Story telling to children in schools

 

STORY TELLING TO CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS

 

 

During our living and working in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Lesotho, America and Canada, we found that story-telling to children in schools is very common and a part of their teaching. We observed that the effect and influence of story-telling is very good for learning , at least we found very useful for our children and grand children. I thought that such a teaching method should be applied in our schools in India also; A short description of such a programme is given here :

___________________________________________________________________________________

" If you want your children  to be smart, tell  them stories. If you want them to be brilliant, tell them more stories  "

      -    Albert Eisenstein

"  Storytelling is an age-old art shared among friends, families and strangers, and its presence can captivate young and even older learners in the classroom too."

Story telling to children is stepping stone for future learning;

makes learning easier and natural,

 

Storytelling is a form of teaching and has the potential of fostering EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE and help children gain insight into human behaviour . ( SOCIAL SKILLS)

*Stories have transformation power to see the world in a different way (EXPOSURE)

* Developed and used purposefully, storytelling can contribute to inclusion and connection, build confidence and bring about change.

 IMPORTANCE of storytelling/stories;

SKILL DEVELOPMENT: 

Develops various skills, behavioral , social, ( learning about kindness, wisdom, honesty , compassion and more) communication skills etc.

Develops confidence ( enhances their communication skills; increase their ability to express themselves; encourages them to communicate their thoughts, feelings and ideas;

 Develops listening, reading and writing skills;

Develops  imagination, creativity,,  understanding, open to new ideas,

 Stories teach about life, about ourselves and about others; and the world ( about various and different cultures); increase their cultural understanding ; expose young children to new things, places, cultures, traditions and values

 

Motivational memories with characters whose value they can emulate,

* improves social SKILLS; children learn how to pay attention and listen actively to the person talking;

* Boost LISTENING skills  ( to focus, to be attentive)

* Fosters their imagination, enhances their creativity and open to new ideas

* Increase their CULTURAL understanding ; expose young children to new things, places, cultures and traditions

* Enhances their COMMUNICATION SKILLS; increase their ability to express themselves; encourages them to communicate their thoughts, feelings and ideas

* Pick up new words and hence the VOCABULARY Promotes LANGUAGE learning by enriching  vocabulary and  acquiring new language structures

* Help sharpen memory ( through feedback, reviewing process etc )

*Increases knowledge and confidence ( exposure to new things, environments etc )

* Learn about kindness, wisdom, honesty, compassion  and more  and try to emulate ( VALUE SYSTEM)

* Develops VALUE SYSTEM  ; learn values, critical values  sharpens our opinions and values

* Improves THOUGHT PROCESS ( imagination, creativity, thinking  and expression etc)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STORY_TELLING PROGRAMME IN A SCHOOL: 

* Story-telling programme can be initiated in a school any time in a most flexible manner; 

* May start at any level /standard/class of children  as a regular programme or casual weekly /periodically as suits to the environment of the school;   or

may a a few minutes at the end of the class as suits to the teachers; 

Probably, should be started in an experimental way by forming three groups of children and watching the effect on them:

A; group of children , no story-telling to them;

B;  group of children with story telling to them;

C;  group of children with story-telling to them with REINFORCEMENT ( by giving them some assignments and taking feedback etc.)

An experimental programme can be designed for feedback from the children of different groups as how they interact among themselves with others and outside the school at home with their friends, family member etc;

A competitive environment can be created by giving children various assignments based on the stories and evaluating their performance and awarding them certificates and trophies  of MERIT and Prizes etc. 

One school /your school can serve as a MODEL and then motivates other schools to introduce such a programme if successful in your school; Competition can be extended to several schools locally, then at District level- state  level and even at National level; ( Such programmes are already there for Maths, Geography, Public Speaking etc. at various levels in Canada and USA): https://www.northsouth.org/public

 

Potential of a story-telling programme as a new technique of learning/teaching of school children must be tested in our schools.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SELECTION OF STORIES: 

Short stories can be selected /identified according to the type of story from Internet,  Google and many other websites; for example ;  http://sushmajee.com/; 

http://sushmajee.com/stories/index-stories-1.htm

stories for children (Shishu Sansar); http://sushmajee.com/shishusansar/index-shishu.htm

1; General stories; http://sushmajee.com/stories/index-stories-1.htm

2. Inspirational Stories: http://sushmajee.com/stories/inspirational/index-inspirational.htm

3. Religious stories; http://sushmajee.com/stories/inspirational/index-inspirational.htm

4. Historical stories: http://sushmajee.com/shishusansar/stories-historical/index-historical.htm

5 Motivational: ( Great Indians)  http://sushmajee.com/shishusansar/stories-great-indians/index-great-indians.htm

 (Great People)     http://sushmajee.com/shishusansar/stories-great-people/index-great-people.htm