Frank Sesno has built a reputation for asking really good questions — that’s what got him all the way to the top of CNN’s Washington bureau, after all.
At 2 p.m. today in the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall, Sesno will be passing along some of his question-asking expertise during his Intergenerational Climate Storytelling Workshop, in collaboration with the Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative.
“The earth is in peril, and it’s an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Sesno said. “That’s kind of a cliche, but it’s true. Everybody is needed, and if we can bring together the generational experience and energy, the shared passion, we can just get more done.”
The workshop will pair together Chautauquans from, well, different generations — grandparents with their grandchildren, parents with their parents, students with their teachers — to come together and have a discussion about their biggest concerns regarding the earth and the climate.
The workshop will begin with a question-asking and interviewing intensive from Sesno, an Emmy-winning journalist and professor at George Washington University, where participants will learn how to ask “good questions,” which will ultimately open the door for in-depth and eye-opening conversations, Sesno said.
“A good question is a formulation that prompts someone to open up — to share thoughts, feelings, emotions, (and) experiences,” he said. “It’s the follow-up questions that often draw out the detail, the texture, and the feeling that’s connected with all of this.”
Reaching across generations to engage in this unique form of storytelling, Sesno explained, allows for each generation to bring their most invaluable assets to the table. For an older generation, that’s decades of life experience and wisdom; for a younger generation, that’s hope for the future.
The goal of the workshop is to find three intergenerational pairs who craft the most compelling stories, ask the most intriguing questions, and engage in the most exciting dialogue to present their conversations to a larger audience on Thursday. Sesno hopes that those conversations will in turn spark further intergenerational dialogue and learning.
The climate crisis requires unique and innovative approaches, and Sesno believes that this workshop, and, more broadly, engaging in conversations like this one can become an important tool in deepening understanding and finding solutions that may otherwise not have been found.
“We pass down our traditions and our wisdom through storytelling — through oral traditions that are shared,” he said. “That is something that can be studied and emulated, and that I think this intergenerational conversation can model in a really brilliant and inspiring way.”
