Parents Development Workshop
On April 6th, the PSG working jointly with the ATS Alumni, organised a Workshop on “Using storytelling and reading to teach values”. As part of the event, there was also a display and sale of selected books relevant to the theme. The PSG identified this topic for the workshop as the committee wanted to support the school in its character development programme, one of the main thrusts of the school for 2006.
This workshop was conducted by a professional storyteller and educator, Ms Kiran Shah. Ms Shah is also well-known as a teacher trainer among the teaching community, having worked for many years with pre-school and primary school teachers as well as parents.
Through the artful use of appropriately selected stories and group discussions, Ms Shah demonstrated how values can be shared by a parent with a child in a pleasant and enjoyable manner, either by simple storytelling or by reading together just before bedtime. It can also take place at any other time when the parent is relaxing and interacting with his child and sharing stories. Such are the ‘teachable’ moments when the opportunity would naturally arise for the parent to gently discuss values and positive character traits without seeming to ‘nag’ or ‘lecture’. For example, the importance of telling the truth, empathy, compassion, loyalty, perseverance, identifying right from wrong, generosity, respect for elders and family, love and friendship.
When a character in a story is shown to have triumphed over adversity through hard work and determination, the stage is set for the parent to ask his child what he thinks of the story character and what he would have done if placed in a similar situation. Children can be asked for their opinions or share alternative views or even make a judgment like whether it was right or wrong for the story character to behave in a certain manner. Such interactions encourage thinking and a foundation for more open communication between the parent and child, even as the child grows older.
Overall feedback from the parents about the workshop was very positive and many parents made a beeline for the book display to buy some of the very interesting story books to share with their own children and put their new found skills into practise.
Contributed by Soo Kim Bee, Parent Development Workshops |
