This is a practice exercise for facilitating peace circles. 

Storytelling has been used by many different communities to preserve local history and tradition, as well as a factor of community organizing. Talking to others and getting to know each other is an important part of the peacemaking/circle process. The process and action of storytelling helps us to understand one another, share
experiences, build relationships, etc. We’ll try to lean into this today while still getting in some more (tiny) facilitation practice!

In groups of 3-4 people each:

• Each person will invite their talking piece and why they are here (this will get repetitive, since everyone is from the same program, but good practice to start thinking of how you will introduce yourself to your classroom!), (use the intros from the binders)
• Remember, we’re not actually doing these invitations, but practicing introducing them with enough context/good transitions, etc.

Back in large group reflection:

• What is the role of storytelling in the process of building relationships and community?
• What do you feel comfortable about in facilitation?
• We’ve been in community with each other today and thinking about how storytelling is vital to the process of building community, so to honor the other communities you are all parts of, we’d would like to invite you to think of a specific community you find yourself being a part of and write down a commitment you’d like to make to that
  community.