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Chennai Storytelling Festival 2019, at Loyola College Sat 9 Feb 2019, for Adults -- 10am-12:30pm. "Storytelling
for Teaching-and-learning any Academic Subject". One can
use any kind of story (real-life, fictional, etc.) to bring material up,
raise points, and put these matters into play. Then students could work and play with the
material in various ways, including intellectually, or in metaphorical terms. ____________________ Regarding: Math Examples. Illustrations. Specific Problems. *** A student
is motivated to find the answer in an example, because the student identifies
with the characters in the story, and wants to be sure the solutions are
correct for these characters' sakes. *** Examples: *** If there
are 4 apples and 2 children, and if each child would get the same number of
apples, how many apples would each child get? *** If a
train is traveling at 40km per hour, how many hours would it take to travel
240km? If a
train is traveling at 40km per hour, how many kms would it go after 6 hours? If a
train takes 6 hours to go 240km, at what speed (at how many kms per hour) is
the train traveling? _______________________________ Regarding: Science, Medicine, Engineering,
Environmental Sciences, Biology, Chemistry One could
tell: 1) The
story of how one got interested in
this field. *** 2) Case studies of advancements
in a field. The Life
Stories of Inventors, Explorers, Discoverers, etc. Who are
one's heroes/heroines in a field? What were
the conditions? What did the
innovator have to go through to make the advancement, and make it known? *** 3)
Stories relating to lectures and
lesson-plans. What issues, questions, problems, conflicts, processes,
formulas do you want your students to think about? What issues do you want them to be able to debate? Regarding
what topics do you want your students to be able to see and understand, 1) from
two or more sides? 2) the
pro's and con's, the advantages and disadvantages, of various solutions,
approaches, or points of view? Stories
can help learners visualise phenomena, and understand situations clearly and
vividly. Stories can be fun, and can
help learners get emotionally-involved. Participants
might be asked, a)
"What subject to you teach?"
"In what academic discipline are you in?" b)
"Please select one lesson you have taught students, or might like
to teach students". c) To use
the terminology of a Lesson Plan:
"What is the objective of the lesson? What should the students learn? What facts do you want them to
absorb? What principles do you
want them to become familiar with, and be able to apply?" The lesson involves something one wants
one's students to think about -- to understand, and to understand the
importance of. Notes: Educators
often say: "We do not want to
teach students what to think.
We want to teach them how to think". A saying
that illustrates this point is:
"If you give someone a vegetable, they can eat once. If you teach someone how to grow a
vegetable (and help them to obtain the needed farm equipment) -- they can eat
during their entire lifetimes." Stories
can teach what and how. Sometimes
when one wants students to think about and learn something, they are not
paying attention. They are not
absorbing it. Not retaining it. Not interested in it. In such cases, one needs to capture
their imaginations. The
"teaching-by-storytelling method" often involves personifying
aspects of the matter, personifying abstractions into characters. These characters might be in situations in
which they might need to decide what to do next. The characters might want things, have
goals, missions. The characters might go
on adventures. So, seek
to find or create characters, and a story, that embody elements of the
lesson. Present characters that
learners can relate to. The learners
should be able to understand these characters' points of view -- including
what the characters want, and why they want it. Why use
metaphors? Possible answers
include: To present a situation clearly
and vividly, and to connect a new situation with previously-known situations. Options: Have one character do something a wrong
way, and one character do it a right way.
Or, have a character do something a wrong way first, and then a right
way. Options: Present a debate between characters. Present a debate within a person (between
voices/urges/ideas within a single character). *** 4) Using personification, tell the
story of a struggle of a plant, cell, etc, to fulfill itself. Example: "Walter the Drop of Water"
(the three forms of H2O). *** This
story uses metaphor
(fantasy) to give a warning about causing unintended consequences when one
manipulates the environment -- "King Yaa-yaa"
(Ecology). _______________________________ Regarding: Literature, History, Sociology,
Anthropology Before,
during, and/or after reading about the experience of a character -- one could
discuss with one's students: If you
were in that position, what wouild you do?
How do
you feel about the way that character handled that situiation? The
students project themselves into the story, and identify with the characters. This
helps the students develop their imaginations, and senses of compassion and
empathy. It also helps them develop
their decision-making processes.
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