Alice Walker: Create Conversations between Students and Adults

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I had the privilege, last week, to attend a session where Alice Walker took questions from the audience.  The issue of censorship arose, and she suggested that the impulse to censor arises from fear on the part of adults that just because students read something, they will imitate it.  However, she pointed out, literature about others' lives allows us to learn about other people's experiences, and it is unlikely we will imitate what we read.

Ms. Walker went on to say it might be helpful if students and adults could discuss the controversial literature in an honest way.  What do we fear about it?  Why?  What can we learn?

I have to concur that honest, meaningful discussion between students and adults is always desirable.  One thing I also wish is that kids had more opportunity and time to spend just listening to older folks.  This has been the impetus behind the oral history projects I have done with students.  Talking with senior citizens makes history alive and immediate.  It is one thing to learn about segregation or the Great Migration in a textbook, it is another to sit in a room and hear the experiences of those who lived it.  To be able to ask questions and realize that these events did NOT occur in ancient history.  

In historical terms, slavery and segregation are very recent. My current film project focuses on a woman who learned to value school from her grandmother, who was a born a slave and denied an education.  Should we suggest to her family that slavery occurred so long ago that its effects do not ripple to the present? 

Incredible things happen when we take time to listen to older people's stories, and especially when we include children. They learn to have more patience, and to be better listeners.  They can learn interviewing and research skills.  Most of all, they glimpse an important truth:  We are all part of one continuous whole.