Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/a-story-festival/5026918/
*Photos can be found in the pdf version of this article.
It is late April, lunchtime. I am standing on the big wheeled-toy deck at the back of our playground, facing a curve of children and families crowded together on low stools and benches. This space, usually rumbling and rattling with tricycle traffic, caped heroes, and bouncing basketballs, is wrapped in an expectant hush. I take a deep breath, look from one face to the next and the next, and gather my “announcing voice.”
“Welcome to the Children First Story Festival!”
As a community, we break into a well-practiced song—the version of “Here We Are Together” sung at the beginning of every morning meeting and community gathering, singing the name of each person in turn—a simple, playful, and rowdy ritual that makes this space “our” space, and this moment “our” moment.
And then I gather myself again. I am not by nature a performer. As an introvert with no particular talent in arts or athletics or politics, I did not grow up accustomed to stages and speeches. But I know—as Priya Parker teaches in her book “The Art of Gathering”—that I have a responsibility to leverage my power as host of this gathering. It ...