The Ripple Effect

The Voice of TEAM  Number 16 Spring 1999

T.E.A.M.: Teachers of Experiential and Adventure Methodology


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"Rites of Passage" 
by Greg Michie

(Editor's Note: In 1996 Greg was recognized for the creative work he has done with his students. He received one of the Golden Apple teaching awards from the Golden Apple Foundation, in Chicago.)

It's graduation day at Seward Academy, and I stand in my usual spot, along the gym's north wall, watching my 8th graders file in. As always, it's a bittersweet time for me. More bitter or more sweet, I'm not quite sure. I'm happy, of course, that the kids are taking this important step in their lives, but my joy is laced with other emotions--worry, regret, and a heavy emptiness that creeps in every year about this time. They're good kids. I'm going to miss them.

I watch as Vicky Ochoa takes a seat in the sixth row of graduates. As she adjusts her chair, I glimpse a fraying, woven purple-and-lavender bracelet peeking out from the sleeve of her robe. The bracelet is a visual reminder of the rites of passage ritual Bob Fabian, another Seward teacher, and I undertook with our 8th graders early in the year. Borrowing loosely from Native American traditions and stirring in a dash of Buddhist philosophy, we had led the  kids through a seven-step series of activities designed to help them reflect on four key questions: Who am I? What do I value? Where am I going and how do I get there? and What kind of person do I want to become?

The seven elements of the ritual, as explained in our handout to the kids, were:
1) A written statement of what your coming-of-age means to you. This can be in the form of a poem, an essay, or a letter to yourself.
2) A personal Eightfold Path, which outlines how you plan to continue on the path toward becoming a good human being.
3) Reading about a Native American (or another group's) coming-of-age ritual to understand more about its meaning and purpose.
4) The making of a Passage Bracelet.
5) A time of separation or isolation in a sacred space of your choosing in which you meditate or reflect on the meaning of your coming-of-age.
6) Sharing your written statement with at least one older member of your family.
7) Participating in the Closing Ceremony--A Native American fire and talking circle.

Our closing ceremony was held at Northeastern's campus on a chilly October morning. We told the kids that during the bus ride there--about a 30-minute trip--they were to remain completely silent. They were to use the time, we said, to reflect on our rites of passage activities and their significance. It was a crazy thing to ask of 13-year olds, we realized, but we did it anyway. And believe it or not, it worked. The bus driver was amazed. Other than a whisper or two, we didn't hear a sound the whole way there.

When we arrived, Dan Creely met us to facilitate the ceremony. "First we got in a circle," 8th grader Jesse Angel remembered later, "and then this guy named Dan Creely passed around something like twine, called Jute. We had to pull it apart and make it fluffy and then he collected it to use to start the fire. He said with that jute there would be a piece of us in the fire."

Dan then went through the process of starting a fire by hand--the old-fashioned way. "He rubbed two sticks together until he got a bit of smoke," Bricelda Vazquez recalled. "Then he passed the flame on to the jute, and then lit the wood. He said that the wood gave us a gift that it had conserved all its life. When he lit up the wood everything it had conserved was let out as fire." At that instant, when the flame first danced out, I heard a collective gasp from the kids, and saw several of them exchange looks with friends, amazed. I guess it was the closest thing to real magic most of them had ever seen.

The kids then took turns speaking to the group. As Andres Munoz, another participant, later explained, "Once the fire was started, we read our poems, essays, or eightfold paths. After we read, the person to the right of us put the bracelet we made on our arm, which meant we had made it through the rites of passage."

A few days later, we had the kids write about the ritual and what meaning it had for them. "What this experience makes me feel," wrote Jesse, "is that in the past, Native Americans passed through a rites of passage. And now we are not forgetting Native Americans. We are trying to give them their place in history. This experience gave me more force to become an adolescent. Now I feel more free, and I won't worry about what I'm gonna pass through, because I'm ready. I am an adolescent. I can say those words now, because I'm not afraid. I made it. I am proud."

I don't mean to romanticize the project. It was the first time Bob and I had done it, and we kind of made it up as we went along. As always happens with 8th graders, some kids took it more seriously than others. Some didn't complete all the steps. And a few, truth be told, couldn't have even told you what the point of the whole thing was. But I think it was important to most of them. The fact that Vicky is still wearing her bracelet, all these months later at graduation, says more than any words could. Her diploma will be a reminded of what she has done, where she has been. The bracelet is to be a symbol of where she is headed, a reminder that this day is, after all, not only an ending, but a beginning.

Greg Michie teaches at Seward Academy, a public school on the southwest side of Chicago. His book, "Holler If You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and His Students", will be published this year by Teachers College Press.

You may contact him at school at 773-535-4890, or via e-mail at Goyito@aol.com.