Teachers Telling Personal Stories in the Classroom: An Inquiry & Pilot Study

Abstract

The practice of storytelling is as old as humans can remember. It is a tried and true medium for the way in which humans transfer information. Thus, you would assume the practice of telling stories in a classroom – from teacher to student - makes perfect sense. However, while the use of storytelling and the study of storytelling generally is quite common, the study of why teachers tell stories in the classroom specifically appears to be far less common. Moreover, research into why teachers may use their own personal stories in the classroom seems even less common. This is an inquiry and pilot study into why that may be. I review previous studies on the use of storytelling by instructors in medicine, science and education. I then describe three interviews with college professors who utilize storytelling in different ways in their pedagogical approach. The investigation utilizes the interview and an intuitive qualitative method of analysis looking for similarities across all three-teacher’s rationale for utilizing storytelling, specifically personal storytelling. The intent is to hopefully generate more questions for future research as well as answer a simple question that appears to have not gotten much attention: Why do teachers tell personal stories in the classroom?