This summer, I was doing a teacher training session in Liberia. This country is in the process of healing from a long and devastating civil war. We were telling stories, using storytelling as a way to think about children's literacy and to practice strategies that would be useful for the children. One of the participants, a young teacher, began a story about two children lost in a forest. The next teachers added onto the story, each one adding a line as the story went along. The children faced many dangers in this story, the teachers told, and each danger was worse than the next, with witches, and big animals, and guns. Throughout, though, all throughout, the teachers spoke of the children's courage and how they stayed together, steadfast and true. The second to last storyteller had his turn: "And then the one child died from the gunshot," he said softly. I look around, the teachers are all crying. "Why did you do that?" one cries out. The room falls silent. We are waiting for the last speaker. And he says: "And the final child, the final child, he grew up to become the Minister for Peace." And a cheer goes up, the teachers embrace one another and they embrace us. There is always hope, even in the darkest times.
I am grateful for my learnings, for the lessons I learn from children, from teachers, as an educator. I hope now, at this crucial time in our country's history, we can tell a new story: a story of peace, of friendship. I think, yes, I know, we can.
Happy Thanksgiving.
