HOW STORYTELLING AND ORAL HISTORY CAN CREATE A MOST - PowerPoint Presentation

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HOW STORYTELLING AND ORAL HISTORY CAN CREATE A MOSTSIGNIFICANT CHANGE!

J

. Cynthia

McDermott

Ed.D

.

Fred Chapel

Ed.D

.

Antioch University Los AngelesSlide2

More than 50 years ago, Eliot

Wigginton

, better known as

“Wig”, a

high school English teacher in rural Georgia, struck on a brilliant idea. He asked his students what they might like to learn. On one of the bleakest fall days of 1966,

he

walked into

his

first-period class, sat down on top of

his desk, crossed his

legs and said very

slowly

and very quietly,

“Look

, this isn’t working. You know it isn’t and I know it isn’t . Now what are we going to do together to make it through the rest of this year?

”

This

conversation

led to the creation of what

has became

known as the

“Foxfire Approach.”Slide3

The Foxfire Approach

From

the beginning, learner choice, design, and revision infuses the work teachers and learners do together.

The work teachers and learners do together clearly manifests the attributes of the academic disciplines involved, so those attributes become habits of mind.

The work teachers and students do together enables learners to make connections between the classroom work, the surrounding communities, and the work beyond their communities.

The

teacher serves as facilitator and collaborator.

Active learning characterizes classroom activities.Slide4

The Foxfire Approach

The learning process entails imagination and creativity.

Classroom work includes peer teaching, small group work, and

teamwork.

The work of the classroom serves audiences beyond the teacher, thereby evoking the best efforts by the learners and providing feedback for improving subsequent

performances.

The

work teachers and learners do together includes rigorous, ongoing assessment and evaluation

.

Reflection, an essential activity, takes place at key points throughout the work

.Slide5

The Foxfire approach created a new sense of awareness in the community and provided the student story collector with a level of authority and respect that they had never experienced. And it created a great deal of trust between the storyteller and story gatherer that the story would be told truthfully and ethically. The story became collaborative as the owner of the story gifted it to the individual who retold it.Slide6

Cultural Journalism

A cultural journalist explores events within his culture. He or she examines the cultural, societal and community context in which a broad range of things happen. A cultural journalist explores currents within society, and draws conclusions. Cultural Journalism is an examination of ourselves. It is also about traditions: identifying them, writing about them and keeping them alive. (Hare)Slide7

Storytelling

A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens – second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of

psychopaths. (Price)Slide8

Storytelling

The community

that

Wigginton’s

students interviewed began

to see the importance of the oral tradition of storytelling and the value of casting a light on the accomplishments, big and small, of ordinary

people.

“’Ordinary’

is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things

.” (

Terkel

)Slide9

Most Significant Change

The Most Significant Change Technique

(MSC) was

created utilizing a story-telling process that attempted to find a way to create an interactive assessment process that would engage participants who were part of a change process in the evaluation aspect.Slide10

Most Significant Change

Stories are a valuable part of MSC for several reasons: they encourage non-evaluation experts to participate, they are likely to be remembered as a complex whole, and they can help keep dialogue based on concrete outcomes rather than abstract indicators. (Davies)Slide11

Most Significant Change

It is not surprising that this process can be quite helpful in assessing student or project work and can in fact provide us with quite useful assessments that are more significant than any standardized test.Slide12

Growth over Time

Rather than a simple-minded, scripted response to a constraining prompt, the candidates fully accept the opportunity to share deeper insights and personal perspectives about the connection they feel with the content, the community, and with themselves as learners.Slide13

Growth over Time

As the MSC and the Foxfire Core Practices further invade the pre-service classrooms of AULA, it remains to be seen what these will accomplish. Based on current feedback, several things are evident.

Candidates have multiple ways to share their individual voice and perspective

Candidates are encouraged to be critical viewers of themselves and the program and have multiple ways to be expressive

Candidates are encouraged to find their stories and share them

Candidates are encouraged to work in their community to create change.Slide14

References

Davies, R. and Dart, J. (2005).

The Most

Significant Change Technique

; A Guide to Its Use

. Retrieved from http:// http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/

MSCGuide.pdf

Hare, D. (1992). A Cultural Journalist’s View of City Life.

In Reading and Writing the City Vol. III.

Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Retrieved April 14. 2014 from

http://yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1992/3/92.03.06.

x.html

Price, R. (1978).

A Palpable God

. New York:

Atheneum

Terkel

, S. (2007).

Touch and Go: A Memoir

. New York: The New Press