A Stories-To-Live-By Conversation with Kristin Valle Geren

Episode Transcript
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Lindsay Persohn (00:10):
Education research has a problem.
The work of brilliantresearchers often doesn't reach
the practice of brilliantteachers.
Over the years, we've alsotalked about how the work of
brilliant teachers often doesnot inform the work of education
researchers.
In this special series ofClassroom Caffeine, in
collaboration with the Storiesto Live by Collective, we

(00:32):
highlight this group of K-12teachers from across the state
of Florida and former teachers,now in higher education, who are
working together to sense makeand take action.
We talk with educators andresearchers who are working
together to explore how literacyteaching can respond to the
climate crisis.
Since 2021, they have gatheredin person and online to write,

(00:55):
make art, share stories, andreflect on how climate change is
shaping our classrooms andcommunities.
Supported by grants andpartnerships, they hold regular
workshops and virtual meetings,creating space for teachers to
learn from one another whilenavigating challenges like book
bans, censorship laws, and therealities of living through
major hurricanes.

(01:15):
Through this work, the group isstudying how teachers use
stories, place-based activities,and multimodal composing to
bring climate change intoEnglish language arts
classrooms.
Their collaborative researchasks, how do teachers tell
stories about climate change?
How do they navigate thepolitical, social, and
environmental pressures of theirschools?
And how can they build newliteracies that prepare young

(01:38):
people for more just and livablefutures?
In each episode of this specialseries, we talk with a
collaborator in the Stories toLive By Collective about their
experiences, connections, andlearning through this work
together.
Kristen Valle Geren is adoctoral candidate in the
Literacy Studies Program in theCollege of Education at the
University of South Florida andthe graduate research assistant

(02:02):
for the Stories to Live ByCollective.
Before beginning her doctoralstudies, Kristin taught
elementary school and worked asa literacy coach in Tampa,
Florida.
Specifically, she worked in thecommunity where she now engages
in community-based educationalresearch in an afterschool
program with elementary-agedyouth.
As a child, Kristin's familymoved often due to her father's

(02:24):
military service, but she's nowlived in Florida for over 20
years, all of her adult life.
She came to the Stories to Liveby Project through her interest
in the ways children andteachers make sense of the
places in which they live andteach, and the possibilities of
placemaking literacies forexploring issues of climate
crisis.
So pour a cup of your favoritedrink and join me, your host,

(02:50):
Lindsay Persohn, for thisspecial series of classroom
caffeine.
Stories to live by that aresure to energize your thinking
and your teaching practice.
Kristin, thank you for joiningme.
Welcome to the show.

Kristin Valle Geren (03:02):
Thanks so much for having me, Lindsay.

So from your own experiences, will you share
with us one or two moments thatinform your thinking about
climate literacies and climateeducation?

Sure.
Um, so what comes to mind firstpersonally is uh my family's
experiences with Hurricane Irmain 2017.
Although I didn't reallyrealize it at the time, it was a
really pivotal moment that madean impact on how I come to
think about issues of climatecrisis broadly and the way like
story they're connected to theseproblems in complex ways.
So my parents live inCudjoe Key, which was the spot

(03:33):
of landfall for what was acategory four hurricane.
And although their house andtheir neighborhood sustained
damage, it took years to fullyrepair, it was actually the
experience with my youngerbrother that I remember a lot
when I think about the storm andsocio-ecological issues.
So, like many other residentsof the Florida Keys, he works in
hospitality and the impacts ofthe storm are both ecological,
his apartment didn't survive thestorm, and financial.

(03:54):
The economy of the Florida Keysis heavily reliant on tourism.
And its workers, like mybrother, who make the tourism
happen, are also the ones whoare most at risk when faced with
an environmental disaster likea hurricane.
So even in a place that's oftenthought of as like paradise,
these people experience climateimpacts in much more damaging
ways than other people.
At the time, I didn't trulygrasp the larger socioscientific

(04:15):
issues at play.
I didn't really see it as anissue of eco-justice.
And I didn't have the words forthat.
But and I did understand thatthis experience was just like
one small slice of whatenvironmental injustice looks
like.
But as I continued to reflectand learn, I see how
environmental disasters likehurricanes are much more complex
than the damage sustained bywind and rain.
And second, I think about a walkthat I, along with my mentor

(04:37):
and co-researcher, Dr.
Alexandra Panos, and who wasthe principal investigator of
the Stories To Live By project,took with some elementary aged
kids after school a few yearsago.
So we visited a small citypark, which is just a few
minutes from their neighborhoodcommunity center where we work
with them, and we took a walkalong the Hillsborough River.
When we were preparing for thewalk, we asked them if they had

(04:57):
any stories or questions aboutthe river.
You know, we thought they weregonna have tons.
The river runs right adjacentto their neighborhood, and they
were not interested at all.
They had nothing to say.
But when we actually went andwalked with them, it was a
completely different experience.
There were many memorablemoments during the walk, but I
left realizing how moving withchildren in places and letting
them draw on their authenticliteracies like storytelling,

(05:17):
unprompted social media stylevideo composing and questioning
can provide meaningfulexperiences for children to
explore the world in places thatmatter, and that these types of
invitations are an importantway to approach climate
literacies with children.

You've already shared with us so many important
things.
I think, you know, we when wetalk about how changes in the
climate impact us, you know, wethink about it on an individual
level and we think about it on acommunity or even a more global
kind of level.
But I think to go even furtherinto those individual
experiences of all the differentways in which, like it's not

(05:53):
just this event, and then wesort of move on.
But particularly, I think, inthe story of your brother and
many people like him, it notonly impacted his living
situation, but then it also theeconomic impacts affect one's
ability to recover.
We know like recovery is slow,cleanup is slow because there's
so much that has to be done.

(06:14):
And when you're talking aboutstructures that have been, you
know, made uninhabitable fromthese storms, then what, right?
For the people who live there.
And, you know, when you livethere, your life is there.
And so it changes really theshape of your entire life.
And I think that that that'ssomething that, you know, we
kind of gloss over a lot ofthose stories.

(06:35):
There's always there's so muchnews to attend to.
So initially you hear about astorm, but then all the things
that happen afterwards tracingthat recovery, it's so long.
And that actually connects tosomething you were saying about
walking with kids, because Iknow even recently I have seen
stories on social media aboutHurricane Helene and how it's
impacted the Asheville area,which of course, they're you

(06:58):
know, huge in tourism as well.
And to see people walkingthrough those spaces, like it
was actually this old house.
They posted something about howthey're they're working on a
couple of different structuresthere.
But if you think about anentity like this old house, you
know, it's been around foreverand they they do such cool
things, even a group like thatis only able to support, you

(07:18):
know, a couple of properties.
And so recovery is infinitelyslow.
And to see their videos of themwalking through those spaces
and to see even now, a yearlater, what they look like,
right?
You're talking about stillpiles of rubble.
You're talking about destroyedcars, destroyed buildings next
to buildings that are stillstanding, right?
So that's the other thing, likemaking sense of all of that

(07:40):
trauma at the same time.
Why did my house survive whenmy neighbors didn't?
You know, those sorts ofthings.
It's just so much.
And then back to this idea ofwalking with kids, I love the
the walks that you all do.
And I think it's so cool to seewhat particular spaces and
places mean to people,especially when they may not
necessarily think of it in thoseways.

(08:01):
So, you know, you're talkingabout kids composing on social
media, those impromptu sorts ofthings that show you what places
mean to them.
It's just, it's such a rich wayto explore a place and to hear
stories and to um elicitmemories and connections.
And also, I thinkfuture-oriented thinking, right?
Like there are ways to do thatas well with what seems to be a

(08:24):
simple walk to the river.

Absolutely.
And I think um one of thethings we learned is, you know,
you learn so much more aboutwhat matters to people when you
actually move with them than,you know, when we asked a third
grader what stories they haveabout the river and they didn't
have anything to share.
So I think it can help bridgethat gap, which is actually what
I'll talk about in the nextsession.
Great, great.

So yeah, on that note, um, what do you want
listeners to know about yourwork related to climate
literacies?

For me, the entry point has been centering
places that matter.
So to children, to teachersthat we work with.
And we've done walks with theteachers that we work with in
the Story Silver project aswell, um, and have found that
really meaningful.
But as I mentioned, we've beenworking with elementary age
children during an after-schoolprogram at a local community
center, which is in partnershipwith the Tampa Housing Authority
for a few years now.

(09:10):
But my interest and like ourconnection to this space began
with me just wanting to knowmore about this specific
community where I taught beforeand during my PhD program.
And so for me at first, I wasjust interested in learning more
about the community and whatthe kids learned about.
So through what we callExplorers Club, because
Placemaking Club didn't soundvery cool, we have invited

(09:30):
children to explore places thatmatter to them.
So we've explored places liketheir community center, their
neighborhood, their schools, andthe river, which as I mentioned
runs adjacent to where theylive.
And the more we invite childrento engage in uh different, as
we call them, placemakingliteracy invitations, the more
I've learned not only about whatkids care about, but also just
how connected issues of climateare to local experiences and the

(09:51):
way kids move through and makesense of their world.
So, for example, when we walkedin the river, kids noticed
issues of access, asking us likewho lives in those big houses
across the river?
Um, or questions aboutpollution, why is there trash in
the river, why does it lookdirty here?
Or um, some of them are reallyparticularly attending to
change, like asking why theirneighborhood has changed over
time and why, or um whydifferent buildings have been

(10:14):
built, or how the hurricane haschanged the river.
Um and so in my work, Iapproach climate literacies as
always intertwined with localcontext and place-based
understandings.

I would love to hear you say more about that
because I think that for me, youknow, I'm still making sense of
what place-based literacies areall about.
And I think for myself, I cansituate that in some of the work
that I do in my local communityaround historic preservation.
We have a really rich history,and so preserving those spaces
and places is really importantto me.

(10:45):
And that's helped me to betterunderstand the work that you all
have been doing.
But I would love to hear moreabout kind of what you've
learned and what what else hassparked from those walks, what
kinds of conversations?
How do you continue that work?
And I'll also say I think it'sjust it's so valuable that we
talk to kids about what mattersto them.

(11:05):
You know, I think there's somuch messaging in the world that
conveys, you know, kids don'tknow much, they're not doing
well at school, you know, allthose really negative things.
But when you talk to kids, youlearn that the reality is so
different than that.

Um, I think the first thing is just giving
space for children.
So as a teacher, it was veryhard at first for me to just
like give them space to move inways that they want to move and
let them explore in the waysthat they want to explore.
But once we do that, we haverealized that like things come
up naturally.
They have conversations witheach other, they tell you
stories that they would havenever told you if you're not

(11:41):
walking with them, or they dothings like take pictures.
We have old school digitalcameras that they really like to
use, or um, they've made maps,and then they take those ideas
and they can do things likeresearch.
Like um last spring, some ofthe students were interested in
how does the hurricane affectthe river?
So they were doing someresearch into that.
Um, some of them wanted to knowlike where the river flows

(12:03):
because it's a really, reallybig river.
So they wanted to know how itlooks in different places.
So just being able to build offof those things that they're
interested in naturally.
And the other thing um thatsounds really silly, but that we
learned right away is this wordmattering is really important.
So at the beginning, we triedto ask them what's important to
you or places that areimportant, and we got a lot of

(12:24):
like facts, like trees give usoxygen, or this school is here
to help us learn, but not thingsthat were like their stories or
the things that they foundinvaluable.
And so when we changed it tothe word matter, it really
shifted the way that they madesense of places that we were in
together.
Um, and I wasn't expectingthat, but it was a really
interesting learning.

(12:45):
And I think like just yesterdaywe started with a new group,
some of them are the same, but anew group of kids, and we took
our first walk again to the tothe river, and we just walked,
we didn't do anything else.
And while we were walking, kidswere picking up little rocks
and saying maybe this is ameteor, or asking, like, did the
hurricane damage this part ofthe road here?
Or when did this tree comedown?

(13:06):
And then they're also tellingstories.
One time my cousin and I camedown here and this happened.
And so I think just givingchildren space, and it doesn't
have to be, I know in classroomsyou don't have to, you're not
walking to a river, but I'vewalked with children around
their schools and learned many,many things about what matters
to them in their school.
So I think just centeringplaces that matter to children

(13:27):
or to teachers in our work withthe teachers is just like a
really valuable way to beginthis kind of work because that's
one of the things that I thinkabout a lot is that this is
really hard to just start.
And not everybody can doeverything.
And it's okay to just startwith what you can start with.
So whether that's just goingoutside, one of the first things
we did is sensory noticings.
What do you hear?

(13:47):
What do you see?
What do you um feel?
And a lot of them at the riverwrote how calm they felt and how
much joy they felt and howhappy they were, but some of
them smelled oxygen or otherthings like that.
So I think just finding thoseways to investigate or to think
about the places where you arecan be enough.
And it's a place to start.

So I I think, you know, we're we're talking
about how much places matter,but I think what your your point
is well made that words reallymatter also, right?
And I think sometimes we don'tknow what words will connect
with anyone, um, particularlyyoung people.
But it's interesting thatwhenever you ask them what is
important, it sounds as thoughthey more or less relayed things
that they thought might beimportant to others.

(14:28):
Yes.
When you ask what matters,that's a much more relational
kind of term, right?
Because it's what matters toyou or to me.
It becomes much more personalrather than this sort of idea of
like detached kind of facts,right?
So really interesting.
I feel like those are thetwists and turns in research
that you can't quite anticipate,and you sort of just have to
follow it where it goes, right?

(14:49):
Because I I probably would havestarted in the same place.
What's important and yeah, whatmatters is a much more personal
kind of feeling.
So, Kristin, given thechallenges of today's
educational climate, whatmessage do you want other
teachers to hear?

What you are able to do is enough.
So sometimes I can feeloverwhelming to think about how
to fit big issues like climateliteracies into everything else
that is asked to teach us everyday, especially when faced with
constantly changing curve gumpolicies or mandates that come
at classrooms from alldirections.
Um, from my own experiencestoo, it's easy to feel guilt or
frustration when you see allthese other cool things that

(15:25):
other educators are able to do,and you might be struggling to
even find a way to startthinking about these things.
So I think finding a way tobegin, whether that's reading a
book, answering a child'squestion after a hurricane,
taking a walk outside the schoolwith your students is enough.
And the second message I wantteachers to hear is to find your
people.
So I've learned so much fromthe teachers in this project.
So just being in a spacetogether, listening to them

(15:46):
share and getting to be just asmall part of this collective
has made a huge impact.
So again, what you're doing isenough and you don't have to do
it alone.

That's so important.
And I feel like that messagefor teachers could apply in
pretty much every situation whenit comes to education these
days.
Um, there is so much.
There's so much to take in.
It reminds me of what we weretalking about at the beginning
of our conversation, just thatoverwhelming nature of what
happens, you know, with with theacts of climate change, with
hurricanes in particular.
And I think that there'ssomething about education right

(16:16):
now that feels a little bit likea storm that we're all
weathering.
And so the message that whatyou're able to do is enough, I
think is very comforting becauseI think there's a tendency for
teachers in particular to feellike it's never enough.
Whatever we do is never enough,but it is.
And I think we need to startinternalizing that message,
right?
That all we can do is all wecan do.

(16:37):
So thanks so much for spendingsome time with me today,
Kristin.
Thanks again for having me.
By centering teachers'experiences and creativity, the
Stories to Live By collectivereimagines literacy education as
a powerful way to engage withthe climate crisis.
Together, members of thiscollective are showing how

(16:59):
stories and teaching practicesrooted in place can help
communities respond to climatechange while nurturing hope,
justice, and resilience forfuture generations.
If you have an interest injoining this group, please reach
out to Dr.
Alexandra Panos, AssociateProfessor of Literacy Studies at
the University of South Floridaat ampanos@ usf.edu.

(17:22):
That's ampanos@usf.edu.

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