Rote or Insight?

Okay, so, we all know of 'World Book Day' and what it's actually about. It may also be called the World Book reading Day. Now, if you are in school or were in school Am sure, that there will be this one day out of the 365 days when you will be insisted to ready books by your teachers in school. Specifically, story books. Sounds weird? It might just for the some of you, including me. Because honestly my parents and teachers always used to poke me to read my school textbooks when I was back in school. Yeah, just been a year to have escaped that. To be honest, I never took any interest in my textbooks because...I have been fonder of my storybooks even if I have read it like a thousand times and every time I revisit the chapters, I find myself in a new world. A world away from my exam tensions, family pressure, and friendship disturbances. A world as picture perfect as a fairytale.

Now, where was I? I can never help it, whenever it comes to stories...see...how I end up losing myself in the mystic world away from reality. Okay, so I found it weird of my teachers how they used to push me around 364 days in a year to bury my head into subscribed textbooks leaving aside that one day where they would literally force the students to read storybooks, be it their own or run to the library to get one. That one day would be 23rd April. However, they'd ask us to get hold of our storybooks only for 5 - 15 minutes before starting with the new subject class. Not a big deal, right? Even if I used to enter the mystic world I used to do that, with my subconscious thoughts hitting me at the back of my mind that, 'Just 15 minutes' and with that in mind I never really let myself in any of the two worlds but just hanging in between. Quite irritating.

I wish that a class period of storytelling would be introduced in schools If, not every day then at least once a week. It is high time that the education systems especially when talking of India focusses on the importance of insight learning and drops the idea of rote learning. When students go to outside countries to carry on their further studies or even to work, they cannot apply their memorized texts there. They have to showcase their talent for which they need to understand the matter that lies in the texts which can be made possible only if the education systems change so that teachers can storytell the text matters to their students.

I used to go to a school outside India where students weren't analysed on the basis of their marks and exams but on the basis of their understanding and were taught as per the type that best suited them. For example, I am mostly a visual learner and to some extent Kinesthetic learner too and therefore, every teacher was instructed to use all the three techniques that are, Visual, Audio and Kinesthetic as obviously, I wasn't the only student to be taught in the class.

It is very important that countries like India where students are forced to study for 14 hours a day and write the exact answers in their papers as in the text change this way of teaching students or even forcing them to rote learn. Countries as such also don't happen to focus on the physical health of the students and that is why it is, 'Sports for only for who are interested'.

Guide Special - Why We Need Storytelling In The Classroom?by Lakshya Datta.