Way back in ancient history the Greek philosopher Plato already unraveled the truth when he said :"If you would teach children truth, use fiction.”
Centuries and generations later, this classic truth remains unchallenged. Indeed as a storyteller I’ve witnessed the power of stories work in children’s active imagination bringing truths alive through the appeal of fiction and images transported by nothing more than just a human voice – and rather unusual in our world today, it’s frequently done even without the help of microphones! Rather amazing, come to think of it !
Therefore it’s no exaggeration when I say that Storytelling to pre-schooler children is one of the simplest and yet most precious among gifts that an adult can offer to nurture our young. I believe many Storytellers will one day be rewarded because I have heard so many heartwarming tributes from emerging storytellers recounting how their passion for storytelling had once upon a time been inspired by some storyteller who came along and planted seeds in them. How wonderful to reflect that those tiny seeds have taken root and blossomed into a new breed of storytellers who will then carry on the ancient tradition!
No wonder Storytelling as a communication genre never ever dies. And don’t you agree with me this is remarkable? Certainly in today’s highly powered technological environment, Storytelling has proved to be one of the very few traditional forms of media that have successfully withstood the sweeping onslaught of new media technology and yet hasn’t lost its popularity and appeal. On the contrary, in the past ten years, I’ve seen a marked resurgence of interest and heightening of popularity of storytelling arts in many different parts of the world.
Technologies like the Internet have shrunk the world and are moving to bringing people everywhere into one vast global village! I suppose the natural reaction of individual nations and continents to this would be, on the one hand, feeling the imminent threat to preservation of their cultural identity, we have nations seeking to save their distinct cultural identity from extinction while on the other hand, growing more curious about other cultures, nations are looking for means to communicate and share their unique cultural experiences and also want to learn about other cultures. Storytelling naturally falls in place in this scenario. Stories are a perfect treasury for cultural content, national heritage and history and similarly for keeping record of inspirational personal and family stories.
