Storytelling and S.T.E.A.M.

by Gerald Fierst

Gerald Fierst and Friends

 Having worked as an artist in education for four decades, I have been dismayed, over the last decade, at the attack that arts education has experienced within the call for standardization.  Since creativity is an individualized experience, standardization has been the excuse that schools have used to reduce the “frills” and save money. Thankfully the pendulum is starting to slowly swing back, as parents and local districts realize the failure of standardization as a true measure of a good education.  At first, the call was for instruction in STEM - Science, Engineering, Technology, Mathematics;  the rationale being to prepare our children to get jobs in the 21st Century. The United States ranks far down the scoring list in these field. Now, however, enlightened and progressive school districts are realizing that simple mechanical skill in these fields does not give an advantage in a global economy. Creativity is necessary to apply STEM to discovery and innovation. Therefore, Stem is being replaced by STEAM- Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics.

I first encountered this 21st Century thinking while working as a storyteller for the library system in Singapore. The government had brought me to work there to perform and run workshops in the schools. They explained to me the although Singapore ranks highest on standardized testing, they realized that their school system was merely preparing the students to do what is already there, and that to succeed, one must look at what is there and see what not one else has seen: to realize what can become.  During that same period, officials from the military also approached me, asking if I could teach senior officers to tell stories. They explained that their officers did not tell stories of failure and that the same mistakes were made over and over again because no one ever questioned the patterns they had been taught. The hero’s story that inevitably includes tests and failure which lead to  transformation and discovery was the skill that they wanted to practice and respect; and which they believed would inevitably lead their country to a better life and global leadership.

With Storytelling Arts, I am working on two extraordinary projects that incorporate this same educational philosophy. At Passaic Valley High School, Dr. Joanne Cardillo, the superintendent of Schools, has Paula Davidoff and me in a three-year residency, mentoring a team of teachers to use storytelling in the classroom.  She has also introduced us to the Little Falls Middle School with the hopes of starting a similar project with 5-8 grade teachers. Thus, students will eventually enter the high school with a storytelling culture incorporated into their academic sensibility. I find this a visionary ambition. The whole school district will be using storytelling as an educational tool to support abstract thinking and syncretic association. This is an ambition to build a creative community.

In Montclair, at Glenfield Middle School, the STEAM science teacher, Delia Maloy Furer, also operates a 78 seat fully equipped planetarium. Last year, I published Imagine the Moon, a book targeted for use in STEAM classrooms. Delia, puppeteer and sound designer Terry Burnett, and I have collaborated on a planetarium installation using performance, music, and the stars to teach myth, astrophysics, science, and history. We hope to offer this show to other districts as well as Montclair. The objective is to teach and also to inspire.

All of this used to be called good teaching. Great teachers are artists. Preachers, teachers, and storytellers, are all of a pattern, creating a moment of inspiration when possibility becomes connected to the practical. Stories aren’t just entertainment, or they wouldn’t have been passed down for millennia. The process of storytelling is the pathway to discovery. Genius is the Genie which the process of storytelling liberates from the imprisonment of assumption. When the A is placed into the STEM program, the formula is complete and magic happens.