Story telling sessions are a major part of Touching Lives. We try to inculcate lot of stories in our curriculum, with a thought of allowing a child to reflect on it. Be a young learners of beginner’s class or be it an experienced learners of an after-school, the children are given equal chances to enter and explore the world of stories.
What Kind of Stories do we share?
As the world of stories is huge and vast, it becomes not only difficult but impossible to select just a mere few of stories for the purpose of education and enlightenment. And so, we select everything and anything which has a chance possibility of creating a change in the minds of children. Most of times, our stories are Moral- Based Stories, which help children to reflect and take that in, in their life. Other times, we share some stories of real time heroes who have made some difference in the society. Then there are stories, of Gautama Buddha or Mahatma Gandhi. There are stories of people who have helped society be a better place to be in. There are times, when we even ask our children to make their own stories; to give them a chance to imagine, express and communicate. There are times when children discuss their real life incidents in the form of stories. That helps us to understand the lives of our children in a better way.
What are the different ways through which we share a story?
Story telling is an art. And so it becomes important to use this art form in an appropriate way. We try and explore lots of ways through which we can share a story with a child. We avoid preaching a child, as we believe a child has his/her own intelligence. It is a place where there is lot of space for interaction and discussion. Where we allow a child to ask question and give opinions. No one is forced to take the moral as it is given. A place where we give freedom to children to choose the learning from the given story, and that strengthens our relationship with children. They feel the liberty we have stored in for them. They feel the door to infinite possibilities and choices being opened to them. That fulfills our purpose of giving something worthwhile to a child apart from academic knowledge, something deeper and more interesting. Hence we try to make this session as interesting as we can. We use many ways, some of them are given below
- We use puppets to tell a story.
- We take the help of internet. There are so many amazing stories of change out there.
- We call people to share their story then be it a traveler wandering in the mountains on a bike or be it an aspiring military officer.
- We tell story written in books be it a moral story, a fairy tale or a real story of real heroes.
What are the Advantages of Story- Telling Session?
- Helping them to enhance their Imaginative Skills
- Making Learning more Fun, Easy and Practical
- Exposure to an Advance Level Vocabulary
- Helping them to reflect their own self and others in the society
- Giving them an alternative path to ponder upon
- Giving them a chance to Tap onto their creative side
- Inculcating Values like Honesty, Kindness, Compassion Etc
- Building a Strong Mentor- Children Rapport
- Helping them to reflect and ponder.
At the end I will only say, that Story-Telling has not only helped our children to learn something worthwhile but it has helped us mentors too in some way.