“No story lives unless someone wants to listen. The stories we love best do live in us forever. So whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” – J.K. Rowling, author
I think it is critical that we learn to really read. It is critical that we learn that as soon as possible. However, I am coming to the view that storytelling is the key to learning. Every teacher I know, including me, will say they learned more from teaching than from being a student. I believe we all have at least one story to tell; we need to learn to tell it well.
When I was teaching, one of the most difficult things for my students to do was to restate a problem in their own words. I believe if you can’t tell a story, in your own words, you don’t own the idea. And perhaps the issue is with both the author and the reader as captured in quotes by Einstein and Feynman.
“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself” – attributed to A. Einstein
If you can’t explain an idea to an 8 year old, you don’t understand it. Can you explain basic logic to me in 5 minutes (about 500 words) in a way that 8 year old could explain it back to you? – R. Feynman
When we tell that story, we provide a listener, a reader, the opportunity to see an idea in a different way.
A quote I have used, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons