Storytelling

Challenge and Selection

Storytelling is a great tool and method used to make persons learn and grasp knowledge. I am a  teacher who works with young children and disability kids from the age range from 7 to 13 years  old. I use storytelling to help the children learn their school work in a faster and better way, it  also motivates, inspire and empowered those kids who have a difficult task in learning their work  and make themselves a better person in society. When I am teaching those disability kids, I share  stories of my life in order to help them visualize a state of independence and success, I use their  feedback to against the context of my story to ascertain their goals and we use stories to better  understand their interests and thought processes. I use this information to develop strategies to  try and find new ways that work for them to gain more independence and confidence in their  lives. According to Robert Mendez, Global Leadership Development Director, “A good story at its  essence, is simply conveying a message that has logic and has an emotional connection.”   Storytelling make communication easier between the student and the teacher and they connect  and build a mutual relationship.

Application

When I am teaching I tried my best to take a student focused approach of recognizing each  person as a special being and looking after their individual needs first and foremost. In class, I  share stories for the children to under the concept and topic easier so that they can understand it.  This tool had some disadvantages too, when sharing stories some children might get bored after  hearing those stories and they are out of to control.

But on the positive side, this approached helped a lot of students, for example there was a boy  whose name is Sam, he would be the “king of the hour”. He is very shy and have a low self- esteem and confidence and doesn’t like to speak in front everyone and until one day when his  peers and him were having a group discussion and sharing stories related to the topic. We  encourage him and built his confidence to speak in front the public by starting telling us stories  in the class. And Sam and me started to build a close relation from then. So storytelling helps  persons to make themselves confident and fight whatever they fear.

Insight and Approach

Well, one day I pulled Sam a corner of the class and learned that his home is facing problems so  I decided to tell him a story of my life related to his problems. I told him that my father used to  work 12 hours a day sometimes 24 hours a day just to earn enough money to send me and my  sister to school and I used his situation to motivates me in doing good in school and earn good  grades and eventually I did good at school and make my father proud and started to work and  earn money to take care of him. He calmed down and his spirit was lifted and gain back

confidence and self-esteem. And on the next day he was braved to speak infront of the entire  class.

So I shared what happened in my class with my fellow teaching colleagues and they start to use  the same approach of storytelling to the students. Sometimes a little storytelling can do a lot of  good. On other days I will try to use the visualization tool and see how it can help student learn  better.

This course made me see this as a tool in a new and better way. When I have done it was really  difficult and fatiguing but now I can prepare ahead and think of stories that will assist me in  presenting my ideas and best illuminate them.

