Interesting/highly relevant here that I had a similar conversation with a colleague in the sciences who also thought of storytelling as "an accomodation of the message to the audience." And its for that reason that I make a point of talking about "story telling" as opposed to "storytelling" (see Science as Storytelling or Story Telling?).
Its an ad hoc and idiosyncratic use of words but a distinction that I think is important. By "storytelling" I understand, as I think most people do, the practice of taking something that may or may not be itself engaging to an audience by dressing it up with connections, metaphors, and perhaps a narrative structure intended to make it more entertaining/amusing/accessible. As an educational practice this can sometimes work, but it has problems (such as the misleading messages inherent in "anthropomorphizing"). And it certainly is not "unhierarchical or pluralistic," which means it doesn't, for me, advance the cause of helping students become better inquirers themselves.
"Story telling," as I use it, means something quite different, something more akin to "The truth about stories is that that's all we are" (Thomas Young, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative). Stories are the way we all, whether academics or not, summarize observations in order to make sense of the world. They may be anthropomorphic or not, they may be cast in narrative form or not, but they have important features in common regardless. They are always context dependent, ie they reflect a restricted set of observations and so have an "authorial perspective." And they are, for the same reasons, always revisable, subject to change given new observations.
My point, of course, is that I don't see the products of disciplines as something separate from stories, something that needs to be dressed us by "story telling" to make it more palatable. The products of science are themselves stories, both context dependent and revisable. So too, in my terms, are, of course, the products of inquiries into 18th century literature, of economics, of political science, of philosophy, and so on. "Story telling" in the classroom is not, for me, replacing "the actual practices of the discipline" but is instead acknowledging/revealing the deepest part of those practices - the part that is most significant , useful, and engaging to students irrespective of whether they do or do not want to become practitioners of the particular discipline being taught. Finding out that its all "story" and learning something about the distinctive perspectives and observations represented by particular stories serves what seems to me my overriding obligation as an educator: to help students become more sophisticated inquirers.
Perhaps that sets a context for some further discussion, in at least two directions? One has to do with "disciplinary practices" and the degree of obligation we do (or do not) feel to prepare students to participate in the community of discourse we were outselves trained in and may continue to engage with. Should we, as educators, feel/act out of such an obligation? Or are we as educators (and perhaps as inquirers) better off working in a broader discourse community?
The second, related direction which I imagine would generate some useful further conversation has to do with how one generates/facilitates "broader discourse communities." My sense is that they must necessarily be "unhierarchical or pluralistic", and so the educational problem boils down to the question of how to position expertise (disciplinary or otherwise) in a pluralistic, non-hierarchical exchange. Part of the solution of that problem, I think, is not to translate expertise into stories but rather to acknowledge that it is already a story. The remaining problems have to do with how to tell disciplinary stories (or stories based on any sort of expertise) in a way that makes them accessible/useful/interesting to people in the discourse community who haven't been acculturated to a common story telling style (that's where the issues of "medium-range inferences" and whether "students need to feel they are grasping one things before they can grasp multiple things" becomes relevant). My sense is that learning to tell stories for a broader community would prove not only to make us better educators but probably better inquirers as well (even within our own disciplines).
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Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate
but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)
storytelling and story telling, in education and beyond
Interesting/highly relevant here that I had a similar conversation with a colleague in the sciences who also thought of storytelling as "an accomodation of the message to the audience." And its for that reason that I make a point of talking about "story telling" as opposed to "storytelling" (see Science as Storytelling or Story Telling?).
Its an ad hoc and idiosyncratic use of words but a distinction that I think is important. By "storytelling" I understand, as I think most people do, the practice of taking something that may or may not be itself engaging to an audience by dressing it up with connections, metaphors, and perhaps a narrative structure intended to make it more entertaining/amusing/accessible. As an educational practice this can sometimes work, but it has problems (such as the misleading messages inherent in "anthropomorphizing"). And it certainly is not "unhierarchical or pluralistic," which means it doesn't, for me, advance the cause of helping students become better inquirers themselves.
"Story telling," as I use it, means something quite different, something more akin to "The truth about stories is that that's all we are" (Thomas Young, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative). Stories are the way we all, whether academics or not, summarize observations in order to make sense of the world. They may be anthropomorphic or not, they may be cast in narrative form or not, but they have important features in common regardless. They are always context dependent, ie they reflect a restricted set of observations and so have an "authorial perspective." And they are, for the same reasons, always revisable, subject to change given new observations.
My point, of course, is that I don't see the products of disciplines as something separate from stories, something that needs to be dressed us by "story telling" to make it more palatable. The products of science are themselves stories, both context dependent and revisable. So too, in my terms, are, of course, the products of inquiries into 18th century literature, of economics, of political science, of philosophy, and so on. "Story telling" in the classroom is not, for me, replacing "the actual practices of the discipline" but is instead acknowledging/revealing the deepest part of those practices - the part that is most significant , useful, and engaging to students irrespective of whether they do or do not want to become practitioners of the particular discipline being taught. Finding out that its all "story" and learning something about the distinctive perspectives and observations represented by particular stories serves what seems to me my overriding obligation as an educator: to help students become more sophisticated inquirers.
Perhaps that sets a context for some further discussion, in at least two directions? One has to do with "disciplinary practices" and the degree of obligation we do (or do not) feel to prepare students to participate in the community of discourse we were outselves trained in and may continue to engage with. Should we, as educators, feel/act out of such an obligation? Or are we as educators (and perhaps as inquirers) better off working in a broader discourse community?
The second, related direction which I imagine would generate some useful further conversation has to do with how one generates/facilitates "broader discourse communities." My sense is that they must necessarily be "unhierarchical or pluralistic", and so the educational problem boils down to the question of how to position expertise (disciplinary or otherwise) in a pluralistic, non-hierarchical exchange. Part of the solution of that problem, I think, is not to translate expertise into stories but rather to acknowledge that it is already a story. The remaining problems have to do with how to tell disciplinary stories (or stories based on any sort of expertise) in a way that makes them accessible/useful/interesting to people in the discourse community who haven't been acculturated to a common story telling style (that's where the issues of "medium-range inferences" and whether "students need to feel they are grasping one things before they can grasp multiple things" becomes relevant). My sense is that learning to tell stories for a broader community would prove not only to make us better educators but probably better inquirers as well (even within our own disciplines).