“Through repeated readings, these stories
provoke fresh insight and more flexible thought in children.”
NEA TODAY- The Magazine of the National Education Association
Introduction to Teaching-Stories
from Hoopoe Books
Where schools are rare, education comes primarily from stories. For many, many centuries, the peoples of Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East have told stories among themselves and to their children. Idries Shah, who came from Paghman, Afghanistan, spent 30 years of his life collecting, selecting, and translating stories from this tradition. Those he selected were Teaching-Stories created specifically to help people of all ages better understand themselves and their world. Reading or telling these stories, even today, offers much more than entertainment – though, of course, they are entertaining – and much more than a simple moral.
Shah is the author of Hoopoe Books’ award-winning collection of these ancient tales written especially for young people and presented in a series of large-format, beautifully illustrated books.
Teaching-Stories contain, in the movement and thoughts of characters, in what happens to them, and in the challenges they face, information that informs and prepares us for similarly structured events in our own lives. Through repeated exposure to these tales, children and adults, too, learn to understand their lives and reflect on how people think and act in various situations.
Educators and psychologists have noted that no other literature currently available in the West enhances to the same extent children’s ability to think for themselves. Young people will take what they can from each tale according to their stage of cognitive development. At first, a child may respond only to one character or event in a story, or may understand only the most obvious meaning, but he or she will grasp a little more each time, bit by bit finding more meanings, concepts, and insights.
Familiarity with these tales can play a major part in a child’s sense of self, character and cognitive development. They foster flexibility in thinking that facilitates an understanding of human nature and offers more choices of how to behave in a given circumstance: the first step to wisdom.
Read more about the importance of Teaching-Stories here.
NPR
“These teaching-stories can be experienced on many levels. A child may simply enjoy hearing them, an adult may analyze them in a more sophisticated way. Both may eventually benefit from the lessons within.”
—Lynn Neary, All Things Considered, NPR News, Washington
|
Robert Ornstein at Library of Congress on “Teaching-Stories and the Brain”
A form of literature little-known in the West but common in Afghanistan can help develop thinking skills and perceptions, says neuropsychiatric expert Robert Ornstein.
Read More...
Watch the video
Buy the video
|
Hoopoe books help children develop an understanding
of themselves and the world around them.
|
