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the underpinning

Story-telling in adult learning-and-guidance practice

Story-telling and working with more imagination

impressions from the conference

The author was a participant at the recent Canterbury Christ Church conference ‘The Use of Storytelling in Adult Learning and Guidance Practice’. This is her personal account of what happened. It sets out useful ideas that came through that process, and suggests how the author might be able to put them into practice.

Moira Hyde
Projects Development Worker
Workers Educational Association – South-eastern District

I had been so looking forward to this conference but had been wrestling with myself as to whether I really should attend other meetings closer to home, sort out course dates, phone people and so on ad infinitum. On the other hand I had recently written an English for speakers of other languages course with a storytelling element, which somehow lacked sparkle. I decided that I deserved to go to the conference, and I felt quite sure I would learn a lot from attending . It is true, though, that I had only the vaguest of ideas about what I might be able to take away at the end of the day.

making life whole

I quickly learned how rich the answers to simple questions cane be – questions such as ‘what is storytelling?’, or even ‘what is a conversation?’. From Vayu Naidu, who talked about ‘Telling Stories, Revealing Cultures’ I learned the significance of the Hindu greeting; and was mesmerised by her ability to convey meaning and atmosphere through gesture, stillness and her very powerful presence. For me, she perfectly set the scene, by encouraging us all to think of storytelling as a moving spirit among the arts - and an art-form in itself. (Though it is an art form with an almost non-existent status.)

Vayu went on to demonstrate how storytelling can become a vehicle in transferring skills, and a tool in professions such as marketing or politics.

Essentially we came to see storytelling as a way of understanding our own culture and the culture of other people. We came to recognise a two-way partnership, that cannot be fully rehearsed, a way of taking ‘the daily’ and making it ‘extra-daily’. Vayu helped us to understand the power of storytelling - in breaking down barriers, communicating with and engaging people, challenging conventions and, more fundamentally, helping to assemble the fragmentation in life and make it whole.

varieties of conversation

Our next treat was called ‘Fire in the Snow – Remix’, by the Day-for-Night Theatre Company. Anybody in danger of drifting off was brought back to life by the alarming, but clearly rehearsed, heckling that interrupted the introduction by the organiser - David Heley. The company then presented a powerful series of performances, bringing the potential for storytelling sharply into focus. What struck me was the rich variety of ways in which conversation was explored.
We heard a conversation with an unborn child, another with a grandparent who had recently died, a series of ‘phone conversations conducted simultaneously by a megalomaniac, a conversation with an invisible other person, and one with the audience. These were conversations that hid meanings – yet forced us to confront ourselves.

There were soundless conversations, furious and violent conversations; they explored hypocrisies, sanity, life-changing experiences and the fragility of the love-hate syndrome. For an hour, the conference delegates (who are the ‘educators’) became the audience; while the performers (who are the ‘students’) did their work. They popped up at our sides, sang, shouted, laughed, raged and recounted the most personal of experiences. It was a huge feast for thought.

any drawbacks?

We were brought back to order, by the formation of small groups, to discuss any drawbacks in the use of storytelling. For my group these included...

‘how do we react when people disclose uncomfortable experiences?’,
‘what is our exit strategy?’,
‘how do we channel negative experience to create a positive storytelling experience?’,
‘how do we ensure that an emotional truth becomes a story without losing its integrity?’
‘how do we avoid imposing our own values onto the groups we work with?’.ways of helping

After lunch, we listened to Joanna Bornat talking about her work on ‘Reminiscence and Life Review’. For me this was an interesting perspective, on an area in which I had worked - in a community-arts context. I found myself questioning some of the assumptions I had always made about oral-history work. I had always seen reminiscence work as failing, if it did not encourage participants to express - and thereby seek to preserve - those things that were (and are) most valuable in life. It is in such ways that, for example, a lone tree that used to belong to a cherry orchard, or a riverside that provided a nesting place for a kingfisher, might be saved. They stand a greater chance of being preserved, once they have been recorded in print. They become part of a kind of ‘community quilt’, or of a song.

I realise now that this ‘missionary zeal’ for preservation is not necessary in most areas of reminiscence work. However, it certainly was, a decade-or-two back, one of the criteria by which many community-arts workers judged ‘real’ projects in their field.

But Joanna helped us to understand how, in caring work, supporting reminiscence has evolved. Previously, reminiscence was felt by many to open the floodgates of people’s memories; ‘bingo’ or ‘basket weaving’ were thought to be preferable. But reminiscence work has gradually gained acceptance.

One of the reasons for this is that there are so many different ways in which reminiscence can help, or help us to know how to help. For example:

> integrated reminiscence helps people to achieve a sense of meaning;
> instrumental reminiscence helps people to solve problems;
> transmissive reminiscence helps people to understand other cultures and ages and so on;
> narrative reminiscence is simply for the sheer pleasure of telling a story;
> escapist reminiscence tells of the ‘unlived life’;
> obsessive reminiscence tells of a storyteller holding onto a problematic past.

learning how to use storytelling

In our smaller groups, we looked at how storytelling can be used in the different roles in our professional lives.
I began to think about the various ways in which we may trigger storytelling with groups. The list is probably endless but could include: introducing a topic such as ‘food’, ‘pawn shops’, ‘rationing’, ‘work’; or even subject areas such as ‘gossip’ and ‘lies’. Then, there could be something on life stages, such as ‘being a baby’, ‘childhood’, ‘adolescence’, and so on.

Bringing photographs - ones that carry a certain set of references - into a group, can be enough to spark whole life histories; so could bringing in something simple - like a sweet packet, a magazine, or a household product from a past era. We could ask our groups to exchange ‘garden-fence’ stories and memories of local entertainment. And, once our group is comfortable, we could invite individuals to tell us something unique about themselves.

Joanna has helped us to consider the framework for a positive storytelling session. She stresses the need for empathy alongside personal knowledge, for meaningful activities, for the freedom to choose to take part in storytelling, for mutual respect and for much more.

Many of us began to see the need for a whole raft of training courses in this area!

a story-teller and a simple exercise

Our final presentation was by Tony Cooper – a ‘Professional Storyteller’. At first I was not sure how I felt about somebody who seemed proud that he had come unprepared. But then Tony amused and fascinated us, hopping from warts-and-all personal history to traditional Romany story to a critique of the ‘business’ of storytelling.

He got us all going with a simple exercise in which we were asked to do a drawing of a place where we used to play, then turn and tell our neighbour about it. As Cathy Hull – the conference organiser - suggested, given a few bottles of wine, we all could have stayed - all evening.

If there had been time at the end of the day, it would have been interesting, in small groups, to devise and tell a short story. Each might have fulfilled our roles – which, you may recall, are ‘informing’, ‘advising’, ‘counselling’, ‘assessing’, ‘enabling’, ‘advocating’ and ‘feeding back’. However, I am sure I was not the only one to start to flag at this point.

back to work

So now I will re-write that English for speakers of other languages course – this time with a bit more imagination . I wonder if it could include a storytelling training session from some of the conference speakers?

WHERE NOW?

eavesdroppings from the conference

update of Bill's chapter ‘Guidance: Too many lists, not enough stories
biographical material with career use
practical implications