Narratives

There is a purpose for telling a story. Take "Tob" Story which I just read (excluding the missing printed pages in the book), the story of how Tao Kae Noi, the seaweed snack company, became successful. Clearly, there's an element of Tob sharing how he did it to encourage others that they can do it too, the element of sharing of lessons that he learned such as perseverance, and seeing problems as opportunities, and another clear element is using the story to thank the people who have helped him  in this journey.

I am thinking about the stories told by teachers in the classroom. The time S shared about the hungry ghost festival, the time T shared about witnessing a victim of suicide being handcuffed despite being already dead, the time Y showed a video in her class to illustrate the importance of perspective, the other time F shared about the story of Islam and Christianity, and why till this day there is fighting between the two groups.

These teachers reverted to narratives to make a point, to reinforced something, or to make their students think deeper, or to connect with students and help students identify... I am thinking of changing the direction of my Ph.D. to more heavily focus on "narratives," how social studies teachers use narratives in the classroom.

I find this would broaden my topic of patriotism, and ground it as the same time. Not every country or person believe very much about patriotism, many in fact don't like the word at all, but national stories are prevalent, and every nation has a history, official or counter-narratives, they are all there.

I noticed a trend in my research interest... It has always been about cognition and emotion, reason and love, enlightenment and romanticism... This coupling and tension... I believe in narratives, the two come together. Stories can be used to both make someone think and also make them feel, at different points in the story, there can be different objectives. A story can achieve multiple objectives. It can end in a manner that makes something think and question... Hence, a very useful tool for critical thinking.

I am thinking of coming up with a taxonomy of narratives that social studies teachers use, if that has not already been done. I will need to read up more to see what has been done... It covers the area of history education, which I'm not too familiar with.

So yes, this is an update of where my research is going! I am thinking about stories, about narratives. Brene Brown said, "Maybe stories are just data with a soul." Yes, I think stories have both a factual and fantasy component, which makes it a powerful tool in the classroom. Let's see how this goes...