can-do philosophy that could truly change the world. Read and be inspired!”

    —Diane Edgecomb, author of A Fire in My Heart: Kurdish Tales

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherParkhurst Brothers Publishers Inc
    Release dateJan 1, 2017
    ISBN9781624910883
    A Bridge of Stories: Risking it All to Connect Classrooms and Culture

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      Book preview

      A Bridge of Stories - Kristin Pedemonti

      dreams.

      Introduction

      Every culture has a story. Every person has a story. Stories serve many functions, one of which is to connect us one to another, build bridges between peoples, dispel stereotypes and illustrate our commonalities while honoring our diversity. Listening to and sharing stories is important because our communities are more diverse than ever.

      Stories provide a sense of self and a sense of place within the world. Stories illustrate how the world is interconnected. Through story we see each other as individuals and as human beings, rather than as subjects of governments or restrained by man-made borders that sometimes seem to cause divisions. We also become aware of how similar we are. When our stories are valued, we feel valued. Reclaiming and honoring the wisdom of indigenous stories by offering a process to utilize them in classrooms and communities goes a step further to instill a deeper sense of value in these stories and reawaken the collective knowledge of the past by bringing it to the present. Stories connect across time: past to present, and present to future.

      This book is a culmination of my experience working in the field for seven years. I approached this time with little background in pedagogy or anthropology. Possessing a deep passion for learning about cultures, I wanted to enhance understandings of indigenous and marginalized populations within their own country and beyond their own borders. I hoped to encourage respect and understanding between those cultures. My hope is that through learning more about their cultural stories and the valuable lessons therein, that the next generation of Belizeans will feel a sense of pride about who they are and the value that their stories hold. It is also my hope that those beyond Belizean borders will understand the value of these stories. These pages present:

      The evolution of the project.

      Challenges faced and overcome.

      A step-by-step guide to one creative writing exercise using indigenous culture in the classroom.

      A selection of students’ and teachers’ stories that were the result of the writing workshops presented.

      Helpful tips—based on my hundreds of hours in classrooms and in faculty workshops—that should be of value to anyone wishing to implement this or similar cultural-based writing exercises with K-12 populations in any country.

      My goal in this book is to share the work with a broader audience and demonstrate how this program can be replicated anywhere anyone chooses.

      The process applied here can be replicated worldwide and across a wide range of interests. I am sharing my experience which I hope may benefit educators, storytellers especially, but also others interested in learning what is involved in creating and facilitating a project in another country or community. If you find inspiration in my own journey, please feel free to employ the processes explained here in your own planning and implementation.

      This book honors the inherent value of all indigenous stories. We desperately need to connect across cultural boundaries in order to foster greater understanding. Some may choose to use this book in their advocacy for similar work in other cultures. I hope the explanation of my experience and the process that developed during my work will enable research into stories and legends—both those of readers’ native cultures and those of other cultures of interest. Finally, I hope that this work will encourage readers to learn from as many cultures as possible and to value the wisdom within each tradition.

      The stories included were written by Belizean youth and teachers based on age-old Belizean legends shared in workshops. However, this book is more than simply stories collected and shared by an outsider who became accepted as an insider. The stories presented here were written by a doubly marginalized group: their voices are not heard first because of being indigenous and second because they are youth. Their voices need to be heard and encouraged so as to inspire the next generation of storytellers and story-writers. Educators in Belize have told me that this process had lasting value, both as those teachers who attended the workshops shared the creative writing lesson with other teachers and encouraging young Belizeans to tell and share their stories. Their wisdom needs and deserves to be recognized.

      Not only do young indigenous people need to honor their native stories, but wider audiences are hungry to include their voices in the worldwide chorus of story traditions. In every educational setting, educators need a way to connect to an ever increasingly diverse student population. Chapter Three provides a plan to do just that—for teachers to connect to students and students to connect to each other through their stories.

      Students also need and deserve an opportunity to connect fully with the lessons and material being taught. Regrettably, many educational systems have transformed into teaching to the test. Each year there is less opportunity for teachers to allow creative expression. Teachers are required to implement programs that largely exclude student’s experience of their native culture, its rich history, and personal meaning in their lives. While there is undeniable value in teaching facts of science and the hard knowledge of math, detachment from students’ cultural heritage works lasting effects upon the growing psyche.

      However, it is that cultural exploration and creative expression which gives students an opportunity to truly connect to the lessons and to become fully engaged in the material. Students have to see themselves in the lessons being taught. They shine when they see themselves and connect. Not only must they see themselves in their study, but we need to help them find connections to each other, neighbors, and communities. That happens when the curriculum engages their values, their heritage, and their destiny. Stories address so many growth issues and provide a dynamic step to that connection. My hope is that you will find within these pages some inspiration and a lesson plan that excites you, whether in classroom or

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