Drs. Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine wrote a book about deeper learning in which they argued that much of the periphery needs to move into the core of learning (core academic subjects should learn from drama, music, journalism, etc.). Story workshop is a framework that moves play and deep learning from the periphery of children's lives in school into the core of their learning experiences in school. It gives children time and space to process their experience and cultivate agency over their own lives - thus providing resources that children, especially those experiencing trauma, racism, separation, or poverty, most need.
Story workshop is possible because it lives in between the pressures described by Tema Okun as comprising white supremacy culture: sense of urgency, perfectionism, either/or thinking, paternalism. Story workshop is one of the "roses that grow in the concrete" of our education sector (Duncan-Andrade). As I watched the Opal School webinar, I balanced my joy at seeing childhood so honored and protected, and my criticality while musing on how white Portland is. Where is story workshop practiced in and for children of color? How can educators sustain story workshop in a community where external pressures of poverty, violence, environmental pollution and inequities, and racialized trauma persist over generations? This is close to my heart given my experiences working with Black children and families in St. Louis.
Gholdy Muhammed's work speaks to this in the context of older children. I suppose Britt Hawthorne's work is relevant to how story workshop and related practices can work with children experiencing racialized trauma - would love to continue this conversation! How is play a direct response to, and antidote to, trauma? How can play be used as a vehicle for racial reparations and a tool for racial equity? What are the implications of doing story workshop with children who have been dispossessed from their land? Implications for doing story workshop with children whose intellectual and creative legacies are tied up with colonization and indigenous traditions?
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