Wendy DeGroat, librarian at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School in Richmond, Virginia, remembers overhearing students in her library debating topics like gun rights. The conversations devolved into shouting matches, with no one really hearing the other side. “Schools and universities do a lot of work on teaching people how to debate and how to persuade,” she said. “We don’t always do a great job of teaching them how to listen.”
That’s why, in 2021, when the national storytelling nonprofit StoryCorps launched One Small Step (OSS)—a program that encourages those on opposite sides of political issues to understand each other as people—DeGroat leapt at the chance to adapt it for her students.
On Saturday, June 29, DeGroat shared her experience with OSS in “Fostering Conversation and Connection Among Community Members with Contrasting Political Views,” a session at the American Library Association’s 2024 Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Diego.
“It is so easy to silo and just listen to people who think like us, who have the same viewpoints as us,” DeGroat said. Part of her school’s strategic plan is to foster a sense of belonging, an aim that fit perfectly with that of OSS. While the original program format includes a facilitator, DeGroat instead decided to lead students in a series of workshops on active listening and mindfulness before pairing them for conversations. Part of that process was self-reflection: Many of the students “hadn’t thought about why they believe what they believe,” she noted.
To encourage students to participate, the school offers four hours of community service credit as well as a doughnut party at the program’s end. DeGroat also participated in OSS herself and shared her experiences as examples for the students.
In 2024, more than a quarter of the school’s graduating class had participated in OSS. While some were primarily interested in the community service credit, others came with a sense of curiosity. Among the reasons: “‘I don’t really believe that other people exist that have these different opinions that would like talk to me in a civil way,’” DeGroat shared. To some, the idea “seems like a fairy tale.”
DeGroat emphasized the importance of cultivating relationships. OSS is now integrated into a US Government class, and the freshman speech class includes a module on listening that is based on the OSS structure. But DeGroat wishes she had started working toward those synergies earlier. Relationships are also key to sustaining the program. As a solo librarian, DeGroat has relied on students to help organize the program by crafting topics and surveys and facilitating debriefs at the program’s end. She also hopes to engage more teachers to help run the program itself.
At the end of this year, DeGroat gave each member of her panel of student organizers a battery-operated tea light, thanking them “for being part of helping people see the inner light of humanity in all the people around them. Even those who have different political viewpoints.”
