My Story
Vitali, Francis (2010-11-19)
>>FRANCIS VITALI: My name is Francis Vitali and I am from the [unintelligible] Writing Project in Farmington, New Mexico. I was asked, actually, to share my stories about my literacy experiences. So, I will just share them; they are really just kind of ramblings of memories right now. I grew up in Philadelphia, lots of sisters and brothers. My mother was pretty busy so we kind of learned to read to each other and read together the Childcraft books. And to this day the Childcraft books are a nice reminder, an artifact of those days. 
>>FRANCIS VITALI: One of the things I really remember is my mother and her idioms. She did the crossword puzzle; it was an excellent crossword puzzle so she understood language and loved to use language. But her oral idioms were the ones I really remember, like "What the Sam Hill is wrong with you?" and "Rob Peter to pay Paul." We would say "Where are you going?" and my mother would say "I am going crazy. Do you want to come along too?" Then, the one I always remember: "Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see." 
>>FRANCIS VITALI: As I got older, I realized I really was a storyteller. So now I have come to use the power of stories in everything, you know, in teaching and learning. When I meet someone, the important thing is, well, "Tell me about you" and that constitutes another story. As teachers, we become -- good teachers are good story tellers; they know when to exaggerate and when to elaborate and when to share a personal story. They know when to make up a story about something. Because learning is emotional and the way we connect is through stories. Even in practitioner research, working with graduate students. 
>>FRANCIS VITALI: The importance of telling their stories, guiding, facilitating. Teachers talk about their classroom stories. It becomes very important to me as they share their expertise in their classrooms because right now there is a climate where teachers are not validated or recognized in a very oppressive landscape for what they really do as professionals. This gives them voice to tell their stories. As Martin Luther King said "If you want to convince anybody of anything, you tell your story because nobody can argue with that." To me, teachers telling their stories of their classrooms and what is happening is a very important and empowering stance because nobody can argue that that didn't happen in their classroom. It may not have happened in your classroom but it happened in their classroom and that is their story, and a powerful story at that. 
>>FRANCIS VITALI: I will just end with one thing. I teach at the University of New Mexico in a teacher education program. A ritual we have in our classes: if anyone is 10 minutes or more late to class, including me, we have to tell a story. But, we don't want to hear the woes of the real reason why you were late because we are already stressed enough. We want to hear the person who comes in late have to tell a fabrication, an elaboration, an exaggeration of why they were late. We want to hear anything but the truth. I think this is a really good practice for them when they are in their own classrooms to kind of think of their feet and to bubble up stories, to have stories bubble up from down underneath whenever they need it. And they pass that gift on to their students. So, I think I will stop here. Thank you.