Narrative Pedagogy
Learning and Narrative Pedagogy
Jennie attended the junior school where her mother was the deputy head. She put a lot of effort to help Jennie prepare for the Eleven Plus exams. Unfortunately, Jennie didn’t pass and said that she felt sick on the exam days out of nervousness and pressure. So this was another occasion where she felt to have failed ‘hopelessly’. Jennie lost the opportunity to go to a grammar school, and with it any hope of academic success then and since.
Parallel to the academic failure stories, was Jennie’s other storyline where she was a popular girl amongst her contemporaries and had solid friendships with her peers. Throughout the conversation, Jennie appears to recognise that she is ‘naturally very good with people’, and that she is able to get on well with anyone, children, adults and people from all works of life. She was the only one in the family who could relate to the youngest schizophrenic child. Jennie still visits him regularly as an adult and takes good care of him.
Yet, failing academically remained to be a strong thread in Jennie’s narrative. She constantly refers to it. This thread and the one about her interest in human wellbeing and her ability to relate to people easily formed two important contexts for building up her main story - a story of being a nurse and of being caring.
Not having any confidence in doing well academically, as Jennie puts it, she left school at the age of sixteen with five GCSEs including one in English, her favourite subject at school. She spent a couple of years’ travelling while working in pubs and cafes to support herself. After this break, she decided to train as a nurse, and she has been working as a nurse ever since. When Scherto asked why she trained in nursing, Jennie’s initial response was that nursing didn’t require any academic work as it is more hands-on.
Over the years, Jennie has tried really hard to improve her own skills and expand her knowledge as a nursing professional. She is always eager to learn new things and is an avid reader. Jennie now has acquired senior nursing qualification; she is an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) therapist, a qualified counsellor, and hypnotherapist. She also practises yoga and meditation and intends to take a spiritual approach to helping the elderly, in particular those who are terminally ill. In her work, Jennie does her best to help them and their family prepare for the journey leading to death and help the surviving relatives learn to live through their grief.
