I began using storytelling as a teaching tool when my daughter, who is now 20 years old and in college, was in the third grade. She was studying American history and was having trouble remembering certain facts. I decided to create a story for her to help her remember those facts. This attempt worked very well. So well, in fact, that I asked by my daughters teacher to come to the classroom and tell the story to the other children in the class.

I should mention that my daughter has some learning disabilities, as I myself do. I have never been able to retain dates or names (both abstract concepts, but more on that later), even in short term memory. Places, events (ones in which I partook), or faces are no problem. Fortunately, I began college later in life and had by then recognized that I needed to use alternative methods of learning. It is those same methods that Shelley has incorporated into her schooling. As a result she has never had to take special classes and has needed minimal help from the school system. The only additional considerations that have been given to her have been to allow her to take longer on written test in some cases. Shelley needed help implementing storytelling techniques at first, but she uses them now (she is in college) on her own.

At this point, I should clarify some things. I am not a licensed educator or doctor. I am simply a person that has had thousands of hour’s experience in the area of instruction using storytelling methods. I hope to be able to impart some of the techniques I use in the hope that they will aid you in your field of education.

Abstract vs. Concrete

The human mind is a very interesting learning machine. We are told that almost everything we ever see, hear, or experience is stored in our mind. Yet, for many of us, retrieving that information is often difficult. I have come to the conclusion that the mind stores that information in two different ways; as concrete and abstract information. One of the most interesting aspects of this is that the same information can be presented in several different ways, and it is that presentation method that often determines how the information is stored. Concretes, or concrete information is that information we can see, touch, hear, and feel. Abstracts are those things which we must imagine, or attempt to make real. One of the reasons that storytelling is such a successful tool is the ability to use it for converting those abstracts into concretes.

I once had a shark swim under my surfboard, his skin barely touched the bottom of my feet. I promise you that I will always remember what it felt like. It is easy to understand why that would be. Any time emotion or our imagination is stimulated we are more likely to remember that thing or event that created the situation. I could not see the shark that brushed up against me, but I assure my imagination did.

It is probably easiest to understand these concepts (remember concepts are abstracts) if we turn them into concretes. Abstracts are like water, fluid and hard to grasp or hold. Concretes are like clay; easy to sink our fingers into and very easy to hold on to. So, the goal is to turn those watery, slippery things into something we can grasp.

In a sense, storytelling as a teaching tool incorporates many of the same techniques that are used in some memorization programs. The main difference is that with a story you make the learning fun and interesting. The story is used to transform abstracts into concretes by creating in the imagination a real or concrete thing to take it’s place. Now, let us take a look at a couple real life examples.

Examples

Numbers, particularly dates are very difficult for many people to remember. As I mentioned, I am one of those who has that problem. It is interesting that a simple little rhyme ‘In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue’, made it so easy to remember that date. You may be asking how is a silly little rhyme a concrete? The answer is simple. Information is processed differently by the mind when the information is presented in an out-of-the-ordinary manner. Perhaps it is because the mind has to work harder that causes the information to remember better.

Just the other day, on the airplane heading home from a trip, I met a young lady. She is a High School senior and when she noticed I was working on this paper we began to talk about the subject. She said that she had just blown an AP History exam because she just could not keep the dates straight. After a few minutes I was able to show her how she could remember not just the dates but all the other facts too. The first thing we did was to assign real life events to the century. She told me her most unusual date was when she had just turned seventeen. She went out with a guy that was two feet taller than herself. I told her she could use that event to make sure that she could always remember dates that started with sixteen. From that moment on any date that involved the fifteenth century was an event based on something a giant was doing. It would require more space than I have here to explain the whole process. That is much easier done in a workshop setting. Let me just say that she was very excited and eager to begin a new method of learning.

Just remembering the information is not the only advantage of using storytelling as a learning tool. My daughter spent less than half the time her friends did studying all the way through school. It is my belief that if a class in the use of these methods were required beginning early on, we would see far fewer problems in the school system. I know that is a extreme statement, but I also know there are students that end up dropping completely out of school because they get so far behind that they feel it is hopeless. Imagine the pressure that could be taken off by teaching students how to learn effectively and with much less time spent doing it.

When my daughter began using some of these methods in the third grade, she thought at first that it was going to take even more time than she was spending already. She found out quickly though that, although creating the stories or plots took time, learning the story was much easier than learning the individual facts. Once the story was created it did not have to be recreated again when additional information was added. The new parts (information), only had to be added to the existing story.

I was asked to come to Shelley’s school and tell stories to the rest of the class. I created several more stories that related to the subjects they were studying. Dressed in a colonial costume, I arrived at the school and told my stories. The first story, the one created for my daughter, was about a mouse that had to make sure that the right number of lanterns were placed in the Old North Church tower.

I was told by Shelley’s teacher later that she was amazed at how much of the historical information the children were able to remember when they were tested on the material. In fact, she said that the percentage of questions answered right was much higher for that information presented in story form.

Mixing real, or historical, facts with fantasy proved to be no problem at all. In fact, it only enhanced the learning level. The teacher had discovered a new tool that could be added to the ones she already had. A tool with exciting possibilities that would enable her to teach even better than she had been before.

Years ago I had a third grader I was teaching in church who was very nervous because he had to give a welcome speech at a PTA meeting. She was afraid she would forget what she was supposed to say (her teacher had written out the speech for her, but told her she had to say it from memory instead of reading). I asked her to describe the average PTA meeting. She said the teachers all sat on the back row in order, by grade. I then asked her to tell me what each teacher looked like. She had no problem with this and as she described them. I wrote the first characteristic she gave for each teacher on a piece of paper. Taking her speech, I wrote an essential part of the speech above the name and characteristic of each teacher following the order in which they sat. I then helped her create a story that used the teacher and the part of the corresponding speech and linked them together. She sailed through the speech even though one of the teachers was not at the meeting. It would not have mattered if all of them had been absent because she was using her imagination much more than what she was actually seeing.

The Process

One might think that creating a story that would incorporate a number of perhaps unrelated facts would be very difficult. It is important to understand that the story you, and someday your students, develop does not have to even make sense in the usual way that a story does. You see, it is not so much the actual story, but rather the linking of facts that is important.

Imagine if you will, facts as a number of pegs sticking out of a wall in a pitch dark room. If you can find the peg and touch it, you would probably be able to identify that fact. The problem is that in a dark room you would have a hard time finding the right peg. For the person that has less trouble remembering facts or information than others, the room is small. It will not take them as long to find the right peg. Some of us find ourselves in a huge room with very little chance of finding the right peg. Now imagine that there is a rope looped from peg to peg, linking them together in order. All that is necessary is to find any one of the pegs and then follow the rope in either direction until we come to the right one. The story is the rope. You do not have to start at the beginning of The Three Little Pigs in order to tell me what material the second little pig used to build his house. It is not necessary because there are enough other events in the story to lead you to the answer. Why? Because you know the story as a sequence of events linked together. Perhaps your mind is going back to the beginning in order to give you the answer, but it happens so fast that you are not aware of it.

Plato was a great philosopher, known for his ability to deliver lengthy orations. He, other early Greek orators used a unique method for remembering what they were to speak about and to make sure they kept things in order. They used pegs, linked together. Before he would speak, he would spend a little time in the building or area where he was to be. Beginning on his left, he would pick a physical characteristic of something he would be able to see during his speech. He would move around the area picking different things, linking the item to the next part of his presentation. He would link the items together with a simple story. During the presentation, the audience never knew that his habit of scanning the crowd, which by the way is an important element of speech giving, was simply Plato keeping on track with his speech. I founded and directed the Drama Group in my church. I taught the kids in the group to use Plato’s method to keep from forgetting their lines. In scores of skits and plays I never had a troupe member for their lines if they were using that method.

Changing Behavior

I also use stories to teach acceptable social behavior. This is not a new idea of course. Christ, Plato, and many others used stories to teach proper attitudes and actions. My first book *The Red Ribbon, created as a drug prevention tool, has nothing in it about drugs. The purpose of the story is to show how people working together can make the world a better place to live. The idea being that if a person is happier with their life then they are more likely to avoid things like drugs. You see, the story addresses the solution rather than the problem. One of the beauties of a story is the ability to confront without putting someone on the defensive. Things that one could never say to another directly can be put in story form and related to that individual without them even realizing at the time that they are the one being targeted.

Another benefit of using a story is that most stories can contain more than one message creating the opportunity to discuss more than one aspect of the story. My second book, Robbie Rabbit, deals with the concept of ‘consequences for actions’. It is an example of a story that is very dynamic (can be used for teaching more than one lesson or idea). The newest book Stinky the Skunk teaches the idea of accepting others. None of the ideas or either outdated or new, but they are concepts that need to reinforced constantly. Stories are a way of introducing or reinforcing the ideas. Since new stories can be created, or existing stories modified to meet the teachers needs it is an almost unlimited resource.

This article has just touched the surface of using storytelling as a teaching tool. I hope that it may have stimulated you to further investigate and perhaps utilize the concepts and ideas. Take the time to explore the possibilities further and use the art of storytelling to your, and your students, advantage.

*The Red Ribbon is available at any Barnes and Nobles and other fine bookstores across the country. The Red Ribbon, Robbie Rabbit, and The Stinky Skunk may be purchased directly from National Family Partnership. John is also available for speaking engagements in your area.

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