Culture •
BY Erin Werra
School Storytelling: Strategies to Capture Your Mission, Vision, Brand, and Daily Life for Your Community Audience
BY Erin Werra
Erin Werra
Is school a spectator sport?
Even more than that, it’s a community-wide effort to invest in the next generation of students. It’s natural for neighbors to harbor a curiosity about what’s happening [to their tax dollars] in schools, but also for schools to wish to share their [life-changing, superb] stories. And that just happens to be the next great super-skill in an AI-driven world, one held dear to humanity for millennia: spinning a yarn to solidify connections between people.
So let’s explore: How can schools capture their whole story (from the mission and vision they set to the way kids show up to live it) and share it at scale for their communities?
Storytelling as a skill
The fear of public speaking is a common one, and its roots tendril into every chance we get to stand up and speak up. The first challenge is simply to believe in your story enough to know it needs to be shared (hint: it needs to be shared).Next, we are going to take a short detour to brain chemical city. Because oxytocin (the love hormone that inspires parents to connect to their offspring, among other functions) isn’t only triggered by being together. Great stories prompt our brains to synthesize oxytocin. Neural activity quintuples, and “neurons that fire together, wire together.”
Chemically, when you’re telling your school’s story well, you’re binding your entire community together.
Something else magical and uniquely human is happening in these storytelling moments. Mirror neurons, which lead people to mimic contagious behavior such as yawning, smiling, or applauding, fire just as well when we are engaged in stories as they do when we interact in person.
Storytelling strategies
Joe Lazer, who wrote the book on storytelling skills for the AI generation, shared the following acronym for crafting successful stories. Think about R-E-N-T.Relatable stories hook the listener or reader because they relate to the topic, content, setting, lesson, and so on. In school districts, this might look like telling alumni stories or leaning on tried-and-true traditions. Because schools also create a recognizable brand, sticking to those colors and logos create a feeling of belonging and relation as well.
Emotional stories connect people through feelings. While our instinct is to think of joyful emotions (first day or last day of school, milestones such as graduation, or other happy events), connecting over difficult times can be healing as well. “Shared joy is double joy, and shared sorrow is half sorrow.”
Novelty in storytelling is about being the first, the best, or the inventor. These stories work great for district achievements, plans coming to fruition, awards, superlative moments.
Tension in storytelling sounds like something school districts would prefer to post without, but consider the nail-biting final moments of athletics, the triumph of completing crucial testing windows, even the process of passing a referendum. Sometimes a little tension can be captivating after all.
Of course, there are millions of ways to tell a story. These four tactics are building blocks for telling a story that captivates audiences and increases engagement.
Who tells school stories?
Would you believe me if I said everyone in every school is always telling school stories? It’s a matter of how they’re telling the story that makes the difference for your reputation. To align your storytelling with your branding leadership, it takes top-down tips for modeling a successful social media or otherwise published post. And that starts with the district’s communication professionals.Comms pros
(Psst: For a deep dive and quotes, read Secrets to K12 Communication as told by Two Pros)Whether your district has a dedicated individual, a team, or a committee of helpers wearing the communications hat, these folks will set the stage for storytelling by making decisions about how the official district communications will look and feel.
Since schools have important teaching and learning business to attend to, branding could be scoffed off as vanity or wasting resources. Pushing back at defeatism is wise in this case, because your brand helps guide the stories coming out of your district. Readers who encounter stories published in an official capacity with solid branding quietly build their interpretation of your stories. Showing folks how to align with your brand guidelines helps your audience mentally file all your schools’ stories in the same brand. Just like mastering math facts, that automaticity shifts the reader from having to concentrate hard to associate your story with you to instead enjoying being part of the experience.
Support from the front lines
Telling stories after the fact is super cool, but what about timeliness? That’s why dedicated communication pros do not try to handle everything on their own. Instead, they recruit a team interested in storytelling (content creation) and willing to be vulnerable and open with their tales. This could be teachers, paraprofessionals, and anyone else who works with students and is able to learn (and respect) the ropes. Training and trust for content creators is a delicate balance. Create your brand guidelines and enforce them swiftly and completely. At the same time, welcome the creators who take creative risks within your guidelines. Their novel approach will increase engagement.Students
Schools cannot control students. If that were possible, life in classrooms would feel very different. Students are human, though, and the same neural structure storytellers rely on to ply their trade resides in their developing brains, too. As with any other leadership opportunity, certain students will be a stronger candidate for storytelling on official channels using brand guidelines. It might surprise you to find out who your biggest advocates are in the student population, and content creation isn’t a terrible skillset to cultivate (you don’t have to take our word for it).Why share these stories?
It’s easy to write off digital storytelling as a fad, a hustle, or a timewaster, but that might be short-sighted. District leaders are experiencing declining enrollment, facing pushback from school boards, and managing expectations of community members. It’s worth it to offer a proactive approach, to tell your story before someone else can. And when it’s done well? It’s an impact you can feel. Your school stories can fuel community pride and buy-in. Most importantly, they can showcase the tireless and valuable work of teaching, learning, and helping students grow into productive citizens. Go. Tell your story. We can’t wait to experience it with you.WHAT'S NEXT FOR YOUR EDTECH? The right combo of tools & support retains staff and serves students better. We'd love to help. Visit skyward.com/get-started to learn more.
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Erin Werra Blogger, Researcher, and Edvocate |
Erin Werra is a content writer and strategist at Skyward’s Advancing K12 blog. Her writing about K12 edtech, data, security, social-emotional learning, and leadership has appeared in THE Journal, District Administration, eSchool News, and more. She enjoys puzzling over details to make K12 edtech info accessible for all. Outside of edtech, she’s waxing poetic about motherhood, personality traits, and self-growth.
