The stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell others

“Storytelling is an act of freedom” is what William gets us to repeat several times during his presentation. Maybe by repeating it over and over, we may remember to reframe the way we see storytelling and revalue the different stories we have been telling ourselves or others.

William shares his view of how teachers can teach–We teach who we are. He finds that so often teachers are reduced to providing maps. Maybe we should give teachers a compass and not a map.

He focuses on what he called the three lessons as his message:

Lesson #1: Our stories matter, and, therefore, our language, history, experience, and so on matter.

Lesson #2: The stories we tell matter. What story do you tell? William feels that teachers, like him, need to undo the story of “teacher”. Often we feel that we are squeezed into one story, even though we may be dimly aware that there are many other possible stories. Freedom is moving past who we think we are.  We can create a new story for ourselves. These days we tend to regard learning as something that only happens from our shoulders up. Rather, we might consider following the Zen advice: to learn we may need to leave our head at the door.

Lesson #3: We are storytellers. So, can we be storytellers that honour storytelling as an act of freedom?

Dr William DeJean, Internationally recognised researcher, educator and consultant, who believes education can change the world, William DeJean, Australia





Live from Young Minds Conference: Awakening Young Hearts and Minds
His Holiness the Dalai Lama will join us in Young Minds 2013.

WORDS  BY “MYSTERY BLOGGER” WAI CHEONG KOK