I love to tell stories in my class. What sold me on history as a student was all the fascinating stories about real people and their real lives. As a teacher, I love to hook my students with a story. More than that, I love to leave them with a cliffhanger at the bell. There's nothing like sharing the tale of Marie Antoinette climbing the scaffold with the crowds there to celebrate her death and as she reaches the top of the steps..... Oh, there's the bell! I love it when the students just want to stay one more minute to hear the next thing. Some stories might last 5 minutes. Some great ones are just 1 or 2. But they engage the students. I like to incorporate their senses...what can they imagine for sight, sound, smell in this story. If you want to make them care about the people in the story, put them into story. Create the picture in their minds. And the best part? Send them out to find their own stories! Make history real and tangible for them. Remind them that the people we are studying were the same as us...just in different clothes and situations. Have students think about their reactions to a particular situation or conversation. How would they handle the event?
Some of my favorite stories to share with students are ones that I remember vividly from my own days as a student. My Social Studies teacher, Mr. Campbell, also loved to tell stories and I was fascinated by his tales. My favorite is THE rat story from the WWI trenches, followed by one from my own family history in the lesser known 1940 naval evacuation of the British troops from the west coast of France in St. Nazaire and my grandmother's cousin who was a British soldier on board the Lancastria. The lives of the people trying to escape the oncoming German army suddenly become real when there is someone to identify with. As I tell the story of cousin Fred standing on the deck of the sinking ship madly firing his Bren gun at Luftwaffe planes that were flying overhead, my students are leaning in, rapt with attention. Always, they want to know...did Fred survive? How did he possibly survive the flames, the oil slick and the rapidly sinking ship? WHAT HAPPENED TO FRED???? (He survived and only passed away last year, at age 97).
Connecting with my family stories also has the benefit of spurring students to share at home the stories which often results in the discovery of their own family stories. I've had students bring in their great-grandfather's war diaries to share parts of those with us, stories of trans-Atlantic voyages for eager new immigrants, or family stories of near escapes from brutal regimes. Stories are a powerful way of connecting us together and engaging us with the content we study. The facts become more than just facts...they are the influence upon people and the choices they had to make.
Make history real and tell the stories of people's lives...famous and not so famous.
Some of my favorite stories:
The Rat Story.
One night I was awakened by stiff whiskers on my face. I opened my eyes to see a large rat scanning me gravely. He backed off a trifle as I looked at him and pushed himself into the palm of my hand. The feel of his feet was revolting and I pitched the thing from me. My revulsion lent strength to the movement. The rat rose in an arc and descended, head down, straight into Thornton’s open mouth. Its weight drove it in and Thornton’s jaws closed convulsively. For a heartbeat there was a picture of the rat’s hind legs, kicking wildly, then Thornton put a hand each side of the rat and threw it across the barn. He sat up and spat furiously, giving me a tug. I was almost strangling myself with mirth but pretended to be stupid. “What’s up?” I asked.
“A rat...sfut...jumped...sfut...into my….sfut….mouth!”
“You’re crazy,” I said. “They wouldn’t.”
“But I’m...sfut...telling you they...sfut...did.”
Soon he had everyone awake and was describing, with much spitting, how the horrible thing had jumped into his mouth. All hands asked questions and shook with laughter.
Source: W. R. Bird, Ghosts Have Warm Hands, pp. 120-121
Will Bird served with the 42nd Battalion of the Black Watch of Canada in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces during WWI. He served in both France and Belgium.
I tell this story as part of a series meant to shatter the mythology of war as being romantic and glorious. I talk also about lice, gas attacks, trenchfoot, etc.
Speaking of Trenchfoot…
“The second episode I would remember was the issuing of whale oil to rub on our feet. It came in jugs and was colder than ice. It would prevent trench feet. Orders were that every man should rub in on his feet once in twenty-four hours while we were in those winter trenches. I did so religiously and never had the least trouble. But we had a big chap who had blustered much until we were within sound of the guns. Then he had tried in every way to get from the front, going on sick parade, complaining of blindness, even trying to wound himself slightly. He had been caught in the act and warned of what his punishment would be, so he never used the wail oil, although the sergeant who made the nightly check was told he did. The result was that after two days his feet started to swell. It was learned later he had purposefully walked through wet places and the cold had penetrated. His feet became so bad he could not walk and finally he had to be taken out on a stretcher. The last we heard of him was from a lad who had been to see him in hospital in England. Both feet were huge blobs of mis-shapen flesh. he could only move around on crutches and his feet would never be normal again.”
W. R. Bird, Ghosts have Warm Hands, pp 37-38