When was the last time you told a tale of imagination to your students? When was the last time your students insisted that you should tell them a story? I remember when I was a kid, and in winter when we did not cover our ears to keep them warm, the mother often warned us that if we did not cover our ears, the bats would snatch them away. And if we want the bats to leave our ears, we must play a drum made of gold! Gold is costly and unaffordable for some of the families. But we as children did not think of the price of gold, but of the ears that would be bitten. Now the right question may be; when did your parents correct your behavior with a story that is never true, let alone the story of ghosts as the common measures of behavior modeling? Parents have forgotten the fable they heard from their parents, and their parents from their parents.
Teachers are understood as geniuses because people think they read more than ordinary people. Parents have a strong belief that they are the creators of ideas, perspectives, and thoughts and can indulge in talks for hours concerning the future of a student. Does the teacher have the knacks to crack on an imagination instantly? Does he transform a question asked by his students into a small piece of imagination and give a big picture of life?
Students asked weird questions. These questions can put a teacher on fire. These are the opportunities to indulge the students in imagination, to engage them, and to connect one to all. How many times did, can you guess?, students ask a teacher, ‘Why do you always wear a cap on your head?’; ‘Why do you write with the hand we do not write with?; ‘What is this?, pointing to the specs a teacher is wearing, ‘Why are you always holding a black stick? asking a teacher who is blind. These questions are not to test your knowledge. Students usually ask these types of questions either to entertain themselves or to satiate their inquisition. Formal answers to these questions would kill an opportunity to build rapport with students.
These questions can be used as tools to ignite a fire of imagination in the hearts of the students. How? Let me give you an example of how I provided an awe moment to my sixth-grade students.
I was, then, in charge of teaching English to the sixth graders. One of the students, pointing to my legs, asked ‘how did this happen?’ Initially, when I entered the classroom, the students watched me as if I was not from this world. I walked with the help of crutches. This injected them with a dose of quest that was peeping to come out. Should I explain to these tiny agers how a virus attacked my nerves, leaving me in polio forever? Not. I used this opportunity to give them a flow of imagination.
I sat tightly on a rusted bench, resting my crutches on the wall behind me, making my face quenched in pain. ‘Thousand years before, when I was of your age, I had a fight with a giant monster.’ Luckily they believed. Their eyes shone, telling me to continue. ‘The monster had wings, and fire came out of its mouth. The night was without moon; darkness prevailed in every corner and weather seemed stormy.’ I told how bravely I fought the monster, taking them to the depth of imagination. ‘The fight ran many days and nights. On one of the nights, the monster held me in its mouth and flew into the sky.’ I detailed every bit taking their breadths. ‘After many moons, I woke up. I could not move.’ My father told me when the monster dropped me towards the earth, I fired the last bow that pierced its eye. The monster touched the earth dead. And I landed on the dead monster. The students were struck with imagination that can be seen through their eyes. ‘My legs haven’t worked since then. I walked with crutches.’ saying this I pointed to my crutches. Their tiny brains were thrilled in imagination. I also connected my other physical features to this story. My blackness is described to have been caused by the fire of the monster.
The story I told them served two purposes. On the one hand, I tried to trigger their imagination and build their attitude around how one should perceive impairment, and on the other hand, I also tried to break the myth that disability is caused by bad omen or sins of the past. Our classroom is replete with lesson delivery, note-taking, and assignment evaluation. The classroom is also where most of the myths, stereotypes, and superstitions break their roots. We have to rebuild our classroom.
These imaginary tales you build around the questions your students pose carry a moral, a lesson that the world needs to be taught. Fables, parables, or fairy tales need to be the lifeblood of a teacher. These are shorts but carry a big lesson.
So, next time your students or your kids pose you an inquisitive question, indulge in imagination and serve it with a tale.