Teaching Telling Tales

We are a species of storytellers. It’s one of the main things that separate us from all the other animals on this planet. Since mankind started walking upright we have tried to make sense of the world though telling tales. The first homo-sapiens gestured wildly across the pains and into the sky trying to understand that which was around them, the Greeks had a cast of Gods who helped them learn about the world and Elizabethan explorers coaxed their crews across the ocean to the edge of the known world with tall-tales of the riches that awaited them on the other side of the horizon.

When we are younger we are taught through stories. We learn how to count, read and our common sense from books with colourful animals who sing and dance their way through a narrative that has educational undertones. Dutiful parents help us understand the world by relating our experiences to bed-time stories or nursery rhymes. However, when a student reaches secondary school the story-teller is silenced in the teacher with the ridged focus of a curriculum of facts and assessments that see narrative as an inferior cousin. Why undo all this good work that the previous educators have done? A student’s brain is ready to receive knowledge through created characters and wild and wonderful worlds and sensational stories. 

Why suppress the instinct we have been building for years to be attuned to learn in narrative?

Story has the power to capture a classroom like nothing else. The most reactive of science experiments might bring about a gasp of awe, but the silence after a well thought through adventure is the only thing I have seen bring a class to a long completive silence. I will apologize now, as an English and Drama teacher most of my examples come from one of those subjects. I hope that the scientists, mathematicians and my fellow humanities teachers find some use in these examples, but I’ve got nothing specific for you to just pick up and take away from this, it’s more a call-to-arms for the storytellers in us all. Also, I’m not saying that this works for all classes or even all students. I wouldn’t suggest trying this out on a KS4 class unless you’re confident that they are going to “get” it.

Firstly, telling a story is a daunting thing, I understand that. I know it takes confidence to stand up in-front of thirty kids and begin engaging them full stop; to be responsible for making what you are delivering into a narrative adds to the pressure, but like all things it takes time and practice. If you’re new to the idea of using story in the classroom pick a group that you know would be sympathetic should you stumble or lose your way in the quagmire of words in your head. A group whose response is: “What happened next Miss?” is a far better testing ground than one who will ignore your struggle.

That’s exactly what happened the first time I tried to use stories in the classroom. I was trying to get the class to think about what they might do when they leave school – we were working on improving their persuasive language skills and I’d lost the plot with no-one engaged or really bothered about learning what a rhetorical question might or might not be. I rather stupidly told them that the jobs that they might be doing when they leave might not have even been invented yet and they needed to pay attention as persuading people might help them secure one. A rather cheeky young man asked: “Like what?” My lesson immediately changed. “Like, you might be asked to sell the moon.” It was all they needed; they became future estate agents for our nearest celestial body each with their own idea for what they would do up there from a cheese factory to a theme park. Better yet at the end of the session each could tell me what a rhetorical question was.

Although this session could be seen as simply using the mantle of the expert I believe it was the narrative behind it that really captured them. We forget that kids are actually very clever and possibly even more attuned to when they are being patronised than adults. Simply telling them that they are “experts” does nothing for them. They see right through our game. They know that it’s still a lesson, we know that it’s still a lesson and the boredom remains for many. Give them a back-story that they can believe in and they have something to grab a-hold of and suspend their disbelief. It’s the same reason that they will sit through an entire movie or slog through a repetitive video-game: they have a story to chase. A reason in their mind to be doing it.

Before long the process of teaching itself had become a story. I would welcome my classes first as an army telling them: “Today we’re an army pushing back the forces of ignorance.” Then they became the crew of the SS. Learning setting off for the island of knowledge; then a congregation worshiping at the altar of studiousness. At first they thought that it was weird, but after a while they started to giggle every now and again as I added more to the metaphors – the ship had sails that needed hoisting, the congregation had to bow their heads before class and offer a prayer to the Gods of Understanding and the army had to sharpen their swords (take out their pens). For some of the younger students I even brought in props and had them act out the beginning of the lesson with me. The SS. Learning now had a “wheel” (a hula-hoop) that I was steering the ship with and I had them set the classroom up by doing the rigging or mopping the poop deck. Immediately a mundane task brought life to the lesson and I had captured their imagination.

Soon I couldn’t stop myself and every lesson became a story in my mind. A rather weak year 7 set had to study poetry. Deciding that they should look at Dr Seuss (accessible for them) I racked my brain for how to turn The Battle of the Butter into a narrative. The classroom became the tiny nation of Elizabethland sandwiched between the Yooks and the Zooks who were about to go to war with one another. The class were my ministers in charge of looking at the “intelligence” (the poem) that we had found out about our neighbours – it was up to them how they did it. At the end of the session we had understood everything that was going on and I explained that this very thing would have been happening during the Cold War in Europe as tensions rose between East and West. For my final act I even produced a piece of the Berlin wall that my father had given me. They were hooked and wanted to do it again so I found them The Lorax and asked them to discover why it had disappeared. The same response occurred when I began to tell them about the environment. Poetry became fun.

Drama lent itself easily to storytelling. I brought Tsotsi’s bag into the classroom - this was simply an old handbag that I acquired. I concocted a story about a lonely old Buddhist monk who lives high up on Mt Fuji who holds a bag in which he has everything in the universe (where Tsotsi was is an entirely different question). I then told them that they could pull anything out of Tsotsi’s bag so that they could use it in their performance to the rest of the class. A potentially boring exercise focusing on mime and projection now had a purpose for them and they took to it immediately. For some of the more gifted students that I use this exercise with I now ask them to pull out an intangible thing such as an emotion – they love the abstract nature of the idea.

Although very specific examples to my own subjects I hope that some of the ideas might be transferable. You might teach sustainable energy in science by telling them about a far off world that only uses solar energy and the students have to advise them which new source to use as they learn that they are about to be plunged into darkness. History, Geography and R.E teachers have a plethora of material that they could mine that I’m very jealous of and Technology teachers could make each project for some fantastical company that has a need for wooden pencil boxes or pastries.

You may still be reading this unconvinced that this will work, but all great heroes have their moment of refusal. Right now you’re Luke with his lightsaber in his hands who in the next scene will walk away. The funny thing about heroes is that no matter what once they receive the call to adventure they are off on their journey. The Galactic Empire will still have its Death Star hanging in the sky. The question is, will you be the one who helps destroy it, or still stuck on Tatooine tending to Uncle Ben’s farm?

Myopia - 'The Election'

In a future where revolution is legalised every four years in the hope of getting more people to engage with politics, a young MP Asquith hunkers down to see if he will be voted out during The Election.

The Election

Ted Wilkes 

It was the fourth year in the cycle and time for an election. Politicians were soon to be hunkered down in their offices, waiting to see if their constituents would arrive. They had all had a meal in the cafeteria together and traded stories of the last four years, knowing that most of those sat around them would not be here at the next meal that they would share. Asquith looked around the table and was able to tell those that should be worried; they had faced scandal and been known to be corrupted by the influences of power and money. It would not surprise him if there was already a mob amassing outside to begin the election proper with a lynching of one or two of those who had their hand in the till far too often. Some had known long ago that they were on the way out and decided only to exacerbate the situation by making the most of their remaining years. The papers had their favourites and would hound them relentlessly to make sure that they were first on the list to go, but it was no excuse for the behaviours that they had exposed, others were just to be unlucky.

Most at the top table would be safe as they had the backing of the party that had supplied their staff with all the weaponry and amour to survive even the most brutal attacks from any side. Asquith had seen the deliveries across the way; boxes and boxes came in convoys from their headquarters blowing huge chunks of their budgets on keeping a few grey beards that they could trust close to them. It wouldn’t matter how many decanted through to vote they would still be standing come the closing of the polls in the morning. Others had been left high and dry, the party knowing that they were to fall this time, and were left with little more than a letter opener to defend their seat. They would try their best to barricade themselves inside their offices with only one or two loyal staffers to help them. There were a few around trading half smiles with one another that hadn’t the stomach for another fight and had it in their mind to check out early so as not to give the electorate the satisfaction of the whole routine, simply leaving them a heavy effigy to do with what they will.

Asquith being young in the game and an independent knew that there would be a challenge to his seat, he had tried to do everything he could, but there was always some in his constituency that questioned his methods. He had a small arsenal locked away where his bookcase stood that he intended to lay out after dinner across his desk and wait. Should they come to vote he would be ready. The polls did not look good, but surveys didn’t know everything.

Although it seemed extreme it was the best of the systems that the country had seen before as for once it truly was the politicians that feared the people once every four years. It was said that a dangerous disease required a radical remedy, and this was the least offensive to all concerned. There was only the death of those who were hated, a version of death that was encouraged and longed for. There was no more counting papers, no more canvassing, no more postal votes, no more kissing babies and campaign trails if you wanted rid of your MP you had to carry them from their office above your head and hang their lifeless body on the railings outside Parliament. It was the most engaged the people had ever been in politics with eighty-seven percent of people actively involving themselves in politics in one way or another. The Election was the most widely watched programme across all TV networks, and for twenty-four hours households who had decided not to vote this year across the nation would sit glued to the screen to see which of their leaders they would never have to engage with again. Some might argue that the system was barbaric and that they wished for the older days of ballot cards and black boxes, but it would never return. The people had a direct say in the process and no longer had to be a lone voice that mattered not if others didn’t muster the strength to check a box on their own. Each and every resident could pull a trigger and be the one to change the course of the country without the need to line up at a local primary school.

It was a little after three fifteen when the Prime Minister stood in the chamber and announced that The Election would be called. The paper shook in his hands as he did. Even though he knew that he was safe it may be that there would be a stool at the bar that would be missing a drinking buddy, a round that might not be brought for him over the next four years; he almost mustered up a tear. As he finished there was pandemonium as the MPs sat on the familiar green benches that no longer seemed so safe leapt over one another to reach their fortresses and bunkers in the hope of seeing the sun rise.

…

There had been activity for some time in the halls around him, but so far the footsteps had rushed past Asquith’s door and onward towards another destination. Placing his feet on his desk he could hear the crowds gathering outside chanting the names of their targets to let them know that they were coming. In the corner there was a small box flickering with updates as they came in saying who had been unseated and the victors that replaced them. Asquith had not recognized names but had seen faces that he knew. Allowing himself another fleeting glance he saw a much older gentleman being pinned to the gates outside his window still wriggling with the last squirmings of life, trying to plead for those around him to hoist him down from the platform that they placed him on with promises of a different four years than they had experienced prior. Suddenly they had heard enough and began to fill his mouth with rocks jamming them in where they would fit cramming in with them the vitriol and hatred that they no doubt had been building for the time in office that they had tolerated him. His lips and teeth bled as throughout the onslaught he was still trying to get them to listen to his talking points, but no longer did they need to politely nod and absorb his false assurances and wild claims of reform. His eyes widened as the end came with the blow of a shell to the head, now limp his term was over. To his side strung up around him were friends and colleagues on either side of the isle that he never reached across to. Each had similar fates befalling them depending upon the viciousness of their electorate. They kicked out with the last energies of life before falling flaccid as trophies to the new system.

Turning the box to darkness Asquith sighed and readied himself as he once again heard the stampede down the corridor outside his room. He had piled bookcases against the door but that would not stop them for long. Taking his rifle from the desk he overturned his old instrument of politics and slid to be covered by it. This was where deals for his version of a better world were hatched, leaders of foreign lands were met and constituents bartered with. Now it was simply the last obstacle before his demise that offered him no more than a few seconds more to breathe. With the crash the door flew open and the hordes poured in. The numbers were in and Asquith too had lost his seat.