STORY TELLING

 

Story telling is the best way to infuse good morale and rational thinking among the kids. Grandmother's story which used to find a wonderful place in our life, now is gradually going out of our life. Even the inspirational stories from comics like Amar Chitra Khata have been replaced by cartoons. Our kids remained glued to the  Television to see those cartoons which have the messages and culture of other countries and in reality they find themselves in different world.

Stories of our Heroes in different spheres, who helped a lot in shaping this nation need to be studied, may be in the form of story books, comics, cartoons but the best always remained among non formal education is the grandmother storytelling, which can also be practised by other members of the family.

Emotional development forms one of the important tools in grooming our children. Stories forms gateway in opening our senses and restoring our own values and help the children to develop concern for others. In this competitive world while making our children to score higher marks, we have forgotten very small things like storytelling. We have turned our children to become a marks scoring machine. And in  this process from  Marks Scoring Machine they grow to become a money making machine wherein the place of Emotion never exists. The   parents who sacrificed so many things for the betterment of their children but when they grow up, these money making machines feel that their parents are burden to them. The concept of  Bridha Ashram  has developed likewise.

So Morale and  Emotional development needed for the  logical interpretation  to make the children the  future citizens of this country, otherwise making our students to run after marks which eventually convert them to money making machine with no emotional development and worst consequence that we find is the establishment of Bridha Ashram.  Bridha Ashram was not at all traced four decades earlier in Guwahati, Assam, but now many such ashrams are there to shelter our elders and senior citizens. In our society from olden times every one had a role to play – father the bread earner of the family, mother the centre of the family activities and grooming the children, Grandfather- Grandmother formed the main pillar of the house and the system, their advice and guidance helped a lot in the successful completion of any activities. That was not everything, as we believed in joint family system, so uncle aunt everybody had an equal share in the progress of the family. Children belonging to the joint family used to grow playing together, studying together, listening the stories told to them by their elders. Grandparents . specially remained as story teller and they played a wonderful role in shaping the child future. That may be completely Non formal education but it is also equally as strong and important like that of Formal education. Those stories had in them flavor of patriotism, will and strong determination, Helping the poor and needy, Our mythological stories- how evil and crooked were destroyed by true and virtues, fantasies etc. thus made everybody to understand the real life and challenges, Civic and logical application, patriotic feelings and above all emotional development.

But with the changing scenario, our mindset also underwent huge change. For the need of employment we had to leave our paternal places and started living near the place of work, now the family constitutes only the parents and the children. The children definitely get the love and affection from their parents but one part of them would remain untouched is the role of grandparents in shaping their lives. These days parents are not having that much of time in their hands to tell stories to their children, so the leisure time of the children passes by watching cartoons that are telecast in the TV channels. Foreign fed cartoons have stories of their ethics, of their surroundings, the way they treat their elders but nothing of our culture. This is also a one way of invasion through digital world, which now gradually becoming successful in moulding infants mind in their way. The concept of Old age of home is thus a reward of such act.

Story telling bonded the early human communities, giving children the answer to the biggest questions of creations, life and after life. Non formal Education is the best tool to develop a child along with the formal education. And in the non formal education story telling is the most important component and most oldest form of teaching.

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