Today, we have insights from Dr Vladimir Maltsev and Dr Geethanjali Selvaretnam (Economics), who share their podcast about ‘acting’ or theatrical teaching to capture the attention of students. Dr Catherine Reid (Education) tells us that storytelling is not something to use lightly when teaching in Higher Education. Before you get into these, have a listen to Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘If you could read my mind’…what a tale my thoughts would tell.
“The impact of acting lessons on university teaching” – an interview with an academic who has had acting lessons
Click on the image below to access this 15-minute podcast by Dr Vladimir Maltsev and Dr Geethanjali Selvaretnam.
“The dangers of narrative: storytelling in the professional classroom”?
Dr Catherine Reid shares her insights on the need to consider how, or if, storytelling is used when teaching students in Higher Education.
Stories can be powerful educational tools. For Moon and Fowler (2008) stories can operate as a vehicle to facilitate learning rather to impart knowledge and as a tool for the enhancement of reflective learning.
| I was a learning support teacher at the time, working with this pupil called Jim. He was a highly able young mathematician, autistic, and part of the ‘low SES’ group who had been picked out for special support with literacy and numeracy. So, this first day of it, Jim sat through a period of being asked to take an intelligent interest in 2+3=5 and 2×2=4, things he had grasped years ago, and as time went on, he looked increasingly worried. At the end of the period he came and found me and he asked “Miss, have I been put into that class because I’m stupid?” I didn’t say “No, darling, but your teachers might be.” But I still think, what a waste of his time. What a pity, that it didn’t occur to anyone that you could be poor and good at maths. |
They assert that stories are learnt and stored in memory differently from other material and can offer particular pedagogic functions in professional education as a means of exchanging lived experience with others.
Although storytelling is undoubtedly an effective way of engaging learners and transmitting certain kinds of information, it is also important to consider unintended effects of using narrative as a pedagogical tool. In her autobiographical account of the trial of her aunt’s murderer, Nelson (2007) explicitly cautions readers against stories, which “In their scramble to make sense of nonsensical things… distort, codify, blame, aggrandize, omit, betray, mythologise”. When we make a story, Nelson suggests, we choose from and adapt what we know in order to construct a narrative. This is not the same as seeking understanding – the requirements of narrative may distort experience. Narratives shared by professional colleagues often assume particular shared understandings of the world, which can allow bias and misunderstanding to pass without interrogation.
Moon and Fowler (2008) suggest, that when using storytelling, instructors and students must be aware of the distinction between story and reality, and must account for what is trimmed, left out and lost to make a ‘good story’. It is equally important to call attention to how the narrative structure can increase the plausibility of the point being made. The joke in Jim’s story above makes the notion that we (teachers in a HE professional development context) are failing some students just that little bit easier to swallow.
While stories require distortion, omission, and the contorting of experience into narrative, thoughtful use of storytelling can help mitigate some of these unintended effects by calling attention to how narratives are structured and performed within the social space of the classroom. Jørgensen (2018, p. 410) defines performance space as “collective, discursive, material and relational space, which frames the conditions of possibility for learning in organizations.” Defining the conceptual performance space is necessary for the effective narrative in the classroom. It can be valuable, for example, to explicitly allow students to select what parts of their narratives they wish to share. When engaged in student narrative performance in the classroom, I will ask students “Don’t tell me anything you don’t want me to know”. Storytelling can be more ethical if all parties are aware of storytelling as an artistic endeavour where stories are shaped to a purpose, and their distinction from other forms of knowledge is explicitly addressed. Weaving discussion of storytelling into the wider issues of epistemology in educational scholarship allows not only storytelling, but other approaches to educational knowledge to be described and discussed (Cohen et al., 2018).
Finally, storytelling raises questions of classroom safety. It is quite likely that in our engagement with narratives, both stereotypes and sensitive topics will be touched upon. One approach to tackling this material is the idea of ‘brave spaces’ (Ali, 2017) where the classroom environment enables civil discussion that respects the personhood and emotions of all. The intention of such a space is not safety, but enabling all students to engage in what Biesta (2016) describes as the ‘beautiful risk’ of education – allowing others access to ourselves and our thoughts so that we may be changed thereby.
Storytelling in scholarship is powerful and dangerous. It can offer opportunities for students to engage emotionally, to learn in a different way, and to write from their own lived experiences. However, such pedagogic uses of storytelling rely upon a clear account from instructors on the constructed nature of stories and the epistemological implications of that construction.
Ali, D. (2017). Safe Spaces and Brave Spaces. 1(1).
Biesta, G. (2016). The beautiful risk of education. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315635866
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2018). Research methods in education (Eighth). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315456539
Jørgensen, K. M. (2018). Spaces of performance: A storytelling approach to learning in higher education. The Learning Organization, 25(6), 410–421. https://doi.org/10.1108/TLO-11-2017-0104
Moon, J., & Fowler, J. (2008). ‘There is a story to be told…’; A framework for the conception of story in higher education and professional development. Nurse Education Today, 28(2), 232–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2007.05.001
Nelson, M. (2007). The Red Parts. Free Press.
Lead Editor: Louise Sheridan
Co Editors: Eddie Beggan, Shaun Bremner-Hart & Colin Mack