Stories are the inspired fields of our brains. Elie Wiesel once commented, God made man because He loves stories. The outstanding virtue of stories is that they are archetypical in nature and inspire, when shared, a relational partnership in teaching and in learning. Relish the story! Humans have been referred to as storytelling machines. Why? Because of our profound hunger for narrative. It is instinctive. And because, even when delivered in plain language, stories are crammed full of undercurrents and subtle nuances. Our lives are filled and revealed in stories. Their allure resides in their transcendent quality transcending person, place, culture, ideologies, and academic disciplines. Although cousins of case studies, critical incidents, and role playing, stories are a fresh and unique breed. They draw us out, lead us beyond ourselves and our immediate situation in special ways. Stories rise above a totally logical and straightforward approach to learning and shuttle back and forth between facts and feelings. They echo Schons (1983) assertion that stories trigger reflection in a context that presents material differently. We think in terms of stories. New events and experiences are cast in stories that are linked to previously understood stories and experiences. Knowing them, finding them, reflecting on and reconsidering them massaging them, as it were help students to understand and operate in the world of professional practice. Students easily apprehend their meaning and adapt them to their own purposes, eventually capturing or inventing their own. Our ability to tell stories in novel ways is a hallmark of wisdom, maturity, and careful judgment. Stories from our own practice, from students, even from folklore, movies, and mythology can be usefully employed to build motivation in learning environments. Verisimilitude is the stuff of stories. They cannot be reduced to facts. Stories tell so much more. Words turn into pictures, providing a kaleidoscope of human nature the ordinary and the extraordinary about fallibility, about changing the human condition. Stories are a triumph of ordinary and extraordinary humanity and fallibility. What is a story? Bruner (1996) deems a story as a mode of thinking, a means of organizing experience and knowledge.
The Use of Self: The Essence of Professional Education
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