Education as a moral endeavor part 2

Remember my cast of characters?

The fall is turning to winter, and so I turn from my generous reading of these moving authors to inhabiting their perspective, so that they may generously read my own story. This is not the story I wrote at the beginning of the quarter. It was while reading our last book of the course, Bingham's Authority is relational that I heard his voice in my mind reminding me of a different story, a story still very much in progress, unfolding with every day I continue to live, learn, and grow as a teacher, student, and scholar.

He argues that educational authority is not a unidirectional force, but a dialogical process. The authority of a Speaker exists only through the authorization granted by the Listener, and both contribute to the shared process of interpreting something - he calls it "text", but it could be any kind of learning material, I think. This shared interpretation provides the foundation for relations of educational authority between Teacher and Student, so that, ultimately, what students learn from interpreted material is so embedded in the relation of interpretation that "When a person takes part in the relation of educational authority, it is the relation itself that educates. It is the relation, rather than some predetermined content." (p.63)

When I read this passage, like I said, I heard his voice in mind. Literally, it was a voice that whispered: See? This is why you are a storyteller.

What?! What does storytelling have to do with educational authority relations?

And so, with this whisper in my mind, telling me things I wanted to believe, but could not yet figure the logic of, I put the course texts aside - we had read them all at this point - and returned to thinking about what not only brought me to this course, but has brought me through all of my studies in Education. It became clear there was another story there, begging to be told and to be listened to, generously, by these authors:

When I was eight years old, I decided I wanted to become a teacher. As most children are wont to do on such a momentous occasion as deciding what they want to be when they grow up, I announced it to my mother. Her response was not exactly what I expected or hoped for: “Oh, Avery, no matter what profession you pursue, you will always be a teacher.” What was that supposed to mean?

So began my pondering on the characteristics and qualities that teachers of all kinds embody. It was then that I began to learn that being a teacher implies both a kind of practice and a certain essence. In my imaginary play, I imitated the practice of my elementary school teachers by standing at a chalkboard and explaining what I had written to my imaginary students. But what if that practice does not reflect the teacher I am? What if the essence of my being as a teacher implies another kind of practice? I realize now that my mother’s words were entirely prophetic, setting the stage for a lifelong journey: the path of discovering what it will mean, in my life, to be a teacher.

Somehow I found my way from one experience to the next, and some have questioned the logic of my choices. That is an entirely different story. The story I want to tell here is this: Despite the vast differences between these experiences, they have one aspect of my personal teaching style in common – that is, there is one way in which I have always been and still remain a teacher in every educative context. I am a storyteller.

In every “classroom” – from first period English to the Kindergarten rug to the outdoor Learning Tree – I have employed stories both traditional and modern to illustrate concepts, to teach vocabulary, and to engage my students in conversation with new ideas and with each other. Storytelling has become integral to my teaching style, and I would not consider myself a teacher if I were ever to eliminate the use of stories from my teaching.

At first glance, my journey of becoming a storyteller would most likely not qualify as a moral dilemma. When we think of moral dilemmas, we might think of a decision one is faced with, a decision of right and wrong: “What is the right thing to do?” we imagine asking ourselves, “Why would doing it a different way be wrong?” What’s more, something is humanly at stake in a moral dilemma – perhaps there is something to “win” or to “lose”.

Yet, storytelling is so embedded in my sense of self as a teacher, it feels immoral to me to deny this tradition a rightful place in our education system and in our academic conversations about teaching and learning. I find myself asking moral questions: Why does it feel wrong to me that the ideas and concepts of the storytelling tradition are often avoided in today’s classrooms and teacher education programs? Why do I find it such a loss that public education continues to condone this exclusion of storytelling, favoring, instead, purely information-based curricula and assessments? What is at stake in today’s classrooms if the exclusion of storytelling continues?

Let me clarify: I know why I like using stories in my teaching. I know that stories are excellent teaching tools for a variety of reasons that cognitive scientists, philosophers and theorists of education, not to mention various storytellers, themselves, have expressed. I know that the only thing I love more than sharing the experience of stories with students is sharing the experience of my students with the stories that I have come to consider fellow teachers, for they invite and inspire growth in students in a way that I would not have anticipated.

What I do not know is why this practice and tradition of storytelling has such a hold on me as an educator, and, for that matter, as a learner. I cannot clarify - in a way that satisfies me - the significance I feel storytelling has in meaningful, life-long learning. I know only that I cannot say I am a teacher if I do not simultaneously express that I am a storyteller. Though my discoveries of what being a teacher will mean in my life are far from over, I have clearly reached one significant benchmark: being a teacher, in my life, means being a storyteller.

The story sort of just flowed out of me like a river downstream. I doubted, at first, that it was really a story of morals. I ran it by Donna, though, and she gave the me thumbs up. Now, it's just a matter of figuring out more of what these whispers in my mind are saying when I inhabit the perspectives of the course authors. This will surely be quite the mental exercise. Stay tuned ...