13 November 2009

Elders Sharing Life Stories Expand Views of Young Listeners

 

Meroslava Bryn is surrounded by students following their participation in Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song.

Meroslava Bryn is surrounded by students following their participation in Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song.

By Kathryn McConnell
Staff Writer

Minneapolis — Meroslava Bryn was born in Ukraine during World War II. When she was a young child, Nazi soldiers forced her family out of their comfortable home and into a slave-labor camp. The family was being punished because her mother had hidden in their house a good friend who was a Jew.

Six decades later, Bryn tells elementary school students in a Minneapolis suburb about her horrible life in the camp. She also tells them about the kind American doctor who, as the war ended, medically cleared the family so it could move to the United States and join an older relative.

After 30 minutes of Bryn’s story, the students ask questions to find out more. As they listen to Bryn, they become aware that their neighbor is more than just an older person. She is a unique individual with a compelling personal history.

Under the guidance of musician and storyteller Larry Long, the students then take what they learned and write a song about the themes of Bryn’s life. In the evening, they perform their song at a celebration attended by their parents, teachers, members of the community and the guest of honor — Bryn.

Creating the songs “allows stories of different cultures to emerge,” Long said. “The process creates an understanding of others and the possibility of more civil engagement and the ability to work with one another.”

Bryn is one of thousands of community “elders” throughout the United States — around 200 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area — who have volunteered to pass on their personal histories to children through the “Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song” program Long began in the mid-1980s. Long coaches teachers and school administrators throughout the United States in the elder selection process, which crosses lines of culture, class and gender. He has conducted workshops on the process at international conferences and in Scotland, South Africa and Brazil.

The program “serves as a bridge between the elders and the community,” Long said.

FROM DROPOUT TO PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER

Elder Charles Nichols grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, on the shores of giant Lake Superior. As a student, he developed an interest in flying, but a teacher told him the field of aeronautics was not open to people who were of mixed race.

 

Students perform for elders and parents at an Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song community celebration.

Students perform for elders and parents at an Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song community celebration.

He quit school and went to work. One job was at a golf club where he met someone with ties to a vocational school in Minneapolis. That person persuaded the school to accept the high school dropout into its technical drafting program. Nichols went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Minnesota and became the head of vocational education for the Minneapolis school system and an education adviser to the administration of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. Later, he learned to fly and started a club to encourage minority youth to become pilots.

As a participant in Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song, Nichols tells students not to make the same mistake he did by not completing high school. He said everyone has the right to learn.

TEACHING RESPECT

Johnny Smith grew up on an Indian reservation in northern Minnesota. In school, he was forced to speak in English instead of the Ojibwe language he grew up with. He felt threatened by the non-Indians who ran the school because “we didn’t know their ways and rules.” Smith now teaches American Indian history and music and participates in Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song.

He tells children to respect all things and treat people kindly.

Along with stories of growing up in poverty, of facing racial or ethnic discrimination, or of experiencing abuse, the elders also bring messages of hope and appreciation to the students.

Betty Toy survived the invasion of her country, China, by the Japanese army in the 1940s and remembers constantly not having enough food to eat during the period known as China’s Cultural Revolution of the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. She loves talking to students and advises them to appreciate all that they have.

Coleman Nemerov is a teacher at one of the schools where elders meet with students. He said the interaction between generations has a strong affect on some kids. “They learn to see outside themselves — to empathize with the adversity others have faced.”

Matt Ikola teaches at a school in a suburb west of Minneapolis. He enjoys seeing the kids learn to use probing questions to interview the elders.

After listening to another Nazi camp survivor tell her story, one of Ikola’s students with a tough reputation asked about the woman’s parents. She said her parents and siblings all died in captivity. The student’s eyes filled with tears as he comprehended such a tragedy, Ikola recalled.

In 1999, Long founded the nonprofit group Community Celebration of Place, now home to Elders’ Wisdom, Children’s Song. Long’s educational program receives funding from the West Metro Education Program in Minnesota, and from state government agencies and nonprofit groups across the United States.

“Larry Long is doing what more singers and songwriters should be doing: using music to help people learn to work together and bring a world of peace,” according to renowned American folk singer Pete Seeger.