The Great Thanksgiving Listen

“The Great Thanksgiving Listen encourages young people—and people of all ages—to create an oral history of our times by recording an interview with an elder, mentor, friend, or someone they admire.

With permission, interviews become part of the StoryCorps Archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. More than 650,000 people have participated in StoryCorps to date, making it the largest single collection of voices ever gathered.

Since 2015, thousands of people from all 50 states have participated in the Great Listen. Preserve your own unique oral history with a loved one and transform the holidays into a time of intergenerational sharing.”

Hiking Stories With Ed Iler

It is important that we preserve stories from people who actually experienced events. Not only can we learn a lot but it is fun too! Here is a video my friends (Fran and Peter Taylor) and I took as we visited our friend Ed Iler. Ed is a 99-year-old member of our hiking group, The Greenville Natural History Association.

 

Stories I Shouldn't Tell

In Don't Tell from Sioux's Page by Sioux, she asks,

 “What story could you begin with "Don't tell..."?”

I have so many stories that I shouldn’t tell but when someone tells me “Don’t Tell!” then I’m more apt to share it with the world.

I remember getting my first speeding ticket as I took my young daughter to Vacation Bible School and afterwards telling her not to tell her father until I told him first. That night, as soon as he came into the house, she was bursting with the news about how a policeman pulled me over! 

One year I had my class do landscaping around the school building and with the grant money, we were going to plant 30 huge pear trees. When I bought them, the landscaping company told me that we had to dig holes 3 feet deep and 3 feet in diameter so each person was assigned a hole to dig. My hole went well until I realized that I was in the hole and unable to get out of it so my students had to grab my arms and drag me out. I told them not to tell anyone because it was embarrassing. They couldn’t wait to tell everyone how they rescued their teacher!

There was another time that my daughter was rough housing with my husband and that night he called me from work telling me that he was hemorrhaging because his urine had blood in it. We thought maybe my daughter accidentally kicked him in the kidneys and injured him. He wasn’t in any pain but the ER doctors saw the blood in the urine and rushed to call a urologist. Imagine our faces when they did a test and found out that there wasn’t any blood in the urine. The beets we had for dinner caused the red coloring! My husband told me not to tell anyone about this embarrassing situation and I couldn’t wait to share my newfound knowledge with the world! Who knew that beets would do that?!

I guess the moral of this story is to be careful what you tell your students not to tell. We don’t want to encourage secrets with anyone and want to show we are transparent educators. We want parents to know what we are doing in the classroom. We want our students to know why we are doing things in the classroom. We want the administration to know we are doing the best we can in the classroom.

I have to admit though, that I have told my students, “Don’t tell anyone that learning is fun!” Hopefully that is a surefire way to share that they are enjoying learning with others.

What is your “Don’t Tell” story? Please share. 

Telling Stories

In The Art of Learning from Tinkerings, Tim shares,

“I think it is because we learn best by telling and receiving stories.  Not facts.  Stories.  And songs are just stories set to music.  Sometimes they rhyme.  Sometimes they don’t.  Some are fast and others slow.  Some are melodic.  Others are nerve bangingly not.  The one thing nearly all songs (with lyrics at least) have in common is that they tell a story.”

When I read this I realized how true this was! I learn best by linking the stories to the learning. If I can remember the story, I usually can remember the concept that I have learned. Why would I not think that my students wouldn’t learn the same way?

I began thinking of the songs I liked and why I liked them. I definitely liked the ones that told a story set to music. I think many of the songs of today that I can’t relate to are ones that I can’t relate to. Many of these songs don’t seem to tell a story to me or I can’t make any sense of them.

I have started to make a list of concepts that are important to me and then jotting down the stories that symbolize that concept. The stories are personal and real life. They help me share memories and help my students see how the concepts relate to me personally. I find that if my students can’t associate the concepts they are learning to real life, the learning has no relevance to them.

Telling stories is fun for the storyteller as well as the listener. I love having guest speakers come in to share their personal stories. Near Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day, it is fun to have veterans come in and tell their stories. They love to share and my students love to hear them. If I have a career day, I try to find what careers interest my students and find people in that field to share stories about their jobs.

Do you tell stories in your class to teach lessons? If so, how do you use storytelling in your classroom? Please share.

Image: 'Princess Storytelling with Aurora - Sleeping Beauty'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8062328@N02/2900556471

I Want To Be Sticky

I recently read the book Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. This is not a book review but rather notes of things I don’t want to forget. There were ideas here that made an impact on me become some of the stuff I already do and I didn’t know why I do it that way or the significance of what I do. I began to wonder if I’m consistent in doing things and knowing how important it is, I hope I do it more often. If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend it and I’m glad that I took the time to read it.

The book emphasizes seven basic principles using the acronym of SUCCES: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, story. I began to think about whether I use these in my classroom. I also looked at the lessons that I know really worked well and those that didn’t. I can analyze these and see the ones that didn’t work are the ones where I skipped these principles. When I looked at the ones that were successful, I saw the seven principles could be clearly seen.

Simple is very important. I have a relative that tells these long complicated stories whenever I get in a conversation with him and before he finishes the second sentence, I have drifted elsewhere. I can see his lips moving and hear sound come out of his mouth, but I quit trying to process what he is saying. It is too much work for me to try to figure out the point of what he is saying.

As for unexpected, I think it is important to think about what the students may assume. Sometimes their preconceived ideas can affect their attitudes so if I can stay ahead of them, sometimes I can surprise them. This surprise keeps them engaged into wanting to know more.

Concrete is a definite must. Many of my students have a hard time understanding the abstract if they can’t figure out the concrete part. I think most people are that way but we take it for granted that everyone knows this. I need to look at my lessons and make sure that when I introduce them, it is something they can see and experience.

I love to tell stories and I guess it helps me from being bored when I teach a lesson. If the lesson is boring to tell it, then I’m sure it is boring to hear it. So I like to throw in a story or two to keep us all interested. I believe that in my stories, I include the credible and the emotional part altogether. Knowing that something actually happened helps make it credible and usually if I remembered it, it is because it had some emotional impact on me. This emotion is something I want to share with my students.

When we do some review before a test, sometimes my students need a prompt to come up with the answer. I usually can remind them about the story that I told. When they recall the story, they are able to come up with the correct answer.

If you get a chance to read this book, I hope you take the time. If you have already read it, do you have any suggestions or comments to add? What was your opinion of the book?

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original image: 'NASCAR Duct Tape, in association with 3M'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87231304@N00/1345233680 by: Sean Neakums

Remembering the Stories

In Connecting in Education from 21st C Literacy Ave Home, vanhookc states,

“Knowledge has changed, but the desire to learn is the same...yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We are still making connections.”

I recently read an article in Blue Ridge Country about Wiley Oakley, also known as the Roamin’ Man of the Mountains. Wiley would guide visitors in the mountains and discovered a knack for storytelling. He passed on a lot of stories this way to his own children and even strangers. Eventually Wiley began to write his stories down and the wrote a column for a newspaper. Soon these stories were gathered together and published in a book. His children even compiled his stories and published books. This is a way for these stories to go on forever.

How many wonderful stories are out there that we need to be gathering for future generations? I know I still love to listen to my father tell stories about his childhood growing up in China. He loves to tell stories about his time in the army along with adventures he had as a young man. I have videotaped him telling these stories but there were so many stories that I didn’t record. How much longer will I have my dad to tell me these stories. His great grand daughter is 5 years old and who will tell her these stories?

My mother had stories but I never had time to listen to them as I was growing up. Then marriage and children became my focus instead of my mother’s stories. Now I have time to listen but my mother is gone. Luckily my sister who is ten years older than I am is willing to share some of the stories she remembers my mother telling her.

I think this is something important to have our students understand. I wish someone had told me how important these stories were. We need to talk to students and explain why these stories are important and what we can learn from them. Our heritage is important and knowing the past is important. By preserving these stories, we are keeping a part of the past alive in our hearts. This is a way to connect the past to the present. What a wonderful way for different generations to interact and learn from each other. This connection is so important for all generations to survive.

If students do not have grandparents to tell them these stories, they could go to a nursing home or ask at a Veterans Affairs office or a VFW office. I believe that there are many people out there who would love to share their stories but are just hoping someone will ask. If it would make it easier, invite the speaker to the class.

Yet, explaining the importance and significance of preserving these stories is not enough. We need to teach our students how to do this. We need to show them how to record or videotape stories. Now with digital cameras and digital recorders, it is much easier than when I was growing up. There are also so many different programs to help publish these stories and share them with others.

Students could interview different people and record their stories in some form. Then they could compile all of the stories together and share it with others. Maybe they could have a celebration and invite all the story tellers for refreshments as a way to thank them for their contributions. This would be a great way to share and celebrate the importance of connecting the past to the future.

Storytelling encompasses so many different subjects and meets so many different state standards that it would be a great teaching strategy. I think it would be a great way to engage all levels of students and be a successful way to meet the needs of all students.

Original image: 'Grandpa Younger Telling Tales I - Delafield, Wisconsin' http://www.flickr.com/photos/96552722@N00/18872723 by: Greg Younger