Transcriber: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
So, let's pretend you are all third and fourth graders,
which, of course, we are in our hearts, aren't we?
And you are in your respective classrooms,
waiting for me to come and tell you a story.
So I arrive with my crystal ball symbolizing my invitation to you
to turn on your imagination-stations
and become the artists to create the pictures that go with my words.
Then I would put on my story shawl,
and we would begin.
Naked Truth and Parable goes like this.
In the far-off time of long ago, Truth walked naked upon the earth,
as naked as the day he was born.
And whenever he went into a village,
he would call out, "I am Truth.
Come gather around and listen to what I have to teach you."
People turned their eyes away.
No one gathered, and no one listened.
One day, he was walking down the road to his sister's house,
his sister's name being Story.
She lived in a white house with a porch all the way around it,
and on the porch were beautiful, white wicker rocking chairs,
all with flowered cushions.
Lace hung in the windows of her house,
and the sunlight streaming through made rainbows on the carpets inside.
She was wearing a long silk gown
that shimmered with iridescent colors.
She had ribbons entwined in her golden locks
and shiny silver shoes on.
And as she watched her brother approach,
she noticed how hunched over he was and how sad and unattired.
"Why are you so miserable?"
"I'm not welcome anywhere.
People chase me from their doors, and I don't understand it.
I have so much truth and wisdom to share.
Why don't they listen?"
Story pondered her brother's query.
"It's hard to look at Naked Truth.
Come inside so I can help you;
we'll dress you up a bit, and your welcome will be gained."
So Truth followed his sister into her closet
that was filled with colorful clothes and finery,
chests of drawers and trunks,
and she said, "Dress, dress up."
"Oh, I can't do that. I can't look silly.
I would look ridiculous.
Truth should never look silly,"
he protested.
But Story insisted.
And so Truth chose a white silk shirt with billowing sleeves,
purple knickers
and shiny silver shoes with buckles and a vest with jewels on it.
Story added a flower from her garden to his lapel,
a silk cape and a long flowing scarf.
On top, he put a hat on with a long curly feather,
and so Story told him,
"So now go back to those villages and see what happens."
And so it came to be a few months later,
Truth was walking down that same road to his sister's house,
and she, once again, was sitting on one of her rockers,
and she looked
and saw he was smiling and walking as if with a song in his step.
"Quick, tell me what happened."
"Oh, it was wonderful.
People came from afar to listen to what I had to say,
and they stayed for hours as I talked.
But I don't understand it.
Why did they listen?
I wasn't telling them anything different."
"Let me explain, my brother.
You see, people don't want to look at the Naked Truth.
In fine attire, with poignant prose and metaphor and plots to inspire,
people open their doors and served you their best,
for you, clothed in story, were a welcomed guest."
And that's the story of Naked Truth and Parable.
(Applause)
So that story epitomizes for me
the spirit and the passion of Spellbinders,
the organization, the nonprofit that I give my time and treasure to.
We train volunteer storytellers,
many of them elders like myself,
in the art of oral storytelling,
and we place them in elementary school classrooms.
And I want to emphasize, we do not read stories, we tell them.
I tell hero and heroine stories every week of the school year,
and I often tell true stories,
often about heroes that are the age of my listeners.
Many of them are folktales;
some of them are animal hero stories.
And what I never cease to be amazed by
is at the end of the year,
these children are completely clear
about the difference between a hero and a celebrity,
between a hero and an idol,
between someone who's rich and famous
and those real heroes
who stick their necks out, bravely, for the common good.
And I know that if I had been lecturing them on heroes and heroines,
like Naked Truth was doing in those villages,
they wouldn't be anywhere near as clear.
One time, I was telling a true story
about some kids from the inner city of East Saint Louis, Missouri.
They had formed a club that they called "Earth Defenders,"
whose job was to clean up their streets, their vacant lots and their parks.
And after telling to several classrooms the story of Earth Defenders,
I was leaving the school, and I ran right into my first listeners,
who were dragging huge plastic bags of garbage
inside the school.
They told me that if the Earth Defenders could do this -
and of course, the Earth Defenders were a lot older than they -
if the Earth Defenders could do it, they could certainly do it,
and it was their idea, not their teacher's.
So storytelling is not entertainment.
I am grateful to the Wall Street Journal,
who in March 2009, right after the economic collapse,
urged more support for storytelling rather than less in the tough times,
for children, more than ever in hard times,
need to hear stories of survival and thriving,
and we all need hope for survival.
My bias is that hope is found in stories.
So storytelling has transformed my life;
it's not just a nice little addition to it.
It's helped me redefine
what gives my life meaning as an elder in the third stage of life.
And every day, I wonder, What more can I do
to help restore elders to their traditional place in the culture?
They are the guardians of the stories
and the keepers of the wisdom.
Finally, I invite you one more time
to turn on your imagination-stations and picture this:
picture a Spellbinder
in every elementary school classroom in America.
We want to awaken all those imaginations
and reawaken the connection between elders and children.
And think of all the gifts that could come from that dream -
from parent to teacher;
from child to great-aunt or great-uncle;
to our libraries, our families, our communities;
but finally, most important, to the world.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)