Are some stories too small?

Lately, I keep thinking about many of the theories and ideas discussed over the last two years in the program. As I begin to see their application in the classroom and the paradoxes that accompany them, I question whether or not I know how to wade through these issues with a purpose.

I just finished watching a BBC Production of The Diary of Anne Frank. As I sat there watching the mini-series trying to decide what part would be helpful to show the students, I found myself thinking about the stories that need to be told. For instances, Anne Frank was a young girl of 15 years who experienced numerous tragedies in her short life. Yet, as she wrote "Despite all things, I still believe there is good in the world" and shortly after was taken to a concentration camp, Anne knew that beauty and goodness still existed and would return again to her home of Amsterdam. But how many others stories out there still need to be told. What determines which stories are more important than others? And here is where I begin to question our honoring the little stories alongside the big stories.

Having several perpetual hand-raisers in my classes, constant storytellers among them, I catch myself wondering if these little stories are just too little to have significance. Is this slightly dishonorable to my students when I do value their stories, but also find their stories not important to be shared during class time? Building a space for these seems, at times, too distracting from the lesson's point. Palmer expresses this same issue in his writing of classroom paradoxes, but I haven't been able to pinpoint how I fit into this as their instructor. Does this then mean we don't provide a classroom centered enough on the student? Struggling at times to find the balance between students' stories and the natural flow of the classroom, it seems necessary to outline what I feel resembles too small a story. For instances, a student wanting to share their weekend with the entire class during the day's lesson seems rather insignificant to the Big story being told. How do we wade through these stories to produce the complete story with all the big and little stories involved with it?