There are, to my mind, six ways of using story and storytelling in our teaching. These are:
- To organise the curriculum and structure lessons.
- To aide students’ memorisation.
- To pique students’ curiosity and wonder.
- To relate the curriculum to the real world.
- To help promote inclusion.
- To prepare students for future success.
In parts two and three of this four-part series, I focused on how to use stories to organise the curriculum and structure lessons, to aide students’ memorisation, and to pique students’ curiosity. This week, in the final instalment, let’s turn to the three remaining purposes of storytelling in teaching.
SecEd Series: The stories we tell
- Part 1: The power of stories in teaching (September 6, 2023)
- Part 2: Using story to organise the curriculum (September 12, 2023)
- Part 3: Using story to help students remember (September 19, 2023)
- Part 4: Using story to promote inclusion (this article)
To relate curriculum content to the real world
Stories are “psychologically privileged” because our minds treat stories differently to other types of material.
Stories are how we process the world. Stories give us the “why”: they lend meaning and purpose to our very existence.
Everyone loves a good story. Even small children who have difficulty focusing will sit with rapt attention in the presence of a good storyteller. But stories are not just entertaining; there are important cognitive consequences of the story format: People find stories interesting, easy to understand, and easy to remember.
This is, in part, because stories turn abstract ideas into concrete reality; stories bring facts to life and make ideas flesh. Stories certainly help us to relate theory to the real world and give ideas a human face.
According to the Historical Association (see further information): “Through stories we can carry children … to different worlds in space and time. When telling stories, we find a key to unlock children's imagination and make the past intelligible to them. For example, in (the Historical Association’s) story of Victorian children working down the mines (see further information), our modern children can identify with the heroine being scared of the dark, and so they enter her world.”
Stories can be used to convey information, ideas, and technical language through engaging students’ imaginations. They can also be used to create a context, providing a mental map and a visualisation of a past situation. And, says the Historical Association, they can help students to “understand human situations and the human condition, and thus connect the past to the present”.
To help foster inclusion
Bernstein's code theory (1971;1973) is a sociolinguistic theory developed by Basil Bernstein, a British sociologist and linguist. The theory posits that there are two types of language codes used by individuals and groups within a society: the elaborated code and the restricted code.
The elaborated code is a more complex and diverse language code used by those in positions of power and privilege, such as the educated middle class. It is characterised by a wide range of vocabulary, complex sentence structures, and the ability to use language to express abstract concepts.
The restricted code, by contrast, is a simpler language code used by those in positions of less power and privilege, such as working-class or rural communities. It is characterised by a limited vocabulary, simple sentence structures, and a focus on shared experiences and assumptions.
Bernstein argued that the use of these different language codes can have a significant impact on social mobility and educational achievement. He believed that those who are raised using the elaborated code have an advantage in education and employment, as they are more able to navigate the complex language and social expectations of the dominant culture. Conversely, those raised using the restricted code may struggle to adapt to these expectations and may be at a disadvantage in terms of social mobility.
In sum, Bernstein's code theory highlights the important role that language and communication play in shaping social structures and power dynamics within a society.
So, what has this got to do with the use of story and storytelling in teaching?
Well, using story is one way of “levelling the playing field” for students from working-class backgrounds who cannot easily or expediently access the elaborated code of academia. In other words, stories can make our curriculum more accessible to all and thus help us achieve inclusion.
As we’ve seen, the use of stories in teaching can help make abstract concepts more accessible and relatable to students, particularly those who may not have had the same experiences or cultural background as their teachers or peers.
By connecting these abstract concepts to concrete examples and personal experiences, teachers can help to make learning more engaging and meaningful for students and mitigate the disadvantages faced by those who do not have access to the elaborated code. Stories also have a familiar language which makes them easy to follow and which helps students to make meaningful inferences whenever unfamiliar words are used. But that’s not all…
Stories don’t just help students to avoid using an elaborated code by simplifying the curriculum into more accessible narratives. Rather, they help students to learn and use that elaborated code.
Indeed, by exposing disadvantaged students to a wider range of vocabulary, sentence structures, and abstract concepts, teachers can help to bridge the gap between their existing restricted code and the more elaborated code of academic and professional settings. As such, and as Bernstein himself argued, the use of complex narratives and language structures can be particularly beneficial for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Story can therefore be a powerful tool for promoting greater linguistic and cultural diversity in the classroom, and for helping to “level the playing field” for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. By incorporating a range of language codes and narrative structures into our teaching, we can help provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in today's complex and diverse society.
To prepare students for future success
Using story to deliver the school curriculum is helpful, not just in terms of boosting learning and academic outcomes, but also as a preparation for later life including the world of work.
After all, stories are used in the workplace all the time and thus being exposed to story and storytelling at school can give students a head-start in their future careers.
According to Vanessa Boris (2017), stories are important in the business world because “telling stories is one of the most powerful means that leaders have to influence, teach, and inspire (and storytelling) forges connections among people, and between people and ideas.”
Boris says that “an organisation’s stories, and the stories its leaders tell, help solidify relationships in a way that factual statements encapsulated in bullet points or numbers don’t (because they) build familiarity and trust and allow the listener to enter the story where they are, making them more open to learning”.
Boris proffers the example of a company meeting: “At company A, the leader presents the financial results for the quarter. At company B, the leader tells a rich story about what went into the “win” that put the quarter over the top. Company A employees come away from the meeting knowing that they made their numbers. Company B employees learned about an effective strategy in which sales, marketing, and product development came together to secure a major deal. Employees now have new knowledge, new thinking, to draw on. They’ve been influenced. They’ve learned.”
Kendall Haven, author of Story Proof (2000) and Story Smart (2014), considers storytelling a serious business for, well, business: “Your goal in every communication is to influence your target audience (change their current attitudes, belief, knowledge, and behaviour). Information alone rarely changes any of these. Research confirms that well-designed stories are the most effective vehicle for exerting influence.”
Stories matter in the world of healthcare, too…
Clare Patey, director of the Empathy Museum, and Cathy Irvin, director of communications at the Health Foundation, argue that: “In healthcare, stories are … a useful tool in engaging people with quality improvement work. Telling the story of one patient’s experience of care can memorably illustrate improvements or problems in a care pathway. Statistics and data have an important place in monitoring and understanding services and facilitating improvement, but the right story can also have the power to motivate and change minds.” (Patey & Irving, 2016)
Patey goes on to say: “Stories have a transformative power to allow us to see the world in a different way than we do if we just encounter it on our own. Stories are an entry point to understanding a different experience of the world.
“This aspect of storytelling – presenting a different perspective of the world – is important when it comes to connecting with each other. It gives us an opportunity to learn from another person’s experience and it can shape, strengthen or challenge our opinions and values. When a story catches our attention and engages us, we are more likely to absorb the message and meaning within it than if the same message was presented simply in facts and figures.”
Another aspect of getting students ready for future success, beyond work preparation, is helping them to understand themselves and their place in the world.
Paul Hannam, author of Significance (2020), believes that “your life story is an unseen force that greatly influences your daily experience. Moment to moment, you are largely unconscious of its impact.”
Your life story is your unique take on the “good” and “bad” experiences you’ve had, the choices you’ve made, and the significance of the different people you’ve met along the way. However, as Hannam also says: “Our predicament is that we don’t experience reality, we experience our interpretation of reality.”
In essence, we are unreliable writers of our own story.
Teaching students about story can improve their self-perception and help them develop a habit of questioning their own insights, beliefs, and ways of thinking.
Story can also help students improve their perception of other people. Listening to stories from those with different experiences to our own enables us to develop empathy.
Coming from a disadvantaged background can make you feel out of place. Limited life experiences, such as eating in a restaurant, going on a foreign holiday, visiting the countryside, going to a museum or art gallery, and so on, can lead to a belief that you don’t belong.
Students need to know that they have the power to make their story the best possible version of themselves. This doesn’t mean creating a fake story in which they project themselves in a way that makes others like them more or which denies their roots – that’s our conditioned self. Rather, it’s about creating a story that makes them happy and content, one where they live by their values – this is the authentic self.
We need to help our students tell the story of their authentic selves and be proud of who they are and where they come from, as well as unafraid to encounter new people and places, and make new memories so that they can go forward into the world, tell new stories that will get passed down the family tree, branch to branch.
Matt Bromley is an education writer and advisor with more than 20 years’ experience in teaching and leadership including as a secondary school headteacher, principal, FE college vice-principal, and MAT director. Currently, he is a public speaker, trainer, school improvement advisor, the author of numerous books on education and co-host of the award-winning SecEd Podcast. Find him on X (Twitter) @mj_bromley. Read his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/matt-bromley
Further information & resources
- Bernstein: Class, codes, and control: Volume 1 – Theoretical studies towards a sociology of language. Volume 2 – Applied studies towards a sociology of language, Routledge, 1971 & 1973.
- Boris: What makes storytelling so effective for learning? Harvard Business Publishing, 2017: https://bit.ly/3MLjllX
- Historical Association: Story-telling: https://bit.ly/43k73rO
- Historical Association: Children in Victorian Britain: Down the mines: https://bit.ly/3N6HIMc
- Patey & Irving: The power of storytelling, The Health Foundation, 2016: https://bit.ly/3N6nimt