Collective session based on the method of animation “tiny story,Grand History in public (pdf in fr} popular education to make visible and share questioning on the representations, the transmission of experiences… To question and document differently our own practices to make them evolve.

A method whose origin is attributed to Breton-Catalan en:Ricardo Montserrat

• Duration: 2 to 4 hours in total (sometimes more) with 1 individual hour per participant, number: between 5 and 10 people
• Layout: wall mural or blank table or digital board (e.g. https://excalidraw.com)
• Desire: to share our life stories, the roots of our anger and our commitments, to organize the transmission of our political experiences
• Intention: to defend and share a self-determination and the necessity of the transmission of a repoliticized critical culture
• Preparation: none except to train in life stories

With the idea to empower participant, to give some kind of equity between invisible people and facts by writers of History, and so on and so forth.
Very short: A typical workshop start with a Specific Event or topic to investigate and begin at the birthday of the younger attendee.
We can use wall, pen, papers or web app to drawn the timeline and write and stick events plus explanation

• Explain the context, the idea and the intention
• Ask if there are any problems or uncertainties
• Clearly explain the rules of life together, for example: code of conduct
• Clearly state and display the time frame and the total duration
• Tell, explain and display the theme of the session “tiny story, Grand History”.
• Make the theme of the session clear (e.g. a specific historical event (the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic) or a collective theme (the rights to Assisted reproductive technology))

• 20 to 40 minutes, or even 1 hour

The first step consists of an individual writing instruction to write one's personal, educational and professional story, from birth to the present (45 minutes to 1 hour in a calm environment): “Starting with your year of birth: write down the year, and at least two columns “tiny story” and “Grand History”.

What brought you there? What has been constitutive of your values, your awareness of the world, or has built you as an adult, …. including of course positive or negative events (a failure can give rise to a turning point).
Scop Le pavé

Participants are given personal and individual time to prepare and fill out a table with one line per year.

• The first year can be the year of birth,
• The last one being the current year
• and 3 columns,
  • the first one to write the years,
  • the second one for the tiny story,
  • the third for the Grand History.

The small story means our personal history, the big story, everything else. During this first hour, you will have to find an anecdote for each blank space in the table, which is significant in relation to your presence here in this instruction:

What elements of the tiny story and Grand History have brought you here today?

• Around the Grand History ~ 20 to 60 min

Year by year, in a chronological manner, the facilitator asks the group to share the events of history that have marked them.

One person is in charge of transferring the events onto a colored visual medium and integrating them into a timeline.

It may be suggested that an event be shared in the following form:

• Context of the History (age, place, emotions felt)
• The event of the History (what happened, where, when, how, how it was felt?)
• The end of the (Hi)story (how it ended, the final feeling, why this (Hi)story marked me?)

Depending on the time, the energy of the group and the balance of the discussions, the facilitator may suggest that certain events be moved forward more quickly. Be careful, these choices are not neutral and must be thought out beforehand according to the initial intentions.

When a participant posts his or her moment in the big story, that person has a short time to tell and explain why he or she chose that moment, keeping the constraint of the story in a collective perspective. A collective note of the story is organized (paper, web pad, etc.)

Each person speaks in turn without an imposed historical chronology.

Challenges :

To embody, with the help of one's memories, situations and people who have made us grow, who have shaped our path, to measure the convergences between the participants and the specificities of each one; to make the link between different contexts of emancipation and to observe the “availability regimes” of those who have helped us to grow. This exercise will also have the merit of proposing a method that privileges testimonies over arguments, thus creating egalitarian positions in the group; finally, this work will have the interest of encouraging inter-knowledge, including between people who believe they know each other.

More information on the method (and a site on which to search (fr)): http://www.scoplepave.org/petite-histoire-grande-histoire

• Around the tiny stories ~ 20 to 120min

With the same method as phase 2, the participants come to display their tiny stories with :

• explanation of the choice
• associated narrative
• collective notes

Speech or non-speech is free and respected, like an offering. The questions are there to open up possibilities.

At the end of this session, the group is asked to do a round of free speech that answers all or part of the following questions

• How do I feel at the end of this workshop?
• What needs did this workshop meet?
• What did I learn about myself, about the group, from this workshop?
• How does the Grand History nourish our individual experiences?
• And our tiny stories?
• What do they tell about us?
• Do I have stories I want to share beyond this circle?