Story-telling may be the oldest knowledge-transmission technique. In oral cultures, it’s often the primary means of sharing and propagating knowledge and culture. But how can it be used in modern school?

This one of the questions I was considering as I created a social media artifact for ETEC 565: Tripping out from Vancouver to Amsterdam to Cairo (see also Reflection on Creating Social Media).

Stories are known to be glue elements that tie seemingly disparate events together into a narrative, helping learners relate chunks of knowledge and understand them better (Akkerman, Admiraal, Huizenga). By fitting elements together in a story that contains internal (and ideally also external) logic and consistency, teachers can help students maintain attention, interest, and motivation … important elements in understanding and retention.

Perhaps because stories have been with us so very long, they are a very natural way to convey and receive information (Hill & Baumgartner). In an era when much of what happens in school may seem divorced from reality outside of the classroom, that’s a valuable thing.

Anything that can be put in narrative form without being forced could potentially be taught in story. Geography, history, and science are obvious candidates. Even math and physics can enlist narrative: who doesn’t remember the famous story of Archimedes in the bathtub discovering the principle of displacement? Gravity, of course, has its own (probably apocryphal) story of Newton and the apple.

The critical component, I think, is authenticity. If a story is obviously fake or made-up … something dreamed-up by a teacher desperate to help students learn … it is less likely to capture imagination and stir motivation. There is such an animal as willing suspension of disbelief, but it only goes so far, and probably not as far for lower-quality stories than higher. A story that is rooted in human experience (whether actual or metaphorical) has a greater chance to engage students.

Stories, of course, are far more than words. Certainly recently, teachers are adding rich media to their story-telling efforts. Young and Kajger speak about digital video and image technologies being integrated into English and Language Arts classrooms (2009).

And it’s not just teacher creating stories for students. Perhaps the true power of narrative is realized when students start telling their own stories … using words, images, video, audio, and other rich technologies.

That, perhaps, should be the goal of every story-telling teacher: students who in turn teach through narrative.

References

Akkerman, S., Admiraal, W., & Huizenga, J. (2009). Storification in History Education: A Mobile Game in and about Medieval Amsterdam. Computers & Education, v52 n2 p449-459.

Hill, C. & Baumgartner, L. (2009). Stories in Science: The Backbone of Science Learning. Science Teacher, v76 n4 p60-64.

Young, C. & Kajder, S. (2009). Telling Stories with Video. Learning & Leading with Technology, v36 n8 p38.