Bangalore, Oct 31: The vast repertoire of bedtime stories churned out by grandmas are an unforgettable part of our childhood and to a great extent moulded our thought process.
Kathalaya - a Bangalore-based storytelling organisation- leverages this inherent human liking for storytelling to improve learning abilities of children and adults as also their communication skills and cognitive powers.
Kathalaya strives for innovation in education as opposed to "structured and rigid format", says Geetha Ramanujan of Kathalaya. It could be tales from `Jataka collections`, `Hitopadesha` or region-specific folk tales, she says.
The basic aim of Kathalaya is to provide children with relevant information on their subjects of study using storytelling and its various forms as a medium. It also includes artistic activities and field visits to rejuvenate dying folk traditions.
"We are also working towards making education enjoyable and entertaining for children using folk art forms like pottery, craft and puppetry as the medium and make them participate in the whole process," says Geetha.
It all started when Geetha, working as a librarian and social studies teacher in a school, initiated a story-reading session to make the subject interesting for children.
The idea really caught on and her achievement lay in the fact that she had broken away from the rigid norm of children reading to themselves silently in libraries and "confined classroom teaching of making students learn by rote".
Bureau Report
