STORYTELLING

In many ancient cultures, there was no literacy nor even a written language. In
such cultures, the story-teller fulfilled a crucial role, informing the public by giving the
news, announcing the major events, providing the information the king or royal family
wanted transmitted. Some story-tellers also filled a religious function, explaining the
religion's basic beliefs through relating the adventures of the gods or goddesses.
Story-tellers were in some way like today's mass media: they could entertain, they
could inform, they could explain, they could transmit the culture's myths and
treasured stories from one generation to the next. And because they did these things
in an engaging and interesting manner, people paid attention and learned. Even
today, in a culture that does have literacy, people are affected differently when they
read a story, as opposed to when the story is read to them or acted out by a story-
teller. Thus, the person who can tell the stories (whether on stage, as a TV or radio
personality, or even in the classroom) is educating a new generation while
maintaining continuity with past generations. Every culture has its stories-- and
whether they are myths (George Washington may not have actually chopped down a
cherry tree, but it was the moral about the importance of honesty that the story-teller
conveyed) or whether they are based on fact (actors who bring to life famous people
from the past, like Shakespeare or Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain, and make them
more understandable to the modern audience), good story-tellers can make their
audience feel more connected to history. They also help the audience to feel closer
to their cultural heritage.
Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440.The first radio transmissions
were in the early 1900s. The television became commercially available less than a
century ago. The Internet is not even old enough to have a drink (legally; at least not
in the United States). Facebook and Twitter are just out of diapers, and the next big
marketing tool is still in the womb or possibly just a twinkle in its creator’s eye. 
When most people think about marketing, these are the tools they think of: print,
radio, TV and the web. None of these, however, are ingrained in us as much as
storytelling. We’ve been telling stories for thousands of years, but we don’t have to
go back that far to understand storytelling’s powerful effect on our hearts and minds.
Go back only as far as your childhood, when you begged your parents to read your
favorite story—the one you already knew by heart—just one more time. Why did you
do that? Why was it so important to hear that story?
Stories and the art of storytelling play a major role in content marketing today. Not all
brands realize the importance of unearthing their core story and learning to tell
stories in ways that endear new fans and motivate advocates. In case you need
even more reason to learn to weave an effective narrative throughout your marketing
efforts, here are seven reasons storytelling is important for branded content.
If you’re reading in RSS and can’t see the images, please click through to reveal the
reasons. We’ve also turned this post into a SlideShare presentation!
 1.

Experiences leave lasting

impressions. They go far deeper than
facts, figures or features. And by
creating a story-based experience,
you cause your audiences to walk
away with an impression of your
brand that doesn’t rest on the
precarious edges of their minds but
sits deep in their hearts.

2.
Chances are that if you have
an innovative or unique offering, it’s
not going to be innovative and/or
unique very long. Any amount of
success will generate copycats.
But what they can’t copy is who
you are. What’s your origin story?
Where did your brand come from,
and how has that shaped your
product or service? When your
facts, figures and features are in
line, your story can set you apart from the competition. 

3.
 If it weren’t for stories, your brand wouldn’t mean much to your audience. It’s
those stories that create a real connection. Facebook now dedicates an entire site to
stories. Fans can post stories about their individual and collective experiences.
(Facebook even flew a number of these storytellers to its headquarters to surprise a
room full of Facebook employees, creating a rock-solid connection between the work
they were doing and the difference they’re making in the lives of their users.) Tumblr
and Twitter have done something similar with Storyboard and @twitterstories,
respectively.

4.

There’s nothing more

mind numbing than hearing or
reading a bunch of facts and
figures. And anyone can recite
numbers to an audience. A true
marketer will weave a story
around the information to create
meaning for the audience. 
“Having the data is not
enough. I have to show it in ways
people both enjoy and
understand,” Hans Rosling said. Rosling is well known for the ways he has spun
compelling stories around massive data sets. What would otherwise be mundane
statistics becomes a gripping narrative with valleys and peaks that keeps interest
piqued throughout. Strong visual elements and impassioned narrative elevate his
presentations. Take a look at the video below to see what I mean. 

5.
Stories are uniquely able to move
people’s hearts, minds, feet and
wallets in the storyteller’s intended
direction. Nobody was better at this
than Steve Jobs, who turned sales
presentations into coveted
experiences. His masterful
storytelling motivated fans to rave
about the products, creating
valuable earned media. The photo above is the line to get into one of his keynote
addresses. 

6.

When was the last time a

friend of yours called you up to tell
you the great features of this new
product they were interested in? Or
how they scored a coupon? Probably
not recently. But we share stories
every day. This has only been
amplified by social media, through
which we are able to share with the
click of a button. When a story
resonates—moves people
emotionally—they retell it many times
over, ultimately amplifying the
message.

7.

When we know we’re being

marketed to, we close our ears. We
don’t have 30 seconds to be
interrupted. But when we’re told a
story, miraculously, we have 30
minutes to listen. Our arms unfold and we lean forward, excited to hear what comes
next.  

But besides stating the type of geographical area concerned, the terms 'urban' and 'urban
schooling' also imply a number of social concerns. Urban neighbourhoods have come to be
understood, certainly as ones which have a high proportion of ethnic minorities, often as ones
where poverty and disadvantage can be found, and ones where tension and inequalities are rife.
It can be seen, therefore, that a link has been made in popular public understanding, between
neighbourhoods in which there are many Black/Asian/Hispanic residents, and neighbourhoods
where there is poverty, disadvantage and tension. Bash et al write that urban schools reflect
inequalities and tensions, because in the city the density of population and of numerous different
communities make clearly visible these issues. (Bash et al:1985:49-50) Their definition of urban
schools takes it as inevitable that they would be seen in this way. Walker, on the other hand,
challenges the term:

The definitional looseness with which the term urban education is used conjures up images of
dysfunctional educational and social institutions, acute levels of poverty, and high degrees of
underachievement. The fact that some urban communities do exhibit these characteristics does
not mean that education in all urban contexts must take place within dysfunctional institutions or
be characterized by high levels of underachievement. (Walker:2003:5)

For the purposes of this essay, I consider it important that I discuss effective pedegogies for
educating ethnic-minority children in Britain, and for educating those from working class
backgrounds, and also that I discuss the issue of schools which are deemed to be 'failing.'
However, I do not wish to assume that all of these factors occur in conjunction with one another.
Further, as stated urban areas are ones in which numerous communities exist alongside one
another. Urban schools provide education for a large number of white and middle class children,
and also a good number of extremely bright ones - and so any pedagogical design should
hesitate to accept the typical stereotype of children who attend urban schools as being none-
white, and/or poor, and/or unintelligent. It is my view that the failing of past and current
pedagogies have often been that they fail to acknowledge diversity. And so I will argue that
effective pedagogies would be ones which use the diversity of children within a school to lead the
design of a curriculum, rather than to try and force one set curriculum in spite of the students'
diversity. Before I go on to discuss methods of teaching and educating which are at work today, I
would like to outline some history of state-provided schooling.

In 1870, Forster's Education Act made school compulsory in Britain, for all children between the
ages of 5 and 13. Although it was a legal requirement that all children attend, though, schooling
was not provided free of charge. Evidently, poor families were disadvantaged by this, and
although the Act ensured that children were educated after a fashion, it did little to narrow the
gap between the calibre of educations received by rich and poor. Since the 17th Century, the
church had been the only provider of formal education for poor children.

Church-schooling had been pioneered in London, where the population was densest and so the
need for education was highly visible. At this time, critics of the move to educate the poor argued
that schooling was wasted on the working class. Children from poor families, the critics said,
must get used to hard work and having to pay their own way. Even champions of schooling for
poor children, seemed to be preoccupied with its advantages for the upper classes. Rather than
being concerned with giving poor children a more equal chance in life, education was seen as a
way of maintaining social control over the poor, and to ensure that poor children adhered to the
desired social norms. (Bash et al:1985:14)
Parliamentary enquiries in the mid 1800s, indicated that the poor did want their children to be
educated, and that as Britain's cities grew and grew, the churches simply could not cope with the
number of children to be schooled. And so, as the result of Acts like Forster's, the government
did become more active in ensuring all young people went to school. However, in Bash et al's
opinions, the system of schooling, by which the type of schools attended and the amount of
education received depended on what the parents could afford, only perpetuated a culture in
which working class children and middle/upper class children were poles apart. The authors state
that, in their view, the British schools of the 1900s simply taught: