When schooling is a total institution that surrounds our lives, as it is for young people, we need to keep things a bit more open. People who are silenced most of the time begin to have trouble learning, so in an odd way knowledge risks transforming itself into an enemy of learning. This is the paradox of schooling. We need to pass on knowledge but to do so we can't stifle learning. Narrative provides the key to working within the paradox.
Schools usually pay far more attention to explanations than to narratives.
Explanations are based on cause and effect relationships that eliminate surprise and freedom. Once something can be explained it can also be predicted. Once we can explain the earth circling the sun, we know when the earth has to circle the sun. But knowing that the earth circles the sun is different than knowing the story of why we know that. Like explanations, narratives link events and facts into patterns of meaning, but unlike explanations, narratives are open-ended.