Open Deeper Dialogue: 3 Ways to Surface Stories that Matter and Catalyze Change
Stories are powerful windows into lived experiences and hold the potential to connect people, help them learn and heal, and open eyes to how necessary equity work is. The more a listener understands about the others around them, the more they can take thoughtful action towards supporting the greater community, especially those members who are most overlooked.
Your work to disrupt inequity in education systems can more strongly build momentum through the impact of stories. To make them most relevant, engage your school teams, students, and community members in deep reflection and active sharing. You’ll be able to better surface stories that matter and catalyze change once you have their critical input.
Here are three creative and intentional ways to open deeper dialogue among students and educators alike for meaningful storytelling.
Empathy interviews
Empathy interviews are a powerful way to surface stories about the experiences of key individuals. They are one-to-one conversations that use open-ended, story-based questions such as:
Tell me about a time when…
Tell me about the last time you…
What are your best/worst experiences with ___?
Can you share a story that would help me understand more about ___?
Identifying who to interview, what to ask, and committing to listening deeply are important aspects of successful empathy interviews. So is setting norms. Consider starting with these principles as you conduct empathy interviews:
Seek to understand their story, not confirm any preconceived notions
Ask questions that elicit stories and feelings
Ask questions once, clearly
Prompt for details using open questions (e.g. “Tell me more...” “What was that like for you?”)
Listen with intention and respect
Be human-centered and equity-focused
To bring forth stories that matter most to your community and ensure that the diverse lived experiences of the people are centered in decisions and actions for your schools, use the power of empathy interviews. They can help identify issues that need to be addressed, unpack root causes, and collect information that drives transformative outcomes for students.
You can dig deeper with this article on empathy interviews and a tip sheet with sample questions to ask students.
Black-and-white photo from the perspective of the back of a classroom where students are viewing something on a projector screen. A student has their hand up. | Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash.
Cogenerative dialogues
Cogenerative dialogues, or cogens, are a tool to improve the experiences of students by structuring a systematic way for teachers to listen to students and iterate towards a more successful, equity-focused classroom.
In these collaborative conversations, teachers design questions and set up a space to deeply hear and understand students' lived experiences. Christopher Emdin dove into this work further in his book “For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y'all, Too”, where he describes successful cogens as looking and feeling “like hip-hop cyphers” and shaped as “a small group of four students who meet with the teacher weekly.”
Almost always, cogens center one of the following:
Who students are
Who students want to be
How they learn best
How they feel in a given context
Using cogens is a deliberate and sustained practice that will allow you (and other educators like you) to better understand your students and create a more meaningful, lively, and loving learning environment where all students can thrive.
For more in-depth learning and ideas, check out Elissa Levy's article on cogens and enroll in our complimentary on-demand course “Drop Everything and Listen” available in the Partners in School Innovation Community.
Photo of a group of people in a modern white conference room looking at the front where a woman is pointing to a wall with various colored Post-It notes affixed. Every person has an open laptop in front of them. | Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash.
Collective sensemaking
This activity requires participants to gather as a group in person and can feel similar to a brainstorming workshop session.
Give each participant a set of Post-It notes and ask them to share a story about a specific experience from the past year (e.g. a story about how you learn, a story about a challenge you faced, etc).
Participants post their stories in a visible space (wall, window, white board).
Once everyone has placed their response, ask the participants to read all stories posted and cluster similar stories to see what trends emerge.
It’s possible that people will interpret the stories differently from each other, so be ready to facilitate discussion and prompt further conversation about why perspectives may differ.
You may find it interesting how many similarities there are among the group, regardless of background, and you may also find opportunities for the group to grow together over differences that reveal inequities.
Graphic with title "Key ingredients to help you go deeper with your reflection and surface stories that matter most to your community" at top and a storybook graphic in the center that has rainbow, star, and circle icons. Arrows point out from the storybook to the tips, as noted in post, and the Partners in School Innovation logo sits at bottom.
Key ingredients to go deeper with reflection and storytelling
Now you have multiple activities to open deeper dialogue among students, peer educators, and the community in order to surface meaningful stories. As you start uncovering these narratives that have the potential to catalyze change, remember to
Carve out a dedicated time for reflection and discourse
Get clear on your purpose
Honor diverse perspectives
Practice deep listening
Involve those most impacted by inequity
Embrace failure as a path to learning
Make joy central!
Continue learning with these educator resources
Get the full “Stories that Catalyze Change” resource here. Find additional tools like it in our free-to-join Community where 575+ equity-focused leaders in education are sharing resources weekly.
Ready to dive even deeper? Enroll in our complimentary course “Using Stories to Drive Change”to learn how to craft stories that become powerful tools to showcase progress, spark change, and inspire action towards education reform.
