Teaching Through Story Telling - Why It Works So Well?

It’s amazing how much people remember after they’ve read a novel, or watched a movie, or been told a story. It’s equally amazing at how much people forget when they try to do rote memorization – by reading lots of facts, one on top of the other in a textbook format. Rote memorization is very difficult on the human brain, and it is the wrong way to form memories and get the neurons to imprint the information. Why is this do you suppose?

Well, I believe it is because the memory works a certain way, and when you tell a story you are putting the listener into a mental immersion in your story. By doing this they are placing themselves into the story, if only in their minds, and we all know it’s very easy to remember events that we were involved with. If you were involved in a Civil War, you would’ve remembered it very well, it would be imprinted on your life experience, and your mind forever.

If you read about in a book, you may not remember the battles, the names, or the dates. But if you were there you do remember. If you watch a movie, or you listen to your grandpa tell his war stories, you remember that much more vividly. The mind works better this way, and perhaps it is from the evolutionary process. Also realize that religious doctrine, culture, and how to do things was passed down from generation to generation without writing, or the written word in previous periods – which has brought mankind full-circle to this era.

In fact, not long ago there were some sharpened stones found that were 100,000 years old, and they were obviously made by humans, our predecessors. This means that mankind learned to make tools 100,000 years ago, not the 25,000 to 40,000 years that was previously suspected. There were no drawings, schematics, to tell each generation had a make these tools. They learned from watching, from doing, and from stories, as they learn to communicate through language or perhaps without a lot of language at all.

The evolutionary process that was involved in all this is why the brain works this way, and to force children to do rote memorization is silly, and it causes the brain to work in an unnatural way. Rather than fighting Mother Nature, it makes sense to go with the flow, and that’s why storytelling work so good for teaching. Indeed I hope you’ll please consider this.

Teaching Through Story Telling - Why It Works So Well?