what is this site?

Ten years ago I heard a young man tell a story that I still think of often: When his younger brother and he were in elementary school, his immigrant mom walked to their school every day to eat lunch with her two sons in the cafeteria. She did it because they were new in the United States, and new at the school. She didn’t want them to be alone.

The young man said that he was 7 years old, and conflicted. He didn’t know how to tell his mom that by sitting with his brother and him in the cafeteria every day she made it even harder for them to make friends. He told the story jokingly, but I think everyone in the room felt what he had felt. And, we felt what his mother had felt too.

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A story is a wonderful gift. I’ve spent the past 15 years hearing a lot of great stories in my classrooms. I’ve been changed by those stories. I know many of my students have been changed by stories their classmates have shared. And, as we tell our stories, we learn about ourselves too.

I’d go so far as to say that a story is the best way to learn about other people, about life, and about yourself. When we read, or listen, we create images in our minds so vivid that we feel as if we were there ourselves. For a split second we see the world through someone else’s eyes. When we speak, we see ourselves from the outside for a moment. That too is transforming.

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I’ve created this site because I want more people to have those experiences. I always tell my students to keep it unpretentious. It’s not about great writing, it’s about telling a story honestly, and letting others connect with it.

The topics I suggest are broad, and you can interpret them any way you want. That’s the point; we all have different experiences. It doesn’t really matter what we start writing about, our differences become evident very soon.

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The young man whose mother had lunch at his school every day, he also said something else that I remember. One day when we were talking about television, he said, “It would be weird to see someone like me on TV.” In other words, he thought it would be weird for an immigrant kid, like himself, to have their story told on television.

That’s another reason I’ve created this site. No one should feel that their story is weird, or doesn’t fit with expectations. Everyone has the right to be heard. Everyone has the right to be understood. I hope that this site can do that for someone.