What’s your story?
How would you answer this question if it were posed to you by a curious seatmate on an airplane? Would you tell her about your childhood, where you’ve lived, your education and job, your family? What you choose to share tells her about you, your history, your priorities. What you choose not to share tells the same.
What if you were asked to tell the story of your school or your classroom? What is that story all about? Which anecdotes would you choose, which facts would you include, which bits of your past and current situations would you share?
Every classroom and school tells a story—it tells students, staff, and parents what is important to our school, what we believe to be the guiding and underlying values of life within our context. The story of our school lives and gives meaning whether we have intentionally articulated it or not. Our challenge as Christian school educators is to be intentional in this story, for as C. S. Lewis wrote, “The most dangerous ideas in a society are not the ones being argued, but the ones that are assumed.”
Defining Storylines
Recognizing that each of our classrooms tells a story, Teaching for Transformation (TfT) encourages, as one of its core practices, teachers and school leaders to articulate a storyline for their classrooms or workspaces. This storyline provides the teacher with a way to give meaning and purpose to all the learning experiences throughout the year.
Think about a science unit that deals with the three “R’s”: reduce, reuse, recycle. As your class journeys through the unit, concepts such as earth-keeping or creation-enjoying will emerge and provide context for the content. But these concepts alone are not enough: we know that many people in our world do fantastic earth-keeping work or are wonderful advocates of enjoying the outdoors, but they do not necessarily see those activities and passions as being part of God’s big story. Not recognizing that they are part of a grand narrative, an epic tale, a kingdom story that encourages care for the earth and enjoying creation, they just see their actions as good for the planet or as ensuring that their children and grandchildren have a place to live. Such teachers are telling a different story about the science content than a teacher in a Christian school where we proclaim that the earth is the Lord’s and where we believe that we have been commissioned to be caretakers and stewards so that we participate in God’s restorative work. Acknowledging a bigger (and better) story and our role in it gives context, meaning, and purpose beyond ourselves.
With this as the background, TfT asks each teacher to design a storyline. This provides their students with a narrative that allows them to see and understand their learning as taking place within God’s big story. To ensure we are all talking about the same story (as there are many competing stories all around us), Allpress and Shamy express it like this: “Although its [the Bible’s] storylines, characters and scenes are wide-ranging and diverse, a simple theme echoes throughout. God creates; humanity rebels; God redeems his people. . . . From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is full of echoes. As though the same narrative pattern was being told over and over again, with different characters, in different settings, and in different ways” (21).
An effective storyline allows students to see and experience the “stuff” of school within the story of God. In this way, the “stuff” is more meaningful, as it is placed within a bigger context: the details of the stories of science, math, and art are understood within the bigger story. But also, the story is more meaningful and readily seen when populated with the “stuff” of school (and life). The story moves from being an abstract “out there” to something connected to the reality of every day.
Characteristics of a Storyline
An effective storyline has many characteristics:
God as the main character in the story. A tendency within our culture is to place ourselves as the main characters in the story, but an effective storyline firmly places God at the center. It is His story; He is both the author and the main character. Our storylines need to continually point us and our students to God and His story.
Significant and authentic connections to the curriculum. A storyline is not just for devotions or Bible class, nor is it to be used as a classroom-culture tool. It exists to give meaning and context to day-to-day learning and experiences in the classroom. Some teachers choose storylines but discover through the course of the year that the curriculum connections to this storyline are lacking or feel forced and therefore select a more holistic storyline the following year.
Regular classroom rhythms and practices. When a storyline is effective, it is living and breathing within the classroom experience. Students and their teacher regularly reflect on how the concepts they are learning in social studies connect to their storyline. They take time every week to add new insights to their storyline journal describing where they heard echoes of God’s story in physical education, math, or another class. These regular rhythms and practices encourage deeper understanding of the story.
Growth and expansion throughout the year. When fully engaged, a storyline begins the year in a “barebones” fashion, perhaps with just the title or tagline posted on a bulletin board. Then as the year progresses and the class has repeated experiences that give them a deeper and fuller understanding of their storyline, the story behind the storyline emerges and fills in the details. The bulletin board gets messy. It is filled with photos of projects, student reflections on activities, samples of student work, and so on—a messy chronicle of their immersion in their storyline.
Sample Storylines
To give you an idea of what this looks like in a classroom environment, I’ll share several real-life examples of how three teachers have included storylines in their classrooms.
Seek and find. The students are actively engaged in seeking out “evidence” of God and His story. They each select a “special agent” name at the beginning of the year, craft a profile and begin keeping detailed notes on what they are discovering, taking time weekly to connect their curriculum, as well as their lives outside of school, to God’s story. They also have an agent’s pledge that they recite on a regular basis as a reminder of the story they find themselves in.
Through and through; a Love Like No Other. The end-of-the-year storyline bulletin board in this classroom is a testament to the learning, exploring, and reflecting this class did over the past ten months of school as they immersed themselves in making connections between the “stuff” and the story. They regularly answered the questions, What were we doing? Where was God? What throughline was evident? The bulletin board took over an entire wall as the students added photos and reflections each month that were based on the three questions, documenting their engagement with the story. Imagine sitting with your class during the last week of school, looking at the bulletin board and recalling all the adventures you had, as together you learned more about your storyline’s articulation of Romans 11:36, “For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever!”
Stepping into adventure with Jesus. Although this storyline could be used with a wide variety of ages, a preschool teacher connected this storyline with her deep hope, “As we explore God’s world, may we know Jesus deeply and follow him joyfully.” As a visual representation for her young students, the teacher amassed a shoe collection, so they could “step” into the throughlines. For example, a pair of work boots were something a Community Builder would wear; a pair of bedazzled flip-flops reminded students to put on their Beauty Creator shoes; and a pair of fancy shoes signified the awesomeness of the God Worshiper. During lessons and center-time, the shoes were used by the teacher and students to remind themselves that even three- and four-year-olds have a part in the story.
When teachers begin to use storylines with their students, it changes everything. It reminds us to look up from the busyness of school and to see and acknowledge that we are all part of God’s epic story, a story that began at the beginning of time; continued in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ; and awaits its conclusion in Christ’s return. As we wait for Christ’s return, we are living in an “in-between” time—a time during which God invites us into His story.
Work Cited
Allpress, Roshan, and Andrew Shamy. The Insect and the Buffalo: How the Story of the Bible Changes Everything. Aukland, NZ: Compass Foundation, 2009.
Gayle Monsma is the executive director of the Prairie Centre for Christian Education in Edmonton, Alberta.
