STARN: Scots Teaching and Resource Network
What use is storytelling?
Storytelling in the classroom? Another airy-fairy notion from the woolly-minded theorists that bedevil Scottish education ? Well, no, actually, this time it's a practical suggestion based on the day-to-day experience of that creature who is seldom, if ever, consulted about the contents of the curriculum : an ordinary class-room teacher. Apart from the fact that I have made a specialised study of storytelling in depth and in detail, I have also spent many years in the class-room, where I found storytelling to be an important professional skill that enhanced my teaching.
Storytelling is, we must remember, the oldest and most universal art-form in the world, that preceded the more sophisticated developments of literature and books, education, religion, drama and the media. Before there were schools or churches, theatres or bookshops, there were stories and storytellers in homes and communities. Storytellers enjoyed quite high status in many societies, as sources of wisdom, genealogical authorities, teachers of morality, entertainers and sustainers of beliefs, values, attitudes and customs. Storytelling has had many functions in the history of mankind, ranging from pastime and amusement to serving as an adjunct to survival and personal development.
All of these functions can be seen to be relevant to classroom work at both primary and secondary level. Storytelling can provide both lesson material and teaching method. Listening to stories and retelling them can improve pupils' oral skills. There can also be spin-offs from this in using stories as a basis for drama work, drawing and painting - the expressive arts. It can also be used to stimulate class discussion and local and oral history projects. Important points in all kinds of lessons can be reinforced by anecdote and story to demonstrate or illustrate ideas.
Of course, good teachers down the ages have practised this to great effect. Think of the parables of Jesus as an example of good teaching practice. Time and time again I have found it effective to turn an abstract concept into a more concrete reality by means of a story. Perhaps the most basic lesson of all is that of teaching how to learn : Jesus did this by the parable of the sower - a story his listeners in rural Galilee would readily grasp, because it was about something they did in order to have food to eat. From that they could understand that in order to learn they must be receptive and nurture what was given them so that they could put into action what they were taught. It is also good psychology to teach through stories : people don't particularly like to listen to someone moralising, but they will listen to a story and easily work out the lesson for themselves. But of course, all storytelling isn't teaching or preaching - a lot of it is fun. We are deeply suspicious in Scotland of anything that is too enjoyable. I have vivid memories of being severely reprimanded by my head teacher for making my class laugh too much. So many teachers never learn to capitalise on the fact that if you can make pupils enjoy something, they will remember it. The enjoyment that goes with storytelling can be used as an incentive to the reluctant pupil to get work done. I know, because I did it so many times with classes who were more interested in what was going on outside the window or what they were going to do after school, than in what I was trying to teach them. I would make deals with them : do this, this and this and they would get stories on Friday. It always worked. Not only did they do willingly far more work than they would have done otherwise, but in the story times I gave them they listened with enough concentration to enable them to re-tell the stories they'd heard. They didn't know they were learning anything - it wasn't like a lesson. But they became better listeners, clearer and more confident speakers, their memories more retentive and their attitudes more cooperative.
But, teachers will say, where are we to get all these stories ? I have been asked this, as if stories are some kind of rare fruit that only grows on certain trees in inaccessible places. But the world is full of stories : human life is made up of stories, as are the country and the towns we live in : books are plentiful and even storytellers are in good supply these days. It is vital that our children's imaginations are fed with myth, legend and wonder tale, history, parable and fable, tall story and comic saga, and all the richness and delight of the world of invention and tradition. There is a great revival of storytelling going on world-wide and I have been actively involved in the Scottish part of it since the early 1970s. Organisations such as the Traditional Music and Song Association have encouraged it by featuring it in their festivals and more recently the Scottish Storytelling Forum has come into being. The Forum runs a Scottish Storytelling Festival in the Netherbow Arts centre annually in October. Its Guid Crack Company of storytellers have a monthly club meeting in Edinburgh and want to encourage other parts of the country to do the same. Its storytellers go into schools in many parts of the country. This takes me back into the classroom and these visits are enthusiastically responded to by both pupils and teachers. Storytelling in the classroom ? Yes, please !