It wasn’t easy for her to sit down anymore. Her knees creaked and the solid cane under her dry left hand worked hard to help lower her. Finally, at ease, she smiled through the dust and low fire at the young eyes before her. It was time to share the wisdom story of the Bodhi tree. She inhaled to speak and the most unthinkable thing happened.
Are you intrigued?
Storytelling is a powerful and effective way of sharing information, teaching, and connecting because it activates emotional centers in our brain. A well-told, happy story will release dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins in its listeners. This naturally enhances imagination, comprehension, and retention. All critical skills for learners.
Oration is one of the oldest traditional forms of teaching, with all wisdom being passed from elder to youth this way. These days, we’re seeing that “one out of every five of our nation’s school-age children suffer from reading failures”. Also, 75% of school dropouts report reading problems, and 50% of adults with criminal records identify as having reading difficulties.
The answer is not getting children to read more because the amount is not the issue. The issues are interest and engagement, comprehension, and new knowledge retention. This is where colorful storytelling comes in. Research shows that the efficacy of storytelling as an educational tool is due to:
- Active engagement because storytelling captures emotional attention
- Deriving personal meaning: Emotional impact fosters comprehension, motivation, and retention
- High level of comfortability: Humans are natural storytellers. When students are faced with new information and facts through an oral story first, they find the written form of whatever they’re learning far less threatening.
- Active participation: Storytelling includes interesting visual and auditory cues which engage our imaginations and invite us in to play.
Much like as adults we easily remember facts about things we have predilections for, when storytelling is used to teach, the learning is a secondary, organic process happening in the cognitive background, while the child is happily engaged in the present moment of a vibrant story. This way, both the teaching and the learning are remarkably easier for everyone involved.