Conscious Storytelling: Global Changemakers Navigating Growth, Guiding Learning, and Honoring Culture Using Translanguaging and Expression

• In Event: Language, Culture, and Citizenship: Global Education for Diverse Communities

Abstract

The global conscious storytelling project brought twenty educators and leaders from South Africa and the USA together to “unforget histories” and co-create trauma-informed children’s stories, grounded in Ubuntu pedagogy and translanguaging, using a Changemaking framework. The project used personal introspection of lived experiences, storytelling, translanguaging, and collaborative reflection to explore social-emotional learning and global competence. The data collected through reflection questionnaires and co-created children’s books support three emergent themes that support conscious storytelling as a useful method for: (a) navigating personal and professional growth with openness and vulnerability; (b) guiding learning through culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogical practices; and (c) honoring diversity by centering indigenous languages and community knowledge and expression.

Author

• Rebekka J. Jez, University of San Diego