One at a Time: A Native American Story
By David Benson, Educational Technology Consultant
When I find myself struggling to write an article, I turn to other storytellers for inspiration. While searching, I happened across a Native American story called "One at a Time," which is loosely based upon a story by Loren Eisley called The Star Thrower. The story reminds me of people who make a difference, including many educators. I can't do the story justice, so I will let it speak for itself:
A friend was walking down a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked, he saw a man in the distance and noticed that the local native kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean. As the friend approached even closer, he noticed the man was picking up starfish that had washed up on the beach and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the water.
Puzzled, he approached the man and said, "Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing."
"I'm throwing these starfish back into the ocean. It's low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don't throw them back into the sea, they'll die up here."
"I understand," the friend replied, "but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can't possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. And this is probably happening on beaches all up and down this coast. Can't you see that you can't possibly make a difference?"
The local native smiled, bent down and picked up yet another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he replied, "Made a difference to that one!"
For this and other Native American stories go to the Native American Story Index at: http://ishgooda.nativeweb.org/stories/.
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