After an illustrious career with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Shelley Canright has plenty of stories to tell. And if there was one trait the Penn State Alumni Fellow opted to develop during her time as an educator with NASA, it was the art and power of storytelling.
Canright, who earned her doctoral degree in instructional systems from the College of Education’s Department of Learning and Performance Systems in 1995, performed a wide range of duties at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. She was an educational technology program manager, elementary-secondary/eEducation program manager, senior adviser of education integration and STEM Education and Accountability Project manager. She retired in 2017.
She presented a Coffee and Conversation webinar to the College of Education on Aug. 19, during which she championed STEM education and storytelling.
Canright said she didn’t realize the true value of using story, and how best to use it, until near the end of her career when she was competitively selected to participate in the President’s Management Council interagency rotation program (IRP). That entailed a six-month stint with the Performance Improvement Council (PIC), which was established to assist the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to improve the performance of the federal government and achieve the federal government priority goals.
Knowing she’d be inundated with data while investigating the analytic storytelling concept, Canright decided it might be an opportunity to dive deeper into instructional design and systems and examine how things might be married together. “They (PIC) were noticing something was changing; the data said something is changing,” Canright explained. “But why or how? What's the story behind it? For the first time in my life, I began a very intentional and deliberate study of story … the power of story.
A few of the questions she asked herself were, “What might be some techniques or principles to apply when you think you have to go before Congress, or a committee, and you have all this data, but how do you give voice to the numbers? The short answer she uncovered was through story … to show the face behind the numbers.”
Canright said she learned that data alone will not win people over. “You actually don't reach them through their heart, but I found through my research – all the hormones and everything – you really have to get to their brain first if you want to touch their heart,” she said. “So, there's a lot more to storytelling than just telling about an experience.”
Her research found that if you want to advocate, influence or persuade, then using a story structure as a framing device can be beneficial. Consider the presentation as a three-part act – it has a clear beginning, middle and end.
“If you're trying to persuade, if you're trying to advocate for something, or if you have an hour to do a presentation … don't just give all the logic and the data behind it. You have to blend it with emotion which story brings, as well as the numbers,” she said. “No presentation should be devoid of emotional content. Telling stories is the virtual equivalent of taking people on a field trip, helping them to experience the content at a much more profound level.”
Canright earned a bachelor’s degree in early and middle childhood education and a master’s degree in educational policy and leadership from Ohio State. What brought her to Penn State was the evolving field of instructional systems. “I am a true educator; I bleed education, and I was always, always struck with what more can I learn that's going to help my students,” she said.
“I kept finding what seemed to be the seed of this coming from Penn State … I was impressed with what I was hearing here at Penn State in this this field,” she said. “At the same time, I'm working for NASA. So, all my heart is with education. I also knew that whatever I was going to do needed to complement, and something I was going to be able to give back and do for NASA.”
She also was looking at which institutions were leaders in the field. “So, it was a match made in heaven,” Canright said. “It was a whirlwind of experience. I came back with that degree. And really what propelled me from there is all because of what I got at Penn State – the experiences that I was given, the opportunities, and the support by that very talented team of professors that I had the pleasure of working with.”
Canright began her career teaching fifth-grade students in Newport News, Virginia. One day about 30 years ago she got a call at the school from NASA inquiring about whether she would be interested in a summer experience to coordinate a mentorship for high school students. Canright decided to take advantage of the summer experience opportunity. The woman she was replacing for the summer did return, but in another capacity, and Canright applied for the position full-time.
“I got the job. So, what I thought was going to be a summer experience lasted 30 years,” she said.
That prompted the question of what she would say to today’s prospective teachers at Penn State.
“My advice to aspiring educators is to keep your options open – to explore and discover – and the field of education is wide open to you,” Canright said. “It is not simply a classroom. There are a lot of different ways you can take your skills and your passion for others to novel places you may not even begin to imagine right now, but you have to be willing to be open to explore and discover and be a calculated risk-taker.”
She concluded with a reflection on powers – the power of touch, the power of voice and the power of story. And, finally, as an educator, she emphasized – the power of one. “There is nothing more inspiring to me than reflecting on the words of Christa McAuliffe, ‘I touch the future. I teach,’” Canright said about the 38-year-old McAuliffe who was selected for the Teacher in Space project and was one of seven crew members killed during the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.