Teaching through Narrative.
| Author | Hannam, Fraser Douglas |
OUTLINE:
* Introduction
* The problem with education-Have we lost the plot?
* Why Narrative--the story so far
* Curriculum-poetic license or scripted control
* Implications for Implementation
* Once Upon a Time: Towards a Model
* Limitations of Narrative
* Recommendation for further research
* Conclusion
LIST OF TERMS:
* Content-suggested activities from a course syllabus to deliver its mandatory outcomes
* Course-an individual Key Learning Area e.g. Mathematics
* Curriculum-state or nationally prescribed outcomes / content for all Key Learning Areas or subjects
* Narrative-movement of characters through time following the structure of orientationcomplication-resolution
* Outcome-individual descriptor of student achievement. An indicator that content has been achieved (as identified in syllabus)
* Syllabus-curriculum for an individual Key Learning Area e.g. Mathematics
* Teaching Program-a detailed running sheet created by teachers outlining how they intend to comply with the requirements of the syllabus document in meeting mandatory outcomes and content
* Unit of Work--sequence of lessons covering a single topic. May continue for several days or weeks e.g. Decimals
INTRODUCTION
There is an indescribable attraction to narrative. Something that will make the most unruly junior school class lunge for the mat and sit quietly at the promise of a story. Teenagers may not have a preference for subjects but they will always have a favourite movie or book. How might this natural attraction be exploited for teacher and learning? More importantly, how might God's story, be brought into our classrooms? When we anchor ourselves in the Biblical narrative and discern meaning, purpose and vision as individuals and as living communities how might the gospel transform our methodology, practices, policies and curriculum? This paper will explore the efficacy of narrative for engaging young minds and argue for its worth in the promotion of learning and as a delivery mechanism and augmentation of curricula. We will then look at a model for patterning a unit of work after a story-form model.
THE PROBLEM WITH EDUCATION--HAVE WE LOST THE PLOT??
Curriculum by nature of its prescriptiveness, time constraints and sheer volume, has the effect of reducing education to a delivery system and teachers into glorified messengers of information. The temptation to teach outcomes rather than contextualising knowledge into meaningful interdisciplinary units of work is a reality in this overcrowded time-driven syllabus. Divorced from its context, the data with which we populate our teaching programs render our lessons informative at best. A data-laden curriculum is simply not good enough! Teachers have become the servants of the mighty outcome, transmissionists who blandly dictate the curriculum by transferring facts and then measuring the 'bounce back' from the wall of testing. Test preparation has become the true curriculum rather than learning, and compliance has overridden the importance of engagement. And when all the testing is done and the students pass into the world we can only wonder at the myriad of non-measureable outcomes such as compassion, confidence, creativity, empathy, hope, resilience and self-management that may or may not have been gleaned accidentally by osmosis somewhere between lectures and assessments.
To achieve this, we organise students into birth cohorts, sit them uncomfortably in rows for hours on end, give them clerical tasks to do and then are surprised when they become distracted by things vastly more interesting than our daily force feeding of facts in which they may or may not have any interest in at all. For the sake of efficiency we compartmentalise the knowledge and skills into disciplines with specialist teachers and subject time allocations so that one cannot steal seconds from the other.
We are more than ready to label a child as ADHD but seemingly unwilling to diagnose the debilitating condition of 'childhood' upon them. Children often behave in childish ways. Our task as adults is to direct the positive aspects of this developmental stage and teach the way the child learns rather than forcing the child to fit the mould as we have been seemingly forced to conform to political legislature. We don't like it, why should they? "If a child is not learning the way you are teaching, then you must teach in the way the child learns," (Bruetsch, A., 1999, p.4). Disengagement remains the most challenging bane of our school systems and the natural consequence of a data--laden curricula.
Our scholastic lexicon is not always helpful in properly apprehending our role as teachers. 'Education' and 'Teaching' are process words that are narrowly input focussed not unlike 'dieting' or 'driving' which, more likely than not, will elicit probing interrogatives such as 'did you lose weight?' or 'did you reach your destination?' A great orator may occupy a classroom filled with young people and be engaged in the process of 'Teaching' but it would be wrong to assume that the children are 'learning' without further evidence.
Education in the broadest sense of the word is the cycle of input-process-output whereby it is not teaching per se but learning that is the measure of educational efficacy. The push for this can be seen in the Australian syllabus documents from the shift in the use of the temporal term 'objectives' to 'outcomes' i.e. 'students should', to, 'students will'. Thus placing the onus on the teacher to not just throw the ball but to ensure the students catch it. A successful lesson taught to one class may need to be drastically altered or even abandoned for a different group despite the fact that the teaching remains the same on measures of validity and reliability. This directs us to the reality that understanding the curriculum is secondary to an appreciation of pedagogy and the learner. Knowing a little more than the students know about Ancient History is not enough-it is one of many prerequisites. Knowledge of human beings (what motivates them, what inspires and excites their creative intellect) is a far more urgent precondition for classroom success. It is a human system not a data system.
A successful exponent of 'Learning' will know exactly what their class is capable of, what their interests are, what resources are available in their local community. They will know when their students are engaged and precisely when they begin to lose them and whether their disengagement is due uninspiring teaching, room temperature, seating arrangement or an overnight excursion the previous day. And should they perceive that a lesson is losing momentum they will know exactly what to do to bring it back on track. Should the electricity fail i.e. lights, computers, data projectors, they will know how to exploit the circumstance as an opportunity rather than a problem to be solved. Should it begin snowing outside they will be more than willing to drop their planned teaching program in order to turn the situation into an adventure.
Children are learning animals. Armed with the word "Dat?" and a well-directed finger my one year old moves about any environment on a systematic fact finding mission. This lasts from the time he gets up to the time he lays down with a slight slowing down at meal times. Surely it would take far more ingenuity to quash this innate drive to learn than to direct and augment it? Students are innate apprentices; they don't need to be taught how to learn, but rather they need to have learning balanced and systematised. Sadly, often when learning takes place it is despite our practices rather than because of them. Our current education system 'schools' our innate capacities out of us. We don't need to assist students in learning as much as we need to just stop being boring-perhaps the saddest label a teacher can append to themselves. We can't necessarily make a child learn but we can certainly snuff out any intrinsic motivation they may have had towards getting to know the world better.
"You need to engage them, you need to peak their imagination, to fuel their creativity to drive their passion. For this you need to get them to want to learn this, you need to find points of entry-that's the gift of a great teacher (Robinson, K., 2013).
WHY NARRATIVE? THE STORY SO FAR
Story telling has undergone changes of form across time but its purpose and message is still the same: this is what we have found to be useful, to be of value, to be true. Narrative is an historical relic, a Lamarckian artefact imbuing the ghosts of the past with flesh, voice and the momentum to drive that which is ancient into the present. Stories permeate all aspects of our lives. "They make us laugh, cry, reflect, imagine, lose ourselves ... In the broadest sense, a narrative is an account provided by a narrator of characters and events moving in some pattern over time and space." (Smith, D. & Shortt, J., 2002, p.69).
Regardless of whether it takes the form of story, script or the medium of monologue, books, magazines, theatre, television, movies or internet; everyone connects with narrative. We find them in DVD bins and theatres around the world. We prioritise time to hear them, to connect with them, to share them, regardless of distance or time constraints. We look to stories to encourage us, to make us laugh, to infuse life with meaning and provide us with heroes to look up to and model our own lives after. Since time began we have whispered tales in caves, shared them across campfires and shouted them from the clifftops of the world! 'Once upon a time' has become a linguistic marker that transcends time, calling us to impossible adventures.
The simple structure and movement of story as it advances through the predefined cycle of Orientation, Complication and Resolution resonates deep within us as it mimics the natural rhythmic ebb and flow of our own lives. Our interest is engaged during the orientation, our imagination...
To continue reading
Request your trialCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
