griot

Although we might agree that having a community is important, how do we know when we have one? - Mara Sapon-Shavin

This week’s readings by Mara Sapon-Shavin, Building a Safe Community for Learning, by Maxine Greene, Imagination, Community, and the School, and a reading for Jean Eisele’s class, Hello Grandfather: Lessons from Alaska, by Lisa Delpit, brought home for me both the importance and challenges of community building. One idea that resonates with me, which was articulated explicitly by Greene, is storytelling, and I was reminded of a talk I went to last year given by Jourdan I. Keith, founder of the Urban Wilderness Project. A large component of this project is the “Griot Works” - pronounced gree-oh - which cultivates storytellers. A Griot preserves community and culture through story, myth, and folklore. When I heard about this project, I thought it was a fabulous way to build community - and preserve the integrity of its component cultures. Everyone is welcome, children to adults, no matter your experience level or background. This project seems an ideal way to feel a deeper affinity for your own cultural background as well as providing an excellent way to experience the “other,” a concern of Delpit’s that I’ve given a lot of thought to. Building a strong storytelling tradition within a community could be a great way to “learn to see the other rather than merely look.” (Delpit, 1996, p. 91)

Another seductive quality of this project is that it promotes, in a sense, alternative “literacies.” A more comprehensive definition of “literacy” can be fostered when we incorporate traditional ways of sharing knowledge, like myth. As Delpit warns, “[w]e risk failure in our educational reforms by ignoring the significance of human connectedness in many communities of culture.” (1996, p. 95) Many of these cultures possess a strong oral tradition that uses folklore to stress this idea of connectedness. Using these stories to promulgate a deeper understanding of these connections is a good lesson for all of us. Similarly, Sapon-Shevin suggests a “diversity treasure hunt” (1995, p. 107) as a community building exercise. The end result of such an exercise would be a kind of story, too. Finding someone whose parents are from another country and exploring a tradition or custom that came from those parents writes a cultural story that can be shared with the community. I really liked that idea. Finding a way to integrate the Griot tradition in our classrooms would, in my opinion, help us learn about and from one another - and help to see each other more clearly. A strong sense of interconnectedness could develop - stories intersecting and complementing one another - and a healthy community of mutual respect can develop. Hearing and acknowledging each other’s stories is one way we can gauge the strength of our communities.

For Greene,“interconnectedness and communion” (1995, p. 33) characterize a strong democratic learning community. The arts, including storytelling, are an important component of this type of community. She writes that “teachers incapable of thinking imaginatively or of releasing students to encounter works of literature and other forms of art are probably also unable to communicate to the young what the use of imagination signifies.” (1995, p. 37) And it is imagination that “feeds one’s capacity to feel one’s way into another’s vantage point,” (Greene, 1995, p. 37) - or as Delpit says, the capacity to see the other.

What sounds like just a story can be a powerful element of Greene’s democratic community. The act of telling a story helps students find their voice. The story promotes an “emerging solidarity, a sharing of certain beliefs, and a dialogue about others.” (Greene, 1995, p. 39) It’s a way of talking about each other and to each other. Having open lines of communication is essential to a strong community, which must be able to both speak and listen. The story also wields enormous power to “break the hold of…constructed categories.” (Greene, 1995, p. 40) What we thought we knew about others and how we thought they fit into the world was, perhaps, merely a reflection of our own wishes and beliefs, not their reality. Stories can help us uncover the unknown truths about one another.

Delpit laments that when she went to Alaska she “was very much the ‘other’” with “no opportunity to see [herself] reflected in those around [her].” (1996, p. 104) The Griot tradition, I believe, can help answer that concern. Sapon-Shevin bids us ask whether our classroom practices will “bring students closer together…or push them further apart?” (1995, p. 112) Incorporating the Griot tradition, in offering a way to experience and empathize with the traditions and values of others, definitely encourages solidarity. Through stories, we “can keep seeking connection points among [our] personal histories.” (Greene, 1995, p. 42) Vitally, these stories and their resultant dialogue promote a respect for the diversity that makes up our communities, enabling us to evolve a relationship together that’s adaptable and open.

Delpit, L. (1996). 'Hello, Grandfather': Lessons from Alaska. In Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom (pp. 91-104). New York, NY: The New Press.
Greene, M. (1995) Imagination, community, and the school. Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change (pp 32-43). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Sapon-Shevin, M. (1995). Building a safe community for learning. In W. Ayers (Ed.), To become a teacher: Making a difference in children's lives (pp. 99-112). New York: Teachers College Press.