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World Tale: Why People Are Different (Tupis Peoples/Brazil)
No two people are alike. The stories: Thailand; Apart/Part Of; and Miss Morley, reveal a wide range of reactions among people.
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 When Sacaibou was walking across a plain he noticed something white covering a tree branch and realized it was a cotton tree. He took some of the seeds home and planted them. Much to his delight, they were growing into fine trees when he left to go on a hunting trip. When he returned, to his dismay, he found the trees had been torn up. He planted more, but each time he left, he came back to find they had been destroyed. As there was no one around but his son, Rairou, Sacaibou realized he was the one tearing up the trees and decided to punish him.
 In 1990 I joined a group of artists traveling to northern Thailand to visit a variety of small villages that specialized in fiber arts. I started weaving wall hangings in 1968, and was invited to join the group by my former weaving teacher. Over the course of three weeks, we saw young girls and women spinning and weaving cotton, making silk thread from silkworms and creating silk fabrics, and making paper. Because we liked earrings and bracelets and rings, we visited a jewelry-making village.
 She walked in by herself. Tried not to sit next to anyone in the circle of chairs. A heavy-set young woman with severe acne, wearing drab loose fitting clothing. Never speaking unless she had to respond, when each student in the first-year colloquium shared an image, going around the room until everyone had spoken. She left class by herself.
 In 1967 my son went to a community school with three rooms for six grades. His second-grade teacher. a slender, sweet-looking woman, was severely disabled by rheumatoid arthritis. Without being told to do so, students in her class took care of her in every way they could. Carrying her bag and books. Voluntarily doing whatever she was not able to do, like erasing the board or holding a pile of paper while she handed out a page to each student. Students adored her.
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Nancy King is a widely published author and a professor emerita at the University of Delaware, where she has taught theater, drama, playwriting, creative writing, and multidisciplinary studies with an emphasis on world literature. She has published seven previous works of nonfiction and five novels. Her new memoir, Breaking the Silence, explores the power of stories in healing from trauma and abuse. Her career has emphasized the use of her own experience in being silenced to encourage students to find their voices and to express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with authenticity, as a way to add meaning to their lives.
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