Reflection- Storytelling

Challenge & Selection    I work in a program that teaches Design Thinking as a tool in Publics High Schools of Puerto  Rico.  The heart of the delivery of our program elements is the introduction of “​Intersession​”,  which is a two-week break from regular academic instruction. In the morning the students  receive Mentorship and Design Thinking classes, then in the afternoon exploration classes.  We decided that we wanted to impact more people, so we are going to expand the quantity of  schools that we had. How can we make this bigger?  To expand our program, we need more  humans and materials resources.     For this, we are going to use the ​Storytelling​ tool to appeal to emotions, and the people will feel  empathy with the program results. The Storytelling tool is good for this challenge because we  need to demonstrate to the people that if they help us we are going to make a difference and  put their grain of sand to a good purpose.    Application    First, we interviewed some students and their parents to talk about their experience to gather  important data, feedback and stories. Then, we started to plan a showcase in the only school  that we had.  Other schools, the community, universities, and the faculty went to the event that  we organized. In the event, the students showed the people what they did and  learned in the  intersession with them. We also invited those people that we interviewed to talk about their  experience before, during and after intersession in the showcase.There was a story that stood  out from the rest of the others.The mother of a student didn't  know what to do with his son, her  words where “he was a lost cause”. He was failing school, skipping classes, getting in and out of  the principals office constantly. She was worried that her son would get suspended or worse,  expelled due to his lack of interest and all the problems they were having. After intersession,  she talked about how her son changed in those two weeks we did intersession in the  school.The gratitude she had was overwhelming. “He was someone different”, she said with  tears in her eyes. Also, some teachers said that the student’s attitude toward school, and  discipline had gotten better in the classroom and that he was more engaged in the classes.     Seeing the impact we had on the students in such a short time was mind blowing, so we  decided to use more  stories like this one, stories that  showcased the people the essence of  our program and why we do what we do.    Insight     In the show case, apart from the stories, we  presented data. This is important specially  for the  school, but it didn't have the same results or impact on people as the stories. It wasn't as  appealing. Everything went great because we used the storytelling tool. We had good advances

in the program! A lot of opportunities came with that showcase, more donations, more  exploration classes, new schools to work on and different people interested in helping us. Even  the news arrived at the school! It was a very powerful experience to everyone that went,  teachers, students, volunteers, faculty members and everyone that knows about our  intersession program.    I'm certain  that the classes we gave for those students will help them define what their next  step after school would be. What we discovered while talking with the students and parents,  were more impacting stories like the one before. The student that was mentioned , did not only  change in the school, but in his house too. He was more helpful with her mom in their home and  now he was the one that woke her mom to go to school. The students were more conscious and  empathic with the community problems and now they work on them and try to resolve them.    Approach    All went great, but there's always things to improve. Next time, I will also use stories of the  students’ growth and how their lives changed. This program impacted more people than I  thought. Like me and my work team, we were also students a year ago, now as part of the  program, we work on it to make it better. That's why I will definitely talk about my experience  and what motivated me to work with the program. I would also include the volunteers that gave  classes to the students, so we will ask them about their experience and feedback. In other  words, what I will change is add the experiences of all the stakeholders related to the program,  every person impacted by us. That will be a different perspective of the program stories. This  way, we could build a more empathic connection with new people. Hopefully it will help us  spread our network and build strong supporters. Opening more and more opportunities to the  students as we keep on growing better every day.

