Storytelling in Schools
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Jackie Baldwin jackie@story-lovers.com
Kate Dudding kate@katedudding.com
What Makes a Good Case? Some Basic Rules of Good Storytelling Help Teachers Generate Student Excitement in the Classroom by Clyde Freeman Herreid
Journal of College Science Teaching, Dec.1997/Jan. 1998 (pp.163-165)
Keywords: college education, language arts, classroom techniques, teacher education
ABSTRACT
"Modern storytellers are the descendants of an immense and ancient community of holy people, troubadours, bards, griots, cantadoras, cantors, traveling poets, bums, hags and crazy people." —Clarissa Pinkola Estes
I wish she had mentioned teachers. Teachers should be in that lineup. Stories are their natural allies in the transmittal of the wisdom of the tribe from one generation to the next. Although I am not taken by Dr. Estes' notion of the Jungian archetype she so eloquently argues for in her book, Women Who Run With Wolves, I do agree there is something in stories that touches our fundamental nature. Estes again:
"Stories are medicine. I have been taken with stories since I heard my first. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything---we only need listen. The remedies for repair or reclamation of any lost psychic drive are contained in stories. Stories engender the excitement, sadness, questions, longings, and understandings that spontaneously bring the archetype...to the surface."
Stories are embedded with instructions that guide us through the complexities of life. But not all stories are created equal. Some are better than others...