Gayle Ross – How she uses storytelling as a teaching tool

For the past 27 years, storytelling has been a way of life for Native American Gayle Ross, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma City. As a Cherokee, and direct descendant of John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokee during the American Civil War era, Ross feels strongly that storytelling is the most powerful tool in teaching both adults and children and should infiltrate all levels of the Jamaican education system.

She visited Jamaica recently and her four-day visit, organised by the United States Embassy, was in celebration of Native American History month being celebrated in the US and International Education week celebrated here in Jamaica.

all woman chatted with Ross and got her views on storytelling as a teaching tool.

DHW: How do you encourage storytelling as a teaching tool?

GR: The best way we learn is through laughter and entertainment. When our hearts, our heads and our spirits are all engaged at the same time, that to me is real education. Some of the most important works that I do is trying to encourage and teach other educators; teachers, librarians and daycare workers to learn and tell stories, to use that art form effectively in their work with young people.

Workshops are an important part of my work.

And I will continue to teach people, because everybody is a storyteller, really! Some people are natural at it, but anybody can master the art form. And if you work with young people, I think you have a responsibility to them. Storytelling is such an effective, important experience for young people.

DHW: Where are some of the areas in which storytelling can be used?

GR: Just as you would graduate from college and be educated on how to teach, I think you are really not educated unless you are educated in the art of telling stories. You can use storytelling to teach math, science, history, social studies, geography – there isn’t any curriculum that cannot be enhanced by the use of telling a story.

DHW: What are some benefits of storytelling?

GR: The most important thing is that it develops the imagination.

Storytelling is an interactive thing. It engages the children’s mind in a much more powerful way than a lecture. It helps children to grow creatively, it stretches their imagination and they are better able to remember what they are taught if a story is used as an example. Einstein said ‘true genius is imagination’.

DHW: What are some of the routes you have taken in educating through this medium?

GR: I have written five children’s books, two collections and three picture books. They are traditional stories. Just as Jamaican people tell stories about Anancy, we tell stories about rabbits, and so one book is a collection of all rabbit stories. And the other is a collection of young woman’s right of passage stories. It’s called The Girl Who Marries The Moon. It is 16 different stories from 16 different tribes, and they are especially for young women.

DHW: Why did you choose storytelling as a way of life?

GR: Well, I think it was a hobby that got out of hand. I come from a people and a family with storytelling as a strong tradition. My ancestor was a very respected principal chief of the Cherokee people. From the time that I was little, my grandmother’s stories about my ancestor’s and Cherokee history, was the foundation of my identity as a Cherokee person, and I have always loved stories. From the time that I was little, I started learning and telling stories.

The storytelling that I do is routed in a very ancient tradition. And I participate in that tradition and that heritage among Cherokee people. When I am being a traditional storyteller, it means I’m with Cherokee people in Oklahoma telling stories to kids in the tribal school or kids out of the Heritage Centre. But when I am out in the larger world like this, I am taking an ancient tradition and creating a performing art. For example, there is a difference between the kind of performing I did at your library here, and the way I would tell stories among Cherokee people, even among other Indian people.

DHW: Where do you plan to go from here with storytelling?

GR: I’m working on my next writing project, not a picture book for little kids but a novel for older readers – teenagers, on what happened to our people during the American Civil War.

My great great grandmother sat with my grandmother and told her stories from the Civil War. My great grandmother Fannie Ross, wrote it down and so I have her writings and I will be using that as a starting place, along with a lot of meticulous research, in putting out this book.

What a lot of people are not aware of is that the Civil War had a great impact not only on the American people but on the Indian people as well, so that is what I will be writing on next. I’m also going to continue teaching on how to perform.