"Sarah Hirschman's book is ... really a manifesto for an approach to education that does all these more human, more important things."
-Danielle Allen, Professor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey

"I'd love to see People and Stories programs for the parents of children in every at-risk school district in the country."
-Robert Hass, US Poet Laureate, 1995-1997

People and Stories / Gente y Cuentos describes how men and women on welfare or in rehabilitation centers, prisoners, rural workers, disadvantaged youth, or just ordinary community members are offered the chance to experience literature in a way they have not been able to in the past.
Founded by Sarah Hirschman, People and Stories / Gente y Cuentos encompasses groups of common, often under-served adults in the United States, France, and Colombia who enjoy reading and discussing works of literature. Upon attending a seminar with the philosopher, Paulo Freire, and working with groups in New York's Lower East Side and Dorchester, Massachusetts, she created Gente y Cuentos in Spanish. Some years later, the English-language People and Stories program was added. Currently, Gens et Récits in French is being developed in Paris and in the southwest of France.

This book describes the various influences that led to the development of this method. The clarity of the explanations and the attention to detail should help those who want to organize similar discussion groups in their own communities.

PEOPLE AND STORIES / GENTE Y CUENTOS

Who owns literature? Communities Find Their Voice Through Short StoriesBy SARAH HIRSCHMAN

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 SARAH HIRSCHMAN
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-8698-1

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................ixPREFACE.....................................................................................................xiiiINTRODUCTION................................................................................................xviiENCOUNTERS THROUGH LITERATURE...............................................................................1AN UNUSUAL MEETING..........................................................................................1STORIES AND STORY TELLING - A TRADITION.....................................................................3THE CHALLENGE OF ADULT EDUCATION............................................................................5ORIGINS.....................................................................................................11PAULO FREIRE................................................................................................12OTHER THINKERS..............................................................................................15NEW READER RESPONSE.........................................................................................17A NEW VENTURE...............................................................................................19PHOTOS......................................................................................................21THE ACTORS: STORIES, COORDINATORS, GROUPS...................................................................27STORIES.....................................................................................................27SELECTION...................................................................................................27CRITICAL WORK...............................................................................................31FOUR CATEGORIES.............................................................................................33Poetic Landscape............................................................................................34Contrasts and Confrontations................................................................................38Shadows.....................................................................................................42Themes......................................................................................................43QUESTIONS...................................................................................................47COORDINATORS................................................................................................53GROUPS......................................................................................................56GROUP CONFIGURATIONS........................................................................................60Overcoming barriers across generations......................................................................60Overcoming barriers between communities.....................................................................66Overcoming ethnic barriers..................................................................................69UNDERSTANDING THE OTHER THROUGH LITERATURE..................................................................75THE ROAD TRAVELED...........................................................................................85APPENDICES..................................................................................................89Organization................................................................................................90Profile of Groups...........................................................................................92Examples of stories read and discussed......................................................................94BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................97Works that influenced the development of the People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos project.....................97Short stories cited.........................................................................................108

Chapter One

ENCOUNTERS THROUGH LITERATURE

AN UNUSUAL MEETING

"Ah, a rainbow is always good news: When the Lord wanted to let Noah know that the flood was over, that the flood would not return, He sent a rainbow over the clouds," said Pedro, a Puerto Rican man, one night, in the basement of a church in Trenton, New Jersey. A short story by Arguedas, the Peruvian writer, had just been read aloud in Spanish to a group from the local Latino community. In it a shepherd clutching his beloved dog flees from a burning hacienda; he trusts that somehow, way up in the highlands, he'll find a place to work; if not, he can always go higher, up the rainbow, to God who will take care of him and his dog.

Pedro had responded to the announcement of a new type of gathering to be held once a week in the rooms of a Catholic church where Sunday mass was celebrated in the Spanish language. "Everyone is welcome," said the recruiting notice, "you need only know Spanish to enroll." The man who recalled the rainbow as the Lord's sign to Noah had never before joined the discussion. Pedro was shy, inhibited, embarrassed about not being able to read, but now he spoke up. Something in the Peruvian story struck a responsive chord in him. Others in the group, somewhat more educated, were startled by the evocative quality of his remarks. Pedro spoke more often after that night.

The kind of comments that the Arguedas' story generated are often heard during People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos sessions, a program which organizes readings and discussions of short stories with persons who have never had access to literature. Trust in the power of literature to open up to different readings, and trust in the ability of persons to draw on their life experience to enter the world of fiction, have been at the root of this enterprise.

Gente y Cuentos held in Spanish started informally as a weekly affair. People came not only to hear and discuss stories but also to find companionship with others who spoke Spanish. Soon, the success of the program brought the local community college, which was designing a new inner-city curriculum, to sponsor the sessions. "Graduation" was celebrated with a distribution of certificates, food cooked by the participants, and even dancing to the sound of salsa. The local paper printed a story with unusual photos: urban Latino dwellers sitting around a table in animated discussion of a short story written by one of their authors. Some participants became more self-confident and began to wander over to a High School Equivalency program (GED) given elsewhere in town and to inquire about new English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) courses.

People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos was born.

After more than thirty five years of experience with the program, I want to revisit its beginnings, describe its growth, and take stock of the outcomes.

How did this unlikely enterprise take place at all? How could complex short stories be read and discussed by a group of adults whose education did not prepare them for so demanding a task? Could this activity which at first only wanted to bring a new group of readers to enjoy literature result indirectly in an innovative approach to what we call education?

STORIES AND STORY TELLING - A TRADITION

The power of stories is perhaps most strikingly illustrated by the extraordinary feat of Scheherazade, the legendary Persian maiden who managed to survive by keeping a cruel king on tenterhooks through her one thousand and one suspense tales. Among other examples, one can cite the "veilles" of early peasant France where after the evening meal, as darkness descended on the village, folks crowded together to keep warm and tell stories which entertained and bound members of a household. In another setting, in nineteenth century Cuba, tobacco workers enjoyed being read to in cigar factories. When some of them emigrated to Florida towards the end of the century, they established this custom there. A "lector" (reader), paid voluntarily by the workers, was asked to read in a clear and strong voice (sometimes to as many as four hundred workers!) and with "feeling" both news items and installments of novels and plays-Prez Galds, Zola, Cervantes, Molire. Later, during some strikes, the continued presence of lectors, who were often disliked by the company, became one of the workers' insistent demands; but eventually, the management won out and the readings were finally altogether forbidden.

Popular culture is full of forms related to literature: proverbs, fairy tales, cherished verses, ballads, and spirituals. The Bible and other sacred texts, which many community adults know so much better than college students, serve as a rich introduction to literary works. Most people are accustomed to tolerate ambiguous expressions and enjoy disguised meanings. The taste for expressive rhythms, sound effects, or repetitions is universal. The sheer joy that emanates from a group singing couplets at a fiesta to the accompaniment of a guitar, the laughter that greets the punch line of a good joke-teller, the enthusiasm of children repeating some fairy tale magic formula, the rhythmic responses of an African American audience in church or at a play, attest to the relish with which people savor their own language. The pleasure becomes even more exciting as various members of the public freely add embellishments and variations and begin to hear their own active voices as part of an emergent dialogue. The deft manipulation of one's own language is not only a source of pleasure-it is also a source of power. Street language, for example, can violate grammar rules and can be at times jarring, but it is often effective and innovative. In fact, many writers, Gogol, Flaubert, Flannery O'Connor, and so many others, have been known to spend much time listening and carefully noting expressions heard in public places. Much of the literature that is supposed to be so remote from the uneducated people is partly built with elements that they themselves have furnished.

Those objecting to my approach sometimes claim that the rapport with one's own language and popular culture comes naturally; it's been there since childhood. To embark on a discussion of an unfamiliar work of fiction or poetry is quite another matter. In any event, literature is often distrusted for a variety of contradictory reasons: sometimes it is seen as too forbidding and too arduous; sometimes, on the contrary, it is dismissed as merely pleasing, or too trivial to compete with "really useful" pursuits; would it not be better to spend the precious time that working people can devote to improve their education with a more conventional Adult Education program?

THE CHALLENGE OF ADULT EDUCATION

Efforts have been made to help the many people who, for one reason or another, have not been able to finish their education-high school dropouts, immigrants, struggling adults of all ages who look for another chance. Since the time in 1972 when I began to organize Gente y Cuentos, those programs have been much improved. New research by scholars at various places and notably at the Harvard Graduate School of Education has improved the manner to recruit and motivate students, to understand their needs and to adjust the curriculum. But the challenge remains: adults come to these programs late in life with a variety of past experiences and uneven knowledge; they also often suffer from a lack of self confidence partly due to bad experiences that they have had in the past in school or at work. Rather than grapple with what appears as an inchoate and inapplicable past experience, some states and the federal government have set up a number of training programs to prepare people for a productive life of work in the United States. Courses in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and in literacy have been developed; training and examinations for a high school equivalency certificate (G.E.D.) are offered and financial help is available for those who want to prepare for these tests. Other centers specialize in skill-training with batteries of supportive basic courses in ESL, reading, arithmetic. All these programs operate along the same general lines: the incoming individuals are tested and their level is established. After this a training program is charted to launch them on a successful career in the world of work. But the going is far from smooth.

Appropriate testing of individuals is a difficult art. Persons from other cultures may misinterpret questions and teenagers in difficulty may be too discouraged to perform under stress. Most training and basic education programs are limited to measuring how well students can manipulate "basic" academic subjects. Those arriving with little formal schooling or with a history of failure are often evaluated as underachievers. Inevitably, their lack of confidence is reinforced; while the absence of their formal training is objectively uncovered, their non-academic accomplishments and experience may not be discovered, let alone recognized.

Still other difficulties arise when curricula are designed for adult basic education. Even though the entering students have much to learn, educators are obliged to pare down the programs because of the pressure of time and the lack of money. Subject matter that normally takes years of schooling is streamlined, simplified, and compressed. A sort of telescopic teaching style is developed in which large areas of North American basic skills are cut up into segments. Speed is all important. The aim is to have students pass, as quickly as possible, the examinations thus equipping them with the certificates that everyone hopes will improve their position in the job market. Whereas full-time college undergraduates are dissuaded from cramming, community students must per force hurry through their mini-courses. This ingurgitation of prepackaged knowledge precludes any creative, pleasurable experience of learning; no time is allocated to the slow, strenuous, but educational process of comprehending, a process that allows newly acquired knowledge to become really meaningful and related to experience.

These programs have been useful in establishing centers where newcomers can find some initial training and where dropouts could get another chance. However, people often hesitate to avail themselves of the offered opportunity; they are apprehensive of the placement tests, of the competition, of the classroom where their lack of education might be publicly exposed. Many of those who do find the courage to get started lose heart somewhere along the way, begin to miss classes, and fall behind. Others graduate but cannot find a way of relating what they have learned in class to what happens in the outside world. Fear of not succeeding, the scarcity of available work, discouragement at having to begin as an adult from scratch at an elementary level are additional factors that will, time and again, bring a large number of adult students to the brink of despondency and failure.

My own involvement in some of these programs led me to wonder whether adults who join these programs could be reassured about their capacities and strengthened in their resolve. Could one show that past experience can become a resource? Could persons unused to academic learning be given the hope that they could exercise and improve their critical abilities? Could voices often silent be encouraged to speak up and self-assurance increased? Could a new energy be released through an active participation in an activity where new knowledge becomes readily related to life experience? Was there a space that would be favorable to this opening up?

A personal recollection stands out in my own mind. During my work as an instructor in a skill-training agency in Dorchester, Massachusetts, I became acquainted with a Puerto Rican man, recently arrived from the island. He was one of the people to whom we taught the skills needed to measure and lay linoleum on floors. I was in charge of the English needed for this job. One day, during a lunch hour, I was surprised to see him draw tropical landscapes with colored chalks on the blackboard of one of the classrooms. We began to chat about his life in a small Puerto Rican town. He told me with great gusto how he had managed to feed his family in Puerto Rico by becoming a clever entrepreneur. He somehow rented a truck, picked up vegetables from different small growers at dawn, and resold them later in the market. His story was full of amusing asides that made both of us laugh. Sadly, I must report that this same voluble and resourceful person performed badly when a potential employer came to interview him. Partly his talents were not recognized by a standard North American employment questionnaire and partly he did not have the confidence that he needed to express himself effectively in this new environment.

The experience with Juan and his reference to Noah as he came into contact with Arguedas' story as well as my conversations with the man in the skill training center, were dramatic examples that people with little conventional schooling had a knowledge perhaps different from our own but valuable and interesting-people have lived full, sometimes complex lives, they have also heard stories from elders, have read the Bible and can sing lots of songs, quote proverbs, improvise popular poems.

These encounters and other similar ones prompted me to reflect on how one could make learning more meaningful, especially for persons who lack the self-confidence that comes from classic schooling. Was there a way to utilize the experience acquired during daily life? Could new knowledge be incorporated in what was already familiar? Was there a space where common knowledge could interact with the more sophisticated products of our culture?

Chapter Two

ORIGINS

A five-year stay in Colombia in the fifties brought me in contact with new cultural groups. I discovered a creativity which was not always built on a discipline acquired in schools. I learned to appreciate ingenuity, playfulness, imagination, and a kind of mental energy that displayed itself in a multitude of ways-not only in museums and books but also in carvings on the walls of churches, in ceramics displayed in market stalls, in songs and dances during fiestas, in the exuberance of street language.

Latin American authors were speaking in new voices and becoming more attentive to their own continent, less immersed in the fashions of the European avant-garde. Garca Mrquez, for example, was just beginning to develop the style which was to become known as "magic realism." The literature which he and other authors were creating seemed to capture the illusive qualities of a world that captivated me. I began to read and study their works.

PAULO FREIRE

A 1969 seminar given at Harvard University by the Brazilian philosopher and educator Paulo Freire introduced me to his thought and to his work on literacy in the Northeast of Brazil. Freire was convinced that people could acquire new knowledge only as it becomes meaningfully related to their life. Literacy sessions organized by him and his students were therefore always preceded by dialogues on subjects that held a special interest to those who were learning to read. Thus, in an arid region of Brazil, a sketch of a simple well, projected on a white wall, generated a discussion that locked persons in a debate not only about water but also about land, its ownership, water control, and so on. Dialogues on such "generative" themes preceded the actual, more technical, literacy sessions that then focused on words related to the previously debated issues. A "conscientization," consciousness-raising, occurs as people deepen the understanding of their condition and attempt to improve their control over it; people gain a new assurance and become actively engaged in a learning process which supplants what Freire contemptuously dismisses as "banking" education where teachers deposit new information which they deem important into the minds of accepting, passive students.

Freire's practical work and persuasive thought helped me appreciate the power of genuine dialogue. I came to understand how persons with limited education could discuss themes that were meaningful to them. I also began to ask myself how this Freirean approach could lead to critical thinking in other areas. And then, one day, during a seminar session, I asked myself: could a beautiful, multivocal, short story exercise similar powers to Freire's projections? Could a literary text stimulate the imagination and set in motion a number of links to some private experiences? And could members of a group who read and discuss a story together transform these deeply felt private reactions into a more public discourse that could become a dialogue? I became quite fascinated by this possibility and decided to test it in the real world. Moreover, the possibility of such an enterprise attracted me because it satisfied my own interests as it would allow me to combine my taste for reading literature with my wish to develop a better way to communicate with a larger group of people than the highly educated.

(Continues...)

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