Everybody Has a Story III E-Book

Torbjørn Ydegaard (Ed.)

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 183

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

This is the third book in the series “Everybody Has a Story”. The story behind the idea for these books and their title goes back to The Freedom Writers Diary that came about as the result of the teachings of young teacher at a high school in a socially deprived area in Long Beach near Los Angeles. The teacher, Erin Gruwell, found herself more or less forced to base her teachings on the stories of the living conditions of her students. When she became aware of these stories and managed to relate the content of the curriculum to them, her students started to find interest in the subjects of the school – and they began to learn. This book is the result of a Freedom Writer course during the spring-semester 2015. During the course the students were faced with different writing exercises as well as hand-on art-making ranging from drawings over photos to videos. The texts, pictures and other contents of the book are made anonymous to protect the participating students as these products might be very personal. And personal it has to be, when you become aware of whom you actually are!

Leseprobe

Contributors to the book

Anja Roj Søndergaard

Anna Lena Dietrich

Anne Mette Askov

Anne-Cécile Nève de Mévergnies

Bart Pas

Brigitta Kovacs

Christian Demkjær Schultz

Pedersen

Colleen Jean Wharton

Daniel Peter Jensen

Daniela Culea

Elizabeth Petersen

Emil Mathias Lauridsen

Hélène Fastré

Irati Elorriaga

Jacob Nørgaard Palsing

Josfien Braeckman

Julie Reynaert

Julie Steger

Mahéva Coblenzer

Maialen Urrutia Alday

Maria Rubio Margaretto

Marie Gepts

Marie Strubbe

Mariia Kalashnikova

Marta Marco Jorge

May Kristin Aas

Philip Hausleitner

Rahel Tabea von Fintel

Rebecca Anne Costello

Rebekka Vanbrabant

Simona Wagner

Suguru Matsumoto

Tine Roelant

Valentine Deguelle

Victoria Lazareva

Zoë Fack

Contents

Introduction. Torbjørn Ydegaard

Wall of dreams

One-liner with an interposed sentence

Wall of Early Memories

Reactions towards

The Freedom Writer’s Diary

Cut-up poems

How to do in your own classroom?

If you could change the world, what would you do?

Wall of Joy

Concepts

The Freedom Writers Symposium: #5515.

Torbjørn Ydegaard

Wall of Thanks

Ten Commandments

“I wonder…”

Reflections on the Niemöller-poem

Ms G’s Secret Sauce

Pedagogical Theories

The power of thinking

Narratives

Evaluation

Introduction

This is the third book with the title “Everybody Has a Story” that I as a college-teacher edit and produce.

The story behind the idea for these books and their title goes back to The Freedom Writers Diary from the late 1990th and the movie from 2007 that was based on the stories from that book.

The Freedom Writers Diary came about as the result of the teachings of young teacher at a high school in a socially deprived area in Long Beach near Los Angeles. The teacher, Erin Gruwell, found herself more or less forced to base her teachings on the stories of the living conditions of her students. When she became aware of these stories and managed to relate the content of the curriculum to them, her students started to find interest in the subjects of the school – and they began to learn. It was expected that she would lose about 80% of her students during the four years in high school; they all based the final exams!

Erin Gruwell and some of her students are now teaching other teachers how to use the methods she developed back then. I have the privilege of being one of out of about 400 such Freedom Writer Teachers worldwide and the only one in Scandinavia. This fact urges me to do as much as possible to spread the methods the best I can.

One such way is to invite students from all over Europe to join the international Erasmus-course at my home institution, University College South-Denmark. This book is the result of this course during the spring-semester 2015. During the course the students were faced with different writing exercises as well as hand-on art-making ranging from drawings over photos to videos.

The book is organized in a fairly chronological way to show the progression throughout the course. Each task will shortly be introduced in boxes along the way. The texts, pictures and other contents of the book are made anonymous to protect the participating students as these products might be very personal. So it has to be, when you become aware of whom you actually are!

Torbjørn Ydegaard

June 2015

Wall of dreams

A ‘Wall of…’ is an anonymous way to engage students in the writing process. They write their dreams, or whatever they are asked to write about, on big Post-its and place them out of sight on a Flip Over board. By doing that they might become aware of their dreams, and by putting them on paper they become more than just a whimsy thought. Maybe the dreams can come true one day?

My biggest dream has always been to become a great teacher. But to become that great teacher I dream of travelling to historical places and live the lives of difficult cultures. I dream of learning Chinese and walk the pilgrim walk in China. I dream of living on the countryside with my family, playing outside with dog and children. I dream of happiness and living a life worth telling about.

My dream is to be happy with myself, wherever life will bring me. I want to feel good and secure. I want my family and friends to be happy and would do all my best to help. I’d love to work for a certain kind of industry and I’d like to study for it. I’d like to know everything about its art. But for now I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to afford those studies.

For now my dream, my biggest dream, is to travel around the world. I’d like to visit all countries, because all of them are different, with their languages, their cultures, their mentalities and their people’s behavior. I want to know about different countries and compare them in the future.

I really want to be a happy person (no tragedies).

Good health, good job, a family, a house.

Continue to love my job until the end of my career.

Travel around America and England.

Go camping in Alaska (pref. during summer).

I think that a good word to use for describing myself is that I am a dreamer. But I have fantastic dreams, such as: Marriage to a famous football-player, being a famous actress…But I also have real dreams like: Having a family, being happy, become a teacher, make people feel better and happier.

Open a bar.

My own family.

Climb the Mont Ventoux by bike.

Learn to surf.

See the world.

Reach / find my own style of good education.

To be a role model for any young family.

Make the best choices.

I really want to work with children.

I’d like that all children will be healthy and happy and enjoy their life.

Of course I want to have a good family and be with my mum and take care of her.

I’d like to be a good-experienced teacher and every day improve my teaching skills.

I would love to make the most of my time on earth and see as much of it and experience as many cultures and places as I can…

I would love to have a positive impact on at least one person’s life. To be able to make someone else’s life a little better…

Be happy.

I would love to be remembered for inspirational and good things.

I would love to inspire…positivity, passion, spontaneity, creativity, laughter, curiosity…in people I meet.

Encourage others to always look on the bright side and see the humor in every situation.

To keep learning.

Getting a family of my own and make a difference helping others in any kind of way needed.

Be secure with myself.

Get a job.

Become a good teacher.

Be able to travel.

Good life for all my friends and family.

Owning my own apartment.

Living in Paris.

Living in Copenhagen.

Travelling to strange places around the world.

Feeling happy and content.

Feeling healthy.

Just winking out if existence.

Selling my photographs and knowing that people have them up on their walls.

Having a close friend.

Having a spouse.

Being able to buy new things instead of used or thrown away stuff.

Having stability.

Having a room just for my artsy type stuff.

Having energy and spirit to do things in my life.

Not feeling exhausted every day.

People knowing my name and work.

Happy family with pets.

Having a job I love.

Travel more.

I want to be a successful business woman, a writer and owner of different business ventures, like estates, supermarkets and a great teacher.

I want to be happy all my life.

I want to become a

good

teacher.

I want to be a famous comedian. To be able to entertain people of all ages.

I would like to teach children in a poor country for a few years.

I would like to travel around the world.

My dream is to be happy

Live a few years in London or New York.

I want to be married and have children.

I want to be aunt.

Continue playing the piano.

I’d like to be a great teacher for the pupils.

I want to be a good artist, maybe a well-known one in my part of the country.

I’d like to have a happy family of my own later in life.

I want to travel around the world.

Become a good teacher.

Discover new things and places.

I want to have a big and

healthy

family and enough money to survive and to live my own life – without any financial problems!

My dream is to have a good job and have my own family, and I want that my parents and my own family will be OK.

My dream is to own a small farm with a few animals, where I live happy with my family.

My dream is to have a family with the man I love. We would live in a huge house and a sweet garden. I want to see how my children will grow up and also work as a teacher.

I don’t know what to dream, I just dream to find my goal in life (before it is too late). That’s why I dream to travel the world, so I will learn more about myself. My dream is to have a dream.

Live by myself.

Have a baby.

Be happy.

I want to be an English teacher in Japan.

Visit to Paris and London.

Make and serve dishes to my family.

Speak English fluently.

I want to travel a lot.

I want that my family is happy.

I want to be a good mum and wife.

I want to be happy in my job.

I want to win a competition.

I want to travel and see the world.

I want to be happy and feel loved.

I want to have a healthy family and a lot of friends from all over the world.

One-liner with an interposed sentence

A one-liner is a statement in one sentence, for example: Torbjørn have taught Norwegian military personal to live in the winter-mountains.Even though the sentence talks about both the military and the mountains it is actually without ‘drama’. By adding a contradictory interposed sentence to the one-line it change its character and tells a story of the more unusually: Torbjørn, who grew up in the flat marsh-lands of south-west Denmark, have taught Norwegian military personal to live in the winter-mountains. In this way this exercise is meant to inspire further writings.

I worked as a volunteer for one month in Burundi, where I met a lot of homeless children.

Maialen, who grew up in the Basque Country, likes to travel a lot. Unfortunately, as she is 20 years old and is studying, she cannot afford the cost of it.

Julie has been sailing on lakes since she was five years old and now she sails with her brother on open sea.

I like cold beers and hot summer rain, but I hate pink Post-its!

I’ve seen the world and visited a lot of magical countries without getting out of my couch, thanks to reading really good books.

Colleen is a photographer who grew up in Canada and later lived for three years in Paris where she had an exhibition of 43 of her photos for one month.

When I was small, I like dancing and singing very loudly in the shower. But one day I felled and was about to break my arm. After this situation I only sing in the shower!

Despite being proudly English, I have a love of travelling and exploring new places and am always looking for the next opportunity to leave the country.

Julie, who was always homesick when she was a child, likes now to travel a lot and likes to meet new cultures.

I prefer to read to the sound of Mozart’s Requiem and live the life of an assassin in videogames.

Irati, who loves watching sports on TV, are not allowed by the doctors, due to an accident, to practice any of them.

Maria has got one brother who is 24, but she see him only twice a year because they live far away from each other.

Jacob, who usually did not drink at all, became a part-time alcoholic at UC Syd after going to the Friday Café.

I was a figure skater for 13 years and I quitted when I was 17, but have now stated up again in the adult training in Vojens.

I, who love practicing arts, delight in creating new worlds and beings in my art works.

Marie, who hated to go by bike in the snow, likes to drive a car in the sun.

I love to play instruments and teach music because it’s one of the most creative and sentimental experiences for me!

Simona, who is really tall, played basketball since she was 9 years old and she normally practice 4 times a week.

I am a nice lady who is courageous but not so tall, who travelled half way across the world for love, loves to listen to music while relaxing at home.

I am going to be an English teacher, because there are lots of teachers in my family (my granny - Russian teacher, my grandfather – science teacher). For me it isn’t only tradition, it’s a dream which I have been thinking about for a long time.

I love to hike through mountains, even when the weather is really bad. And I’m not really motivated to go for a hike.

Christian, who has a bad shoulder, likes to play handball but cannot do it because of that.

I love to play video games that engulf you into its atmosphere, but playing, singing and dancing to music is a high that has to be experienced. However gaming is rather relaxing at times.

I studied anthropology for one year in Switzerland but is that enough to really learn to understand a people or a culture?

Sometimes I wonder if I would still be alive if I hadn’t met my ex-boyfriend.

I read a lot in Norwegian, although I never learned the language and can’t speak it, because my favorite writer is Norwegian.

I love reading. I, most illustrious and respected princess of words, love reading.

I, who dislikes being taken pictures of, love filming and taking pictures of others because I feel like it makes moments last forever.

Wall of Early Memories

Early memories can sometimes have a long-time impact on us and define who we are and what we do: I don’t remember November 22, 1963. But I clearly remember the next morning! I was five years old. That morning I came to kindergarten totally un-aware of the devastating news that everybody else was so eager to discuss: the assassination of President Kennedy. I still remember the odd feeling of not knowing and not understanding. I could not imagine how the other kids could know what had happened in in America, so far away from my little provincial town in Denmark. And at the same time I really felt myself excluded that morning for not knowing. But one thing I understood: it is important to listen to the news, it is important to know what is going on out there in the world. So ever since the shots in Dallas I have been listening, watching or reading the news, every day year round. I still I feel odd when I am in situations where I can’t get the news. In that way the killing of an American President had a life-long influence on a small Danish boy!

I remember that my mom was downstairs and doing some ironing. I always had to check with my fingers if the iron was hot. It mostly was, and I got some bad burns on my fingers. This was when I was around four years old.

My first memory is on holidays in Spain with my family. I was holding the hand of my father. Suddenly he set my hand free and I took the hand of another guy. When I realized I started crying for a long time.

The first thing I remember was back in kindergarten. me and some friends were having a race. We had to run from one side of the playground to the other. Of course I was winning the race and I looked back with a cheesy smile on my face to the losers while I was running. Then it hit me (the wall that is). It was the first time I went unconscious due to head trauma. I still remember flashes of my kindergarten teacher holding me and moving me to the classroom. Also a lot of blood since I got a small cut on my forehead. I still have a scar of it to this day.

A very early and good memory of mine is about a journey. My parents liked travelling. When they got children, they took them along. So I don’t remember how old I was, but I was still very young. We went to France (The Pyrenees) with a lot of friends. It was just wonderful. At that time I just knew I would keep travelling for the rest of my life.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to marry for love a prince a live with him in a big and sweetly home. I wanted to look like Cinderella.

My mom always taught me to help people. I dreamt to earn a lot of money in order to help poor people.

My dream was to be a heart doctor, because my granny had problems with her heart. Unfortunately it didn’t happen, but my parents could find a good doctor for her.

Together with my parents and brother I went to Munich by car to pick up my father’s instrument and we went to the zoo.

When I was in daycare, I was happily riding a yellow rocking duck. I got too excited, fell backwards and broke my collarbone.

When I was three years old we made cookies in the class. We could decorate them with Smarties. We each had two cookies and six Smarties. I wanted to safe my prettiest decorated cookie till last, so I ate the ugly one first. But then I was so full that I couldn’t finish the pretty one. I was so sad that I cried all day long. Ever since, I eat the best thing first!

Growing up was fun, especially the times I shared with my friends and family. During summer holidays we gathered together and re-enacted films from TV series like Charlie’s Angels and others. The best time was when we sang our favorite song

Beat It

by Michael Jackson. He was our idol. We listened to him and did all the dance steps we saw him do.

Thriller

was the best one because everyone had a part to play. It was the best years of our lives, we had no worries. We were just kids about ten years old.

I was in my kindergarten class at the top floor, the whole calls is sitting in a circle for the group-talk. Every child has his own pillow to sit on and I was sitting in the right corner. My best friend was telling a story about her vacation. She visited Alaska and went skiing with her father. She was such a good skier that she even made a backflip on a curved hill. I was imagining everything so lively that I still see what she did. But suddenly my teacher interrupted my daydream and said really loudly: “That can’t be true!” I was so disappointed with my friend and still to this day I sometimes doubt if her stories are true or not.

I remember playing with a friend. We were trying to climb a tree. Suddenly he fell down and the next thing I remember is a lot of blood coming from his head (He is OK now, we are still friends).

I was four years old and living in Australia. One day we were having a barbecue in the outback with my family and friends when an emu ran up and stole some sausages from the BBQ. I remember grabbing a stick and chasing it, determined to get my sausages back! On the same day I went exploring in the bush with my best friend and discovered a huge hole. We thought it would be a good idea to see what was down it, until I got stuck and there was a wombat inside…! This earliest memory still inspires me to keep exploring and be adventurous and remember that with determination I can do anything!

As a toddler I transferred schools in the middle of the year. I can still remember meeting my new kindergarten teacher for the first time. I came into the classroom and the teacher was feeding the fish.

When I was in my first grade in primary, we had to read every morning all of the letters that we learned. One day, I arrived in the classroom but couldn’t speak because I had lost my voice and my teacher asked me to read that morning… I was so angry with myself but also so embarrassed…

When I was four years old I was punished for something I didn’t do and got really angry. Ever since I am drastically against being punished unfairly.