Storytelling

I once watched a Werner Herzog documentary called "The Cave of Forgotten Dream" about the Chauvet Cave and the ancient cave art that represented some earliest known methods of humans recording events from their lives, or in other words, of people telling their stories.

I'm very interested in stories and always have been. I am an avid reader and writer. I enjoy listening to people tell stories and telling stories of my own. I like a stories capacity to captivate and connect people. I just like stories.

The article I read encouraged school staff to utilize social media and or other digital resources to capture the stories occurring in the day-to-day at school. The author encouraged open-mindedness toward this technology and a willingness to participate.

I must admit I felt about convicted in my own digital absence, and I also felt a small sense of sorrow at the missed opportunities to share stories with students and families that I have worked with in the past. I truly love kids or I wouldn't do what I do. Though academics are important to me, I'm much more interested in knowing my students and being known by them. At the end of the day (most of the time) I feel like a proud father who just wants to brag about how great "my kids" at school are, and I see a unique opportunity to do so with digital media.

The author compelled us to do so for the sake of not only sharing our students' stories but connecting with our communities on their own terms. These days most people have access to digital media and would probably enjoy seeing what is going on with their kids or their local school. I might commit here in my blog to attempt in the coming year to do better job of documenting all of the great things we see and do each day, if for no other reason than to simply stay connected.

See the link below to read more about storytelling in schools:

The Power of Storytelling