Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: Teaching, Learning, and Storytelling: Lessons from Pixar's Creative Team

Educational achievement is not to make the strange seem familiar, but to make the familiar seem strange. It is seeing the wonderful that lies hidden in what we take for granted that matters (Egan, 1992).

I recently ran across this post by blogger/animator Kevin Koch on his TAG Blog which shares his notes from the Screenwriting Expo 5 that outlines Pixar’s storytelling framework.

Storytelling and narrative are essential parts of any teaching and learning endeavor. Stories and jokes, if told well, elicit our interests; they serve as a means for capturing our attention and offer the potential for improving our understanding and retention of material (Egan 1989). Stories, like language itself, serve as a “symbolic mediator” in our ability to think and learn (Hicks 1995).

In Teaching as Story Telling (1989), Kieran Egan suggests that good stories provide mental experiences that allow people to move from concrete to abstract concepts that light our imaginations. Stories and jokes are wonderfully efficient tools for learning that organize the spaces between physical and imaginary worlds. And as Denning notes, “[s]torytelling brings people together in a common perspective, and stretches everyone’s capacity to empathize with others and share experience” (Denning 2001).

Koch’s post offers the advice of professional storytellers as they share perspectives on their craft that offer equally important advice for educators. After each quote, I’ve attempted to draw parallels to teaching and learning.

Storytelling is no different from gossip -- we want to know what happens. The joke or story, and the way it's told, are important . . . but we want to know what happens. And the payoff should be unexpected and satisfying. And, more importantly for the writer, one should know that punch line as one is writing.

In a teaching and learning environment, the teacher is essentially serving as the master storyteller. He or she prepares lessons and knows where the “punch lines” are. Therefore timing is crucial as one rolls out data and information that moves students from the concrete to the abstract (then back to the concrete). Talking about adverbs or algae is different from telling a story about adverbs and algae. Which would you suppose would be more engaging? [Note: While this particular interpretation places the teacher center stage, there is no reason this role cannot be switched with learners in the class.]


Why Pixar creates such great stories:

• -- No politics
  
  
• -- No studio execs
  
  
• -- It's a director-driven studio, with a stable "brain trust" for oversight
  
  
• -- Only in-house original ideas are used, with a 1:1 ratio between developed ideas and films made
  
  
• -- It's fairyland”

Here’s how I interpret the previous ideas:

No politics—
Think of a classroom as a place to look at concepts from multiple “objective/subjective” lens’. In other words, check you own political views at the door and try to approach ideas and concepts in an unassuming fashion. You’re role is to serve as a guide; you point out the facts, the theories, the interpretations, but you never judge these things. You allow your students to come to their own conclusions.

No studio execs—
This means an administrator’s job is to support you as an educator, not micromanage your particular processes or your curriculum.

Director-driven studio, with a stable brain trust—
Teacher’s are essentially director’s of the teaching and learning environment. They can choose to operate as dictators, coaches, hands-free, or somewhere in between. The bottom line is, educators must decide for themselves how they want to “run the show.” The brain trust is the educators’ community of practice, the other educators with whom they negotiate the teaching and learning enterprise. The tighter this community is greatly influences how the individual educator is able to perform.

Only in-house original ideas are used—
Curriculum should be developed based on the needs of the learners, not dictated by state or district standards.

Fairyland—
Schools and classrooms can be magical places; they possess certain qualities that can enlighten or destroy a student’s sense of self and their imagination. This is also true of the students’, the administrators’, and the community’s affect/effect on educators. As such, schools contain tremendous powers.

It's about audience participation -- that a good storyteller makes the viewer connect the dots and form a conclusion. This was a recurring theme, that the audience has an unconscious desire to work for their entertainment.

Teaching and learning is also about participation; it’s about showing learners how to connect the dots. And for me, learning has always been a form of entertainment, i.e., a means of holding my attention. (Heck, I’m 40 years old and still in school! I guess some people never learn….)

Kevin’s notes also cover advice for screen writers – another role that educators play as they script lessons for a variety of audiences:

Dare to be different, and to do things your own way, without relying on formulas.

I believe this quote speaks for itself.

A key to a great story is to like your main character.

I read this to mean like what you do and be able to empathize with your students.

Unity of Opposites -- characters need clear goals that directly oppose each other. [Toy Story’s] Woody's selfish goal, to get back in Andy's good graces, directly opposed Buzz's goal.

In storytelling, it’s often helpful to set up dichotomies to illustrate similarities and differences. Similarly in teaching and learning, sometimes it is useful to compare black to white as long as you also recognize and note that most concepts exist on a spectrum with many shades in between.

Writing is rewriting -- the story will emerge as one rewrites, and the first draft is always nothing more than a starting point. Therefore, "be wrong as fast as you can" -- blast out that first draft, then dig into the rewriting and do the real work.

This quote reminds me of the notion that “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Ideally teaching and learning are fluid activities, not linear ones. The classroom should be a dynamic interplay between educators, students, texts, movies, dialog, facts, opinions, stories, all shaping and changing the way we think and feel about the world around us. Thus, the real work of an educator is in the re-thinking, the re-visioning, of lessons to provide maximum impact.

Building a scene -- you need to have something to say, something that gives the scene purpose. This is not necessarily a message, but a truth (which you can debate in the story). The example here was the scene of [Toy Story’s] Woody in the crate at Sid's house. He begins by giving a phoney pep talk to Buzz, but as the scene unfolds he reveals the truth that he is deeply insecure. This unfolding truth is what powers that sequence.

I love this quote. The teaching and learning environment is a scene. Lesson plans give the scene purpose, and that purpose aims towards uncovering fundamental truths. This “unfolding truth” powers the entire teaching and learning enterprise.

Key Image -- a key image should epitomize the core of the story (this is similar to what I've read from Stanley Kubrick). This image embodies key elements of theme and story and helps keep the storytelling on track. As examples, he showed the image of Woody being knocked off the bed for Buzz, of Sully holding Boo's hand in a doorway, of the last vulnerable egg in Finding Nemo. And he noted that A Bug's Life didn't have such an image, causing him to struggle with finding the heart and a core of the story.

I relate the notion of a key image to the pillars that sustain a course. What are the pillars, the key images that support your lessons and designs? What key messages or ideas do you desire your students to take away with them? What do you want your students to remember as they encounter new situations?


The ideas I have shared here are nothing new to many educators. I found reading them from the perspective of animators and screenwriters who study the art of story telling to be refreshing and invigorating.

Plato recognized the educative value of telling a good story (see Meno). As do the hundreds of writers and comedians that have existed throughout history (and what is history?). Jokes and stories reflect “social attitudes” and can provide “a vehicle through which people can voice feelings for which there is no socially acceptable or easily accessible outlet” (Winick 1976). Comprehending a story or a joke “requires the capacity to meet its cognitive demands and contributes to the pleasure it provides” (Winick 1976).

As educators, I believe stories and jokes serve as a helpful framework to create and weave lessons upon. Filmmaker Francois Truffaut is reported to have said, “Filmmaking is the art of leading the thoughts and connotations of the audience.” Educators face a similar situation as they guide students through curricula. For some it comes naturally. For others, it’s a matter of time and practice. And still for some, it never works.

So, heard any good stories lately? If so, please pass them along. Maybe we can learn something from them.


References:

Denning, S. (2001). The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations. Boston: Butterworth Heinemann.

Egan, K.  (1989).  Teaching as story telling. Chicago:  University of Chicago.

Egan, K.  (1992).  Imagination in teaching and learning. Chicago:  University of Chicago.

Hicks, D. (1995). Discourse, learning, and teaching. Review of Research in Education, 21 (1995-1996), pp. 49-95. Retrieved 02 November 2006 from http://www.jstor.org/view/0091732x/ap040022/04a00030/0?citat

Winick, C. (1976). The social contexts of humor. Journal of Communication, 26(3): 124-128. Retrieved 02 November 2006 from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1976.tb0191