In Pamela Petty’s The Baby and the Bathwater: A Tale of Standards and Storytelling, she made the argument that the practice of storytelling needs to play a more integral part in today’s education system. According to Petty, the process of telling stories helps students retain knowledge and learn course material through the use of interesting tales not found in textbooks or through the use of technology. By using storytelling in different forms (music, poems, books, oral stories, etc.), educators can aid students in learning material using a teaching technique that has been used throughout history with successful results (Petty 2016).
I really enjoyed Petty’s article and she voiced similar sentiments that I myself have felt about the modern …show more content…
I took US History in college, and even though I had the same class in both junior high and high school I really didn’t retain much knowledge from either class. In college the class material seemed brand new even though I felt like I’d heard words and names somewhere before. The only lesson I remember from high school history class is a story. It was a shortened school day before winter break began. Instead of lecturing, my teacher talked with us about his life and how he grew up with an abusive father. His father didn’t want him to grow up to be a teacher but my instructor followed his passion and went into teaching. “You’ve got to overcome your upbringing,” he said and he discussed the importance of not letting your upbringing dictate your fate. Coming from a home with an abusive mother this lesson has stuck with me sixteen years later. My history teacher taught me a textbook full of historical facts that year but the only part of the class I carried with me years later was his simple story that inspired me.
It seems like in today’s classrooms the focus keeps going further away from storytelling and towards modern methods like using tablets, laptops, and technology as teaching tools. The modern student spends their days with eyes glued to the screens of phones, tablets, and more. With the push of a few buttons they have Google to ask for assistance in answering …show more content…
We have a place called The International Storytelling Center near my hometown. This center is a non-profit organization focused on teaching the importance of storytelling as an educational tool. According to their website, “The International Storytelling Center, a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization, advocates for the power of storytelling by providing the knowledge, experiences, and tools to help individuals, organizations, and communities tap into the power of story” (Center, I. S.). Each year around October they hold a storytelling festival where people can volunteer to share stories in the form of songs, poems, original stories, and more. Many of the local schools offer incentives to attend the festival. As an undergraduate I had History and Sociology instructors offer extra credit for attending the festival and listening to peoples’ storytelling. I remember one professor encouraging people to volunteer as storytellers and dedicated an entire lesson to the importance of stories in the education process. Not all cultures are like mine and storytelling isn’t promoted in other places like it is here in East
I really enjoyed Petty’s article and she voiced similar sentiments that I myself have felt about the modern …show more content…
I took US History in college, and even though I had the same class in both junior high and high school I really didn’t retain much knowledge from either class. In college the class material seemed brand new even though I felt like I’d heard words and names somewhere before. The only lesson I remember from high school history class is a story. It was a shortened school day before winter break began. Instead of lecturing, my teacher talked with us about his life and how he grew up with an abusive father. His father didn’t want him to grow up to be a teacher but my instructor followed his passion and went into teaching. “You’ve got to overcome your upbringing,” he said and he discussed the importance of not letting your upbringing dictate your fate. Coming from a home with an abusive mother this lesson has stuck with me sixteen years later. My history teacher taught me a textbook full of historical facts that year but the only part of the class I carried with me years later was his simple story that inspired me.
It seems like in today’s classrooms the focus keeps going further away from storytelling and towards modern methods like using tablets, laptops, and technology as teaching tools. The modern student spends their days with eyes glued to the screens of phones, tablets, and more. With the push of a few buttons they have Google to ask for assistance in answering …show more content…
We have a place called The International Storytelling Center near my hometown. This center is a non-profit organization focused on teaching the importance of storytelling as an educational tool. According to their website, “The International Storytelling Center, a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization, advocates for the power of storytelling by providing the knowledge, experiences, and tools to help individuals, organizations, and communities tap into the power of story” (Center, I. S.). Each year around October they hold a storytelling festival where people can volunteer to share stories in the form of songs, poems, original stories, and more. Many of the local schools offer incentives to attend the festival. As an undergraduate I had History and Sociology instructors offer extra credit for attending the festival and listening to peoples’ storytelling. I remember one professor encouraging people to volunteer as storytellers and dedicated an entire lesson to the importance of stories in the education process. Not all cultures are like mine and storytelling isn’t promoted in other places like it is here in East