The Educational Importance of Storytelling

The Educational Importance of Storytelling

Howard A.Tullman

Posted 03/08/2013 12:53PM

Storytelling is the way we teach and the way we learn. We’re Bennett Day School – a new, independent, progressive grade school opening soon in Chicago - and this is our story.

The stories we tell others help us to share our knowledge, experience and wisdom. The stories we tell ourselves give us faith, courage and inspiration. But the stories we tell our children are the most crucial of all because, in a moment, they can heighten a child’s horizons or crush their creativity. We trust our children’s teachers to tell them many of the earliest and most critical tales.

We know there’s no cure for curiosity. But preserving and promoting a child’s desire for learning and encouraging their aspirations are more delicate and challenging tasks. Teaching a child is no longer about filling an empty vessel with facts and figures – it’s about lighting a lifelong fire and igniting an accompanying passion for continued growth and discovery.

We can’t hope in these complex and rapidly changing times to prepare the path for our students; but we can help to prepare our students for the path. We cultivate and embrace an innovative culture of curiosity and constant change where our students co-create, construct and, in the process, discover their educations. And this we do with their parents as pivotal partners and classroom participants providing a constant and engaged presence facilitated by open and active communication.

We believe that the most instructive stories are those we create ourselves. Stories are vehicles through which we ask questions and seek answers and understanding. In telling our stories, we define and describe our real selves. At Bennett Day School, we want our students to be great storytellers because the process of creating, constructing and conveying even the simplest tale takes time, tools and tenacity - the foremost foundational skills for their future.

Time is a crucial tenet of our program. Just like our students, great stories take time to reveal themselves; time to be assembled; to mature and ripen; and to be carefully and convincingly told. Stories, and students, need the time to breath, absorb and blossom and to slowly come into their own. And, as they progress, students need to learn to manage their time and to move at their own pace because each of us learns in different ways. One size or one approach never fits all.

Tools are also an essential part of our process. Physical tools and exceptional digital technologies are a part of our plans, but the primary skills we seek to build and develop in our students are – at their most basic – curatorial in nature. Because telling a compelling story is as much about what’s left out as about what is told. And because life is all about intelligent and conscious choices. Making informed choices is a cerebral muscle function and the sooner and more often our children start making difficult choices, the stronger and smarter those choices become.

We want our students to be great builders and editors; to appreciate the value of planning, structure and organization; to aggressively control and curate their lives and their experiences; to focus their attention and their energies on a few important concerns; to learn to be flexible, but also to say “no”; and to appreciate that nothing of value is gained in trying to be all things to all people.  

Good judgment is another powerful tool which is only developed through repeated exercise – not by substituting memorized rules. Our program is based on expressed and shared expectations of performance and not on rote rules of behavior. In taking control of their education and extending it through the choices and decisions they make, our students rapidly mature and become responsible and accountable.  

And finally, tenacity.  There’s always a way to do things with care and intent. Work at Bennett Day School is detailed and considered and always done with an expectation of excellence. We don’t “try.” We do. And we keep at it regardless of the time it takes because, if you want to do something well, you’ll find the time and, if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse. Projects are either exceptional or they are incomplete.  

Space and place are also central to our story. “Stories” need not only be traditional narratives. They can be joint enterprises, powerful experiences, heroic or modest adventures, and projects of all sizes and shapes. But they all need a center where ultimate understanding is made concrete and achieved through inquiry-based processes and the hands-on application of hard-earned knowledge. Where the classroom meets the real world and creativity, curiosity and focused inquiry collide in the exciting chaos of construction.

At BDS, we call this place of work and wonder the Tinker Lab.  It’s a place to explore and experiment and to apply concepts and ideas drawn from the classroom in ways that make them real and provide both understanding and mastery. It’s a hub of project and team-based collaborative learning between teachers, students, and parents. And, it draws upon and seamlessly incorporates the community’s resources and related elements of the environment as additional and critical components in the program.

We want our students to be active learners in and from their community and to be informed global citizens as well. We want them to be conscious and caring stewards of the environment and responsible consumers of our precious resources. But, more than anything else, we want our students to be leaders and to serve as examples for those around them – young and old.

This isn’t an easy goal or a simple undertaking. It’s just the only approach that makes any sense to us. And it’s the way we want our own children educated. What higher standard could there be?