At the age of 47, I decided that I should go back to school to become a classroom teacher. My classes at Lewis & Clark were thought provoking and often challenging. Most of all, they exposed me to the art of teaching creatively. I had wonderful instructors who opened my eyes. I played with colored papers in a math for elementary school class and learned that algebra was all about patterns! This was a revelation to me, a girl who had been incorrectly assigned to advanced math in high school. I learned about inequities in public schools from Zahir Wahab, an Afghani enraged by the strife in his home and adopted countries. I learned about engineering using wooden blocks. And I learned about the importance of storytelling.
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One afternoon, master storyteller Will Hornyak entertained and inspired the members of my masters’ cohort with his captivating oral storytelling. It was a memorable afternoon. Years later, I invited Will to work with fourth graders at Mid Valley Elementary who were studying creation legends and cautionary tales of the Pacific Northwest. The project was funded by the Confluence Project. As part of the experience, students wrote stories with guidance from Will, and made masks with acclaimed artist Lillian Pitt.
Now we all have the good fortune to work with, and listen to, this masterful storyteller when Hornyak visits Hood River on May 10-11. On Friday, he’ll be telling stories at two events at the Columbia Center for the Arts, and on Saturday, he’ll be offering a workshop entitled, “Well Told: Bringing Personal and Traditional Stories to Life.” In describing the workshop, he writes, “We all have stories to tell and a unique voice and style for telling them. Participants will gain tools and practices for bringing their stories to life with skill and authenticity. Participants are asked to bring a short story or a portion of a longer story.”
Visit columbiaarts.org or call them at 541-387-8877 to learn more about his performances and to register for the workshop.
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Serendipitously, I had just learned about Will’s upcoming visit when I began reading “The Moth Presents: All These Wonders — True Stories About Facing the Unknown.” The book is a compilation of stories first told orally by visitors to the Moth radio show.Â
The mission of the Moth Radio Hour (on Oregon Public Broadcasting Saturdays from 8-9 p.m.) is “to promote the art and craft of storytelling and to honor the diversity and commonality of human experience.”
The Moth, launched in 1997, “was founded by the novelist George Dawes Green, who wanted to recreate in New York the feeling of sultry summer evenings in his native Georgia, when moths were attracted to the light on the porch where he and his friends would gather to spin spellbinding tales.”
The stories in “All These Wonders” will leave you laughing, crying, and convinced about the power of storytelling. I treat myself to a few each day — stories written and performed by immigrants, comedians, amnesiacs, foster kids — even the neighbor who helped the FBI arrest Jim “Whitey” Bulger.
I decided to sign up for Will’s upcoming workshop influenced by one close friend, and one stranger. In the late 1980s my friend Jan, a gifted teacher, joined a group of fellow teachers on an international trip to the Soviet Union. Their group, known as “Storytellers for Peace”, had a mission — to bring peace and friendship to students and their teachers in the U.S.S.R. through the power of stories.They were guided by master storyteller Michale Gabriel. The group visited cities throughout the Soviet Union, from Odessa to St. Petersburg. Two years later, Soviet teachers traveled to the Pacific Northwest with a similar mission. Today, it’s my earnest hope that stories can begin to bring us together.
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As for the stranger who influenced me, a letter arrived recently addressed to Margaret Kelter (my legal name) from a man in Florida who has become interested in genealogy.Â
Apparently, he is my third cousin. He located me through Ancestry.com, and has learned a lot about my father’s side of the family through his incredibly thorough research, including lots of information that could easily be expanded into stories. Coincidentally, he has a sister who lives nearby. I hope to meet them this summer, and share family stories — perhaps on an illuminated porch visited by moths.
As Neil Gaiman, in the forward to “All These Wonders,” writes, “The Moth connects us, as humans. Because we all have stories. Or perhaps, because we are, as humans, already an assemblage of stories. And the gulf that exists between us as people is that when we look at each other we might see faces, skin color, gender, race, or attitudes, but we don’t see, we can’t see, the stories. And once we hear each other’s stories, we realize that the things we see as dividing us are, all too often, illusions, falsehoods: That the walls between us are in truth no thicker than scenery.”Â
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