Using Stories in Teacher-Student Relationship
Gamification is about stories. Stories are everywhere. Stories are everything. The question is, will we write our own or will we let someone else write them? In fact, we can use stories to define teacher-student relationship to increase student engagement and educational ownership.
I’ve been using an original system of gamification and mastery classroom strategies in my classroom for the last couple of years. A good game has a good story and that has hade me thinking about the roles of story in education. In last week’s blog, we overviewed the roles in games/stories and how they could apply in real life in the classroom. Together, we’ll explore the student and teacher role specifically.
The Story Role Options
From birth, by default, each human is born to be the protagonist of their own story. However, there are several roles that a protagonist can take in their own story: The Hero, The Victim, or The Spectator. In the classroom, the teacher also takes on one of a few role options: The Guide, The Villain, or The NPC. If teachers are aware of these naturally occurring roles, they can be used to increase student engagement. However, if the teacher is not aware, story roles will still occur in the teacher-student relationship but they may be neutral or even harmful to learning.
The (Student) Hero +The (Teacher) Guide = The Ideal Situation
In the ideal stories of teacher-student relationship, the student will be The Hero and the teacher will be The Guide. These are the optimal roles for student engagement. How can a teacher foster these roles? As the teacher, we have a certain amount of influence over the roles in the classroom. In order for these ideal roles to occur, we have to act like the role we want. The Guide knows the story is not about them. The Guide will come alongside The Hero to offer wisdom, help, and direction. The defining characteristic of The Guide is that he/she will not make decisions for The Hero. The Guide scaffolds and teaches and reasons and instructs but ultimately, The Guide will allow The Hero to make the decision that The Hero thinks is correct and The Guide will always be available to give advice if The Hero makes a mistake.
The story is not about The Guide. The story is about The Hero. Students need to be allowed to make decisions in their education and really understand and experience the positive and negative consequences of their decisions. This has the added benefit of giving students practice and opportunities to take responsibility for themselves. This has been one of the unexpected benefits of running my system of gamification and mastery classroom strategies in my classroom. Students are empowered and take responsibility for their own education because they are The Hero of their story.
The (Student) Victim + The (Teacher) Villain = A Very Bad Situation
Unfortunately, while each person defaults as the protagonist of their own story, there is no default hero setting. A protagonist can be many rolesin their story. Ultimately, students can choose to always be The Hero of their story if they come prepared to make decisions and overcome obstacles despite a teacher that does not understand story roles but learning that skill takes time and support. While students are learning this skill, there are actions we can take to guide students into The Hero role.
If the teacher does not take on The Guide roles, they could become The Villain. If the teacher in the class is The Villain, it means that the teacher is inflicting (often painfully) decisions and torture upon the student and the student will often take on The Victim role. The teacher may not see it this way but it is very easy for a student to see it like that. The big difference between The Guide and The Villain is 1. Who is making the decisions for the student, The Villain will make decisions for the student while The Guide offers advice and mentorship and 2. Are the decisions that the teacher makes going to benefit the student on his/her chosen journey?
If the teacher becomes The Villain, the student has two options. They may easily slip into the role of The Victim – giving up their right to make decisions about their own journey and begin viewing events as things that happen to them. Or the student can choose to remain The Hero – in charge of their own destiny and decisions but this means they will have to fight The Villain and will have to become educated despite the teacher and not because of the teacher.
The (Student) Spectator + The (Teacher) NPC = Not Great Either
In a video game, spectator mode becomes an option usually after The Hero has died and they want to stick around to watch the others in their party complete the battle. The Spectator checks out of reality, only viewing, nothing good or bad happens to them. They do not make decisions, consequences don’t touch them. We often say that these students have “learned helplessness.” This is a phenomena where a student appears to be unable to or refuses to do anything even if there is an obvious good choice to make. Often this occurs because the student has tried in the past and the outcome was not desirable. But there is good news! This condition is not permanent. If students learn to make decisions that result in a positive outcome, this learned helplessness can end. Most of these students need motivators other than grades to help them escape this trap.
There are two ways that a teacher can be The NPC. An NPC is a game is a non-player character. It is a programmed character that often does one of two actions. These possible actions are to either be completely useless – more like a moving part of the setting than an actual character. Or to introduce some important information or a side-quest for a short amount of time. Either way, The NPC has very little influence on the protagonist.
We Use These Stories to Define Teacher Student Relationship
As teachers, we are not just teaching our content. We are teaching life skills. Students will be much more successful in life after school if they learn to be The Hero of their own story – choosing their destination, making choices along the way, and accepting both positive and negative consequences for their decisions. The best way for us as teachers to teach students to be The Hero is to become The Guide. We frame our classroom and teaching in a way that empowers students to make their own decisions in the classroom (test window flexibility, anyone?). We are there to be a wise supportive mentor and not dictate mindless decisions in their direction. Teachers must teach the direct connection between student effort given and educational outcomes and for many students, this requires something other than grades.
My system of gamification and mastery classroom strategies has done this for students and the change in students is amazing! As The Hero of their own story, students put in more effort, are happier in class, have fewer excuses, and feel that their learning tasks have a purpose. They leave my course understanding the content and the fail list has shortened tremendously. As the Teacher Guide, I empower my students and they respond in kind.
If you are interested in getting more blog posts, tips and tricks, just subscribe to my blog to get notifications when there is a new post.
I’d love to communicate with you further about the benefits of gamification, mastery classroom, and the use of stories in the teacher-student relationship. A great place to talk to me or other like-minded educators is at my facebook group. I hope we can work together as to bring the best education possible to our students.
Empowered teachers empower students and empowered students learn.
