Written by Eliza Strong
Jean Nels has been a storyteller since her youth. During our time together, she reminisced fondly upon sitting down with her family each night as a child and being prompted to tell a story from her day at school, “no matter how trivial it was”. Crediting her father’s implementation of this tradition, story has guided her throughout her life. From family gatherings to teaching elementary school to now serving as the Executive Director of the Mt. Shasta Sisson Museum, Jean has used story to help people connect with and learn from each other, despite institutional barriers.
When Jean participated in her first storytelling training with The Hearth, she was transported back to those childhood memories which first taught her the power of story. “In a way, Mark was gathering us around the dinner table”, she recalled. By giving participants the tools to share stories with one another and to use story to strengthen their communities, The Hearth training exemplified belief in the knowledge that was already ingrained in her– that sharing and listening to stories prompts people to find deep empathy and think more open-mindedly.
Jean has participated in Hearth trainings three times, taking each as an opportunity to strengthen her skills in storytelling and connect with other participants. At the Mt. Shasta Sisson Museum, she uses insights from trainings at The Hearth to move the museum forward in its mission of “illuminating the past, present, and future of the Mount Shasta area”. To help guests become more engaged with the history of the land they stand on and its current happenings, as well as to imagine a positive future for the region, Jean crafts her exhibits with assistance from storytellers in the community. Jean has hosted small storytelling events modeled after The Hearth’s and developed trusting relationships that allow community members to express their stories related to the region to help present collaborative and wholly informative exhibits.
Each time she plans a new exhibit, Jean gathers community members who are interested in the subject at hand to help her answer questions such as “what do we want community members to understand after coming to this exhibit, how will we meet our goal, who should we interview, and what kind of presentation can tell this whole story?” By offering opportunities for people to include their personal and community stories in museum exhibits, Jean works to build a learning environment of honesty, inclusivity, and collaboration at Mt. Shasta Sisson Museum. As she hopes to share a comprehensive history of the region by including many voices, her inclusion of oral storytelling contributions counters historical disbelief of local Indigenous stories that were not written down and breaks other access barriers.
In addition to working with stories from community collaborators to plan the content of exhibitions, Jean utilizes a storytelling model in the presentation of exhibit panels themselves. In her previous role as a school teacher, she prompted children to write stories by filling in the blanks of the structure “somebody wanted something, but there was a problem. So here was a solution”. In diagrams at the museum she presents historical and current issues of the region with this same story-based method, because she finds that people approach stories with curiosity, empathy, and understanding. Especially when presenting controversial material on subjects like water rights or climate change, she finds that people respond more openly to a story structure and personal anecdotes than depersonalized pieces of information. She’s developed the philosophy that “facts build walls, whereas stories build bridges”. People will push against facts, she says, but stories allow people to identify with other people’s inclinations to work toward what they want, which opens the door to communication and collaboration.
By using storytelling at the Mt. Shasta Sisson Museum, she has come to see the museum and its associated community as an extension of the big storytelling family she was raised in. As Jean puts it, the museum’s programming prompts “the community to see a possible future and ask ‘what do we want for our children?’ together”.
