About three weeks ago I took a workshop at Portland State on Narrative4 Story Sharing and then tried it out with my Freshman Inquiry class. What a blast!
Narrative4 is an organization that promotes shared story telling as a way of achieving deep empathy with others, particularly those with quite different experiences or beliefs.
The format is simple but profound. Participants after getting a brief introduction pair up and share a meaningful story with each other. The goal of the listener is to listen closely and to ask questions only if confused. Then the pairs return to a circle of a dozen or so people, and people share and listen to each others' stories. The tellers relate that they feel like they have stepped into someone else's life. Those whose stories are being told are able to examine the story from a different perspective. At the end, the members of each pair tell each other their hopes for each other.
I was paired with a friend whom I have long had great respect for, and her story took me much deeper into her life and how she views herself. In my class, we were blown away by the bravery and intensity of the stories, how people we thought we knew had such deep and powerful experiences. It brought people from diverse ethnic and backgrounds together and radically deepened my regard for the class members, as I now have such a deeper appreciation for who they are and what they have been through.
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