Last weekend I participated in an inspiring workshop on ‘Public Narrative’ presented by Harvard Public Policy Professor Marshall Ganz. Ganz earned his stripes working with Caesar Chavez before becoming a political activist. He was responsible for the grassroots organizing model for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Ganz has recently argued that Obama’s moral leadership has disappeared due to poor leadership choices, which have resulted in public disappointment and frustration. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-1103-ganz-obama-20101103,0,486277.story

Ganz argues that to lead is to accept the responsibility of enabling others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty. He starts with three questions, “If I am not for myself, who will be? And if I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?” Ganz relates these questions to “the story of self,” “the story of us,” and “the story of now.” A story of self communicates who I am – my values, my experience, why I do what I do. A story of us communicates who we are – our shared values, our shared experience, and why we do what we do. And a story of now transforms the present into a moment of challenge, hope, and choice.

Parents spend hours and hours with their children telling stories. Stories teach and storytelling is relational. See if you can trace the three steps of public narrative in Obama’s powerful 2004 Democratic Convention speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awQkJNVsgKM

What is our public narrative for schooling? Do we need to become activists?

I am reminded of Paolo Freire: “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”