Well spoken: storytelling and narratives conference report
Hazel Williamson Bursary - Conference Report
Well spoken: storytelling and narrative in healthcare, Grasmere, 16-17 June 2007
Kathleen Irvine
I was delighted to see my old school friend, we'll call him Roddy, arrive with the new intake of student nurses last year. A gentle soul, he hadn't been the most academic of our class or indeed of his own family but he had an innate common sense that we might today call emotional intelligence. His father was the local solicitor and a well-respected councillor and his brother a high-flyer destined for a career with the United Nations but Roddy had other strengths: he was an excellent sportsman and had a kind, caring nature. What I remember most about him was his amazing ability as a listener. Without saying anything much he could have you sharing your frustrations and woes with him and as you bent Roddy's tolerant ear, you would find that somehow you had resolved your problems for yourself. You'd part company with his knowing smile assuring you it would all be okay.
I knew as soon as I saw Roddy with the new intake that he would make a wonderful nurse. His heart was really in it. He was on Campus early every morning and spent long hours in the library. But I could see he was also very anxious. He would get into a flap when the book he wanted was out on loan, he fretted during the sessions in the computer labs, saying over and over that he was too old and wasn't any good with computers.
Then one morning a few weeks into the semester, my library assistant colleague came running into my office, “It's Roddy,” she said, “He's leaving!” I ran out and pleaded with him, telling him not to be hasty, that all this learning business wasn't as difficult as he thought, that he could do it, that everyone would help him to succeed. But Roddy's mind was made up; he was leaving.
I felt a personal sense of failure. Roddy wasn't the first and he wouldn't be the last student who left before they had given themselves a proper chance to learn how to learn. It had always bothered me that we were not doing enough to support such students, but Roddy's leaving really brought it home to me and made me determined to find some way of supporting students in those first, anxious weeks when their confidence is low.
Reflecting on this problem, it seemed to me that at its core was students' failure to understand that they needed to learn how to learn and further, to understand that that they all needed to do this; that even the most able, most confident students go through a period of intense anxiety at this time. Although as professionals we can help students become better learners - show them how to make better use of the catalogue, to take better notes or write more structured essays - the key message needs to come from their peers: “I felt like this and I survived.” That is, they need to be given a platform for sharing their stories of learning to learn.
My idea was to set up a peer support scheme where more senior students offer support to new students and encourage them to seek appropriate help from librarians, learning support staff, student counsellors and teaching fellows. It seemed to me that storytelling would be the ideal medium for students to share their experience of learning to learn and that if I could set up a storytelling group this might be a suitable forum for such learning to take place.
There is a wealth of research on the value of storytelling in health care (1) This suggests there are epistemological or pedagogical reasons for using storytelling as a tool for understanding patient needs. In particular, the notion of living through the patient's experience of illness and treatment via listening to his stories gives healthcare professionals insight into not only that experience but the wider social and cultural context of that experience (2) I believe librarians have much to learn from this approach which would allow us deeper insight and understanding of our users' needs and the barriers they face while at the same time allowing us to break down some of those barriers (notably library anxiety) by virtue of this engagement.
To this end I applied for a place at a conference entitled Well spoken: storytelling and narrative in healthcare and was awarded the Hazel Williamson Bursary to enable me to attend.
This two day collaborative workshop was developed by the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan) and the Northern Centre for Storytelling and gathered together storytellers with researchers and practitioners from the field of health research. The aim was to explore the interface between storytelling, research and practice and to provide a forum for greater understanding of each others approaches, skills and praxis and to identify areas for future collaborative working in practice and research.
The conference opened with a performance by Taffy Thomas, Artistic Director of the Northern Centre for Storytelling of Take these chains from my heart, the story of his cerebrovascular accident (or as his young son described it, 'being stroked') told through story and song. This most human telling gave incredible insight into Taffy's experience that was an edifying introduction to the conference for an audience more used to dry, scientific descriptions of illness and recovery.
Prof. Arthur Frank, Department of Sociology, University of Calgary looked at how storytelling could be used as a tool for health care research. He maintained that stories are not optional in health care settings as they are central to human life. According to Frank, we think about our lives in stories, starting off with the belief that we will always be healthy, live until we are eighty and die quietly in our sleep. When we become seriously ill or disabled we have to re-write that story in order to cope and move on. Having someone listen to that story is in itself healing. Each listener will hear something different in a story as he identifies with different aspects of the narrative. This struck a chord with me thinking of my struggling learners listening to stories from their peers.
Peter Chand a storyteller from Wolverhampton told of his experiences of gathering stories from communities in India and the UK. The key messages for researchers were:
· ask the right questions
· be prepared to adapt your approach in a new situation
· question your assumptions
That advice also holds true for teachers and librarians as well as researchers.
Prof. Bernie Carter from Uclan told of her experience of gathering children's stories of chronic illness both by face to face interviews and from Internet bulletin boards. I have not seen the latter method used in a LIS context, but it must have merit as a tool for examining our profession.
In his second presentation, Arthur Frank considered what makes a research question interesting and looked at different approaches to analysis. We feel a commonality with those telling their stories and have a responsibility to honour those stories in our analysis, he maintains. Just as text has sub-text so experience has sub-experience and it is the role of the researcher to look for that, Frank attests.
He touched briefly on narrative therapy which does not look for psychopathology but allows people to create stories of escape, allowing them to find ways to 'hold their own'.
As it is my hope to help students hold their own as learners, it strengthened my belief in storytelling as a potential medium for achieving this.
Prof. Mike Wilson from University of Glamorgan spoke on how stories reveal how tellers see themselves and the world. He examined the importance of how a teller tells his story and how meaning is decoded through the interaction of performer and audience. Stories reveal our multiple identities and how we see ourselves both in the process of telling and in their content.
He showed us examples of 'digital storytelling' from BBC Wales' Capture Wales series (3)where individuals from communities tell their personal stories through words supported by images such as family photographs. Rather like Taffy Thomas' initial performance this was revelatory in its impact.
So where has this taken me?
It has been suggested that storytelling can be effectively applied to nearly any subject. (4)(5)
The conference stimulated many ideas in my mind and also raised many questions. How could a storytelling group be set up? Would students be willing to attend and participate in such a group? How would a storytelling group keep to my agenda? Would it matter if it did not? As I, as a librarian, am part of the problem - the literature shows that library users are terrified of us! (6) - would it be appropriate for me to participate in the group? Would we be able to timetable group meetings so different year groups could meet at the same time? Were there alternative ways of using storytelling that did not involve a face to face group?
Eventually, after a month of deliberating, the solution came to me. The images from the BBC's Capture Wales (3) digital stories were so strong that they kept coming back to me and I realised this model of capturing students' stories would be very powerful and would overcome many of the difficulties I could see arising from the alternative of a storytelling group.
It is my intention to get a group of interested students to make a 'digital story' (see ECDUCAUSE, 2007)(7) of their experience of learning to learn that could be made available to new students as part of their induction.
I see several advantages in this approach:
· the participants enhance their information literacy and proficiency with multimedia applications
· students share their beliefs, values and experiences and are empowered to express themselves in their own words, with their own voices
· the agenda is set by me but I am able to stay on the side lines being available to offer technical expertise and advice when required (though they may well seek this elsewhere) but otherwise I am out of the picture
· the task of constructing a narrative and communicating it effectively requires students to think carefully about the topic and the audience's perspective
· Young people are increasingly media-savvy, using YouTube, MySpace and Facebook for social interaction, so would be likely to be receptive to this approach
I will be selling my idea to a group of second year students next month. I'll let you know how it goes. Watch this space! And what became of Roddy? Well, the good news is he's coming back next session to give it another go. This time I am determined that we will not fail him.
References
1. Greco J. Stories of executive development: an isotonic solution.. J Organizational Change 1996;9(5):43-74.
2. Frank AW. The standpoint of a storyteller. Qual.Health Res. 2000;10(3):354-365.
3. BBC. Capture Wales: digital storytelling 2007; Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/capturewales/. Accessed August 08, 2007.
4. Rosen A. And none of it was nonsense : the power of storytelling in school. London: Heinemann; 1988.
5. Greenhalgh T. Storytelling should be targeted where it is known to have greatest added value. Med.Educ. 2001 Sep;35(9):818-819.
6. Cleveland A. Library anxiety: a decade of empirical research. Library Review 2004;53(3):177-185.
7. EDUCAUSE. 7 things you should know about digital storytelling. 2007; Available at: http://connect.educause.edu/library/abstract/7ThingsYouShouldKnow/39398. Accessed August 07, 2007.
Kathleen Irvine
Subject Librarian
Highland Health Sciences Library, Centre for Health Science
Old Perth Road
INVERNESS, IV2 3JH
(01463) 255608