How practicing storytelling can help you in today’s world? What is the role of storytelling as a learning tool?
The role of storytelling is not really recognised by parents or schools for that matter. When talking about storytelling, most of us here will immediately think about a good night story or just simply the things we tell our children when they do not understand the real facts that we want to present aka the morale of the story.
And that is the key to understand the power of storytelling. People are genetically wired to learn through stories. Researchers around the world proved that retention of the knowledge is much better if it was delivered in a form of a story. That is why your children understand and remember the life lesson you gave them if you shared it by telling them a story with the moral.
But that is barely the tip of the ice-berg when it comes to the real magic of the storytelling. Let’s have a look at people that changed the world and stayed in our minds as world innovators who impacted the whole generations of people.
World Innovators who Had Impacted the World & People
One name that comes to mind right away from the latest history is Steve Jobs – a founder of Apple company and inventor of devices like iPod, iPhone or iPad. Now you might think that was not so innovative because other companies had very similar devices sometimes even before it got to Apple company attention.
So why do we speak about Steve Jobs and not all the other brilliant people that had helped in advancing our technological world? The answer to that question is simple. That is because Steve Jobs knew how to tell the stories to inspire them and take action.
College professor, historian, and bestselling author Robert McKee in his “Story Seminar” teaches that good storytellers can use that skill to present their ideas to the world and inspire people to act on them.
If we are to believe that, it only means that every single child should learn the art of storytelling as it is a skill that you can literally use in any kind of job that requires interaction with other people.
Story Seminar by Robert McKee
But that is not the case today. I don’t see that this is a widely practised skill in school around the world. Our children are taught languages and literacy, but they do not learn what is the best way how they can practically use it in real life. It is like teaching someone what is a plane and to pilot it, but then never really giving the learners a chance to use their skill.
If you look at the CEO of big companies, politicians, religion leaders, actors, and celebrities, you will see that one thing that connects them all is that they are all great storytellers. They know how to attract, connect, and inspire the audience to action. These are all skills that you can learn and practise as it is hardwired in our brain to be storytellers.
The international schools started to recognise the importance of teaching storytelling and you can see more often that guest authors visiting the school and running workshops about the science of storytelling.
Many educators from the international circuit are trained storytellers and are using these skills to run their classes in the STORY-TEACH-TOOL framework that allows them to create the interest in their students, connect with them, and inspire them to learn.
As early years educators, we realised that through stories children can discover their own identity and learn to interact with other peers. The story is not only the most effective way to communicate with others but it is also the way to present yourself to your own brain.
Depending on what children are thinking about themselves or what happened to them, they might see themselves as a victim or a winner. To understand better that concept, we would like to recommend listening to a great storytelling by Donald Davis who shared about how the story his father was telling to himself changed his life from being a cripple to being the luckiest child in his big family:
How the Story Transforms the Teller by Donald Davis
Neuroscientists like Wendy Suzuki delivered us brand new research that physical movement is one of the most informative things that you can do for your brain. Most of us don’t really see the benefits from moving, for your brain.
We know it is good for our body and health but we don’t really connect that with positive effects it has on our brain. Again we will use a story to share with you this extremely important knowledge:
The Brain-changing Benefits of Exercise by Dr. Wendy Suzuki
Now that we know how powerful is the role of movement in our brain and what is the real value in storytelling, the only logical thing to do is to connect the two together and let the children PLAY and explore!
You can find many interesting practical examples of how to use stories in education and how to teach your children to be storytellers with the activities on K.I.D.S. TIME playlist.
Activities that were presented in various videos combine storytelling with another powerful concept that is the physical movement. Amp up your kids and help them to develop their identity and build relationships through storytelling and promoting healthy lifestyle today!