Curriculum as Narrative part 2

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Is he entertained?

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Is she interested?

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Does That Represent All That Stories Can Do?

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Ever felt scared, horrified?

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Never wept? Felt broken-hearted?

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So… Just Evoke a Range of Emotions?

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Can You Establish Relevance in a Story?

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Can You Make a Boring Job Sound Interesting?

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Ever Felt This?

“I actually find that when I explain something to another person, I become clearer about the topic.”

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Storytelling

A Form of Sense-Making

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The Legend Around the Birth of the Merovingians

• “Sea monster” = A foreign conqueror

• Practice of marrying the widow to establish legitimacy of the invader’s rule

Merovech was conceived when Pharamond's wife encountered a Quinotaur, a sea monster which could change shapes while swimming. Though never stated, it is implied that she was impregnated by it.

- Chronicles of Fredegar, Gregory of Tours circa 7th century AD

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Stories as Acts of Meaning

• Functions of narrative:– Solving problems– Tension reduction– Resolution of dilemmas

• Narratives allow us to deal with and explain mismatches between the exceptional and the ordinary.  

 • Narratives allow us to re-cast chaotic experiences

into causal stories in order to make sense of them, and to render them safe.

- Bruner, 1990

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“Stories are our way of coping, of creating shape out of mess.”

- Sarah Polley

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But How Much Real-World Power Can a Story Have? Is it Too Hard to Buy?

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Okay, Someone Would, But Not You?

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The Official Narrative: Transforming Knowledge

• The education system replicates the real-word hierarchy. It creates “blue” and “white” collar workers.

• It legitimises society at large. We are taught that we compete equally - when we don’t.

• “Knowledge” has been the prerogative of the dominant group to define.

- Minnich

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Mexico, 1968 Olympics – Awards 200mUnderstanding Official Narratives

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Instructions for Reading

• Note key points of information

• Note the impressions made on you: – Emotionally– Intellectually

• What perceptions do you have? Do they change as you read each article?

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Article 1: Summary from Wikipedia

The 1968 Olympics Black Power salute was an act of protest by the African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City.

As they turned to face their flags and hear the American national anthem (The Star-Spangled Banner), they each raised a black-gloved fist and kept them raised until the anthem had finished. Smith, Carlos and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human rights badges on their jackets.

In his autobiography, Silent Gesture, Tommie Smith stated that the gesture was not a "Black Power" salute, but a "human rights salute". The event is regarded as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games.

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How Does This Matter Again?

1969, Morehouse College and Curricular Reforms

In 1969, Jackson was among a small group of radical students who took several members of the school Board of Trustees hostage, demanding curriculum changes and other school management reforms.

Source: http://www.nndb.com/people/563/000023494/

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A STRATEGIC ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE

Learning to Teach

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Folk Tales

• Narratives of ‘folk psychology’ (or ‘common sense’) summarise ‘how things are’ and (often implicitly) how they should be.

 • When we perceive that things are ‘as they should

be’, the narratives of folk psychology are unnecessary.

 • Narratives are a unique way of managing

departures from the canonical. 

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Narratives That Make You Reflect, Introspect

• Experiential learning —> transformation of information into knowledge

• Gibbs - structured debriefing

Event description

Emotional response

Experience evaluation

Analysis

Conclusion framing

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Narratives to Promote Inquiry, Engagement

• Dan Meyer: narrative constructs to create the need to know, to encourage involvement

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Types of Stories

• Fairy tales• Mythology/ Legends• Folk stories• Histories

• Anything else?

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Learning From Other Sense-Makers

Cathy Come Home:

This tells the bleak tale of Cathy, who loses her home, husband and eventually her child through the inflexibility of the British welfare system. A grim picture is painted of mid-sixties London.

If Cathy Come Home had been released today, those callers to the BBC phone lines would have been directed to a website where they could have signed an online petition, donated money to a related good cause and found out the date of the next anti-government-cuts demo.

• When it first aired in 1966, it was watched by a quarter of the British population.

• The volume of phone calls it prompted crashed the BBC's switchboard.

• The homelessness charity Shelter was set up as a result.

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Stories that Zoom In• Introduce a depth of detail • Build perspective• Vertical and then horizontal span

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Stories That Zoom Out• Introduce a world as a theme• Build pattern• Horizontal and then vertical span

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“Maybe stories are just data with a soul.”

- Brené Brown

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MAKING CONTENT A STORYLINE

Step 1: Use What You Know

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ANALYSIS DRIVING CREATIVITY

Step 2: Getting Ideas

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ANALYSIS DRIVING CREATIVITY

Step 3: Integrating Teaching and Storytelling

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My Pyramid

1. Data (the most basic kind of information)

2. Data + basic elaboration = Information

3. Information + dimensions and associations = content

4. Content + context and scope = knowledge

5. Knowledge + plugs from ideology, politics, value systems, beliefs, experiential inputs, common sense = wisdom

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WAS THAT ENOUGH?

Can You Recognise a Content Story Now?

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A Quick Check

• I know the parts of a story. • I am able to think of stories analytically and

express my opinion about it part by part using the correct vocabulary

 • Thinking of curriculum as a narrative is difficult

because…

• Thinking of curriculum as a narrative is easy because…

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For the Next Session

1. Form teams

2. Find a short documentary online

3. Prepare: 1. Analysis of the content in terms of story elements

2. Narrative ‘plot’ of the documentary

3. Anything else interesting you observe story-wise, about the documentary

4. A 5-minute summary of your analysis that you can present