In this timely special episode of Education Today, Michael Hernandez and Dr. Micaela Blei join the show to discuss how to amplify and engage with storytelling in K-12. Hernandez, an award-winning media arts teacher and consultant, and Blei, co-founder of The Moth’s Education Program, were slated to present on this topic at South by Southwest (SXSW) EDU in March until the conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 crisis. In the podcast, they bring the topic to life and share many of the perspectives they planned to highlight at SXSW, while also connecting the concepts of storytelling and narrative to the current events shaping our world during the pandemic. The guests give their definitions of “storytelling” and describe both the role and relevance of storytellers in education (1:51). They also talk about student voice and the concept of “deconstructing student voice” (7:55), discuss how stories are “living” and don’t necessarily have an end, and describe what it means for our personal stories to be ever-evolving in “draft” form. We’re working on the latest version, not the perfect version, they explain. The conversation also tackles the question of assessment; how does assessment fit into storytelling in the classroom? How does the ability to assess make it possible to integrate storytelling into the curriculum, yet potentially also limit the amount of exploration? Looking at learning priorities as the key, versus assessment in the traditional sense, can be a solution (18:04). Host Mind Rocket Media and the guests also talk about human connection in the age of COVID-19, how we use story to organize our experiences (21:05), the nuanced differences between “narrative” and “story,” (23:50) and much more.

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