As we set out on our sabbatical year across the USA, everyone in the family set a goal for what they hoped to accomplish. We dubbed our journey, "Living the Dream," and defined for our YouTube viewers, what "dream" we hoped to live.
I let these questions guide me as my family as we explore the National Parks. We have already collected great stories, like the story of a resort where we were camping near Glacier National Park. While chatting with the owner, I learned that her great-grandparents established the resort in 1912 and that the campground had endured trials and tribulations across the generations of ownership. Despite fires, the rerouting of the highway and of the railroad, the owners persevered. Allowing myself time to listen and question offered me a completely new perspective of the campground.
In Grand Teton National Park we even learned a story from a pile of scat. It was a wild tale of Grizzly Bear cannibalism, the cycles of life, death and rebirth! All of the rangers loved putting it together. In fact, they kept gathering around our video and enjoyed being a part of the construction of the tale.
For me, I'm inspired by the power of story. I know this year will offer the opportunity to build stories that will be part of our family's history forever. That excites me. I'm also keen to take advantage of the opportunity to collect stories. Stories of the people we meet, the places we go and the interpretations of the histories of the great country we're traveling.
As a teacher, I've aspired to do the same. For many years, I've taught in a blended Humanities program. Weaving the conceptual understandings of reading, writing and social studies into seamless stories has been like solving complex puzzles. My teaching partners and I often asked, "What's the story here?" and "Whose story is being told?"
I let these questions guide me as my family as we explore the National Parks. We have already collected great stories, like the story of a resort where we were camping near Glacier National Park. While chatting with the owner, I learned that her great-grandparents established the resort in 1912 and that the campground had endured trials and tribulations across the generations of ownership. Despite fires, the rerouting of the highway and of the railroad, the owners persevered. Allowing myself time to listen and question offered me a completely new perspective of the campground.
A display at the park declared that water "tells the stories" of Glacier. Listening to those stories helps the visitor understand the importance and appreciate the majesty of the nature in the park.
Everywhere we turn, we see interpretive signs telling the "story" of a place. The story of a waterfall, of geologic time, of a name. In Flaming Gorge, Utah, we learned about the mountain men and the explorers whose names are now associated with the forest and the river. Of course, that place had a name long before Mr. Ashley and Mr. Green came through - the Seeds-kee-dee-Agie. But today the story isn't of the Prairie Hen River, it's the story of the Green River. This story, like all others, has many sides.
As a humanities teacher, my classes have always revolved around stories. We read them, we write them and we search for the multiple sides that might define or shape them. It is in our nature, after all, to crave stories. When our ancestors developed the ability to tell stories of the hunt, it changed the course of our species. We gathered in groups, refined language and connected to each other and the land.
To paraphrase another storyteller, the story is the thing - here's to creating them, collecting them and sharing them.
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