Narrative Teaching. Multidimensional aspects of narration

Abstract

Narrative teaching, in which the teacher communicates curriculum content in narrative form, is a central method in Waldorf education. In this article I describe how this method can stimulate inner image formation in students and by this means provide them with broader access to the material. In the article I depict narrative teaching as a multidimensional activity. I also touch on the importance of the classroom as a physical background, and highlight how the teacher can create an intimate narrator-listener environment, a room-within-a-room, through the activity of narration. In addition, I explain how the student can arrive at a direct and immediate experience of the narrated content. It is proposed in the article that such an experience of the curriculum content provides the basis for an understanding of it – an understanding that I term experience-based understanding. The article is based on my master’s thesis, in which interviews with teachers and students in Waldorf schools form the empirical ground of the study.