A Teacher of Tales

A Teacher of Tales

Imagine a classroom where students sit on sofas, easy chairs or plump pillows on the floor. A classroom with a refrigerator stocked with cheesecake, movie poster-clad walls, a gumball dispenser and a karaoke machine.

“Walk into my classroom, and it’s a whole new place,” says Kevin Cordi, who has taught storytelling at Hanford High School in Hanford, Calif., (pop. 41,686) since 1993. Cordi, a dark-haired, dimple-chinned Midwesterner, is considered the nation’s first full-time high school storytelling teacher, and thanks to his efforts, he’s not the only one.

How the 36-year-old became a storytelling teacher is a tale in itself. In 1991, he started teaching literature at Brunswick High School in Ohio, but says he “wasn’t getting through” to the students. That is, until he noticed something. “Every time I would say, ‘That reminds me of a story,’ students would perk up and listen.” At that point, he asked students to get involved. He made them rewrite The Canterbury Tales into The Brunswick Tales and had students re-enact Shakespearean love sonnets as if they were speaking to their own friends.

Cordi’s own love of storytelling began with his family. Although he grew up in Uniontown, Ohio (pop. 2,802), his mother’s stories frequently took him back to her West Virginia homeland in the Appalachian Mountains.

“We visited West Virginia every day in the living room,” Cordi recalls.

He also learned a lot by working as a door-to-door salesman through much of his teens. “I learned about people, about personalities,” he says. At the time, school didn’t hold his interest, and it wasn’t until college that he finally fell in love with learning.

Now Cordi, who serves as co-chair of the Youth Storytelling Special Interest Group of the National Storytelling Network, wants that to happen sooner for his own students. That desire explains some of the unusual educational accoutrements around his classroom. “Making learning fun—that’s a mandatory assignment,” Cordi says.

Making learning a two-way street is also part of his teaching equation. “Often teachers see their job to impart knowledge. I see it as a sharing exchange,” he says. “Every time a student tells a story, they are empowered to listen to their own words. If you don’t underestimate kids, you’ll be amazed at the wonder that they can work when story is the vehicle upon which to do so.

“The only rule that I have is no one is made to feel uncomfortable at any time,” he says.

Cordi also runs the Voices of Illusion student storytelling troupe. The troupe’s students put in long hours after school to practice. Then they travel across America in their trademark bowler hats, demonstrating their skills and encouraging other schools to start storytelling troupes. To date, more than 70 storytelling groups have been formed nationwide thanks to Cordi’s efforts, which he calls the Voices Across America Youth Storytelling Project. As a professor at California State University in Fresno, he trains other teachers on how to use storytelling in their classrooms. He even co-wrote the 2003 book Raising Voices, Youth Storytelling Groups and Troupes, which details how to start a youth storytelling group.

His students have produced a handful of CDs, participated in a Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul video and offer programs for grade school students on topics such as staying off drugs.

When people, including some teachers, offer a litany of what is wrong with kids today, Cordi dismisses their complaints. “Provide students with a venue and you will be surprised,” he tells them, pointing to his own results.

“I’ve had other teachers tell me that they can tell which students are from my classes because their narratives are so good. My students also are well-mannered because they have learned listening skills.”

So what does this unusual teacher have up his sleeve for the future? Even he can’t say.

“Who knows where the next tale is going to take me?” Cordi says. “I’m not looking for ‘happily ever after.’ I’m just looking to keep the adventure going.”

For more information, log on to www.youthstorytelling.com.

Terri Likens is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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