Welcome

I am Deepanjali Sachdeva, an Indian national. I come from the capital city of India, New Delhi. I have been teaching for over two decades, headed an elementary school for the last fifteen years besides teaching English in the same school for grades 3 to 5. I am a wanderer at heart and have traveled extensively, whole of my life. I believe that we are all shaped by the experiences of our life. My family, my profession and my passion to read, travel and learn have been the undercurrent of the personality I possess today. Having worked with elementary school has always given  me immense joy. So to work for this “Inquiry” on one of the topics I feel close to my heart, best suited for children of any age, more so at elementary school  is “Storytelling”.

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We are surrounded by stories every day. They have existed as long as there have been people. The news on different platforms, the religious books, the songs, the pictures, the paintings, the movies, all are full of stories. The bedtime stories narrated to young children and the lessons teachers give in classes make up our history and guide our future. Some stories have lasted for centuries and are still being told in our families. We can trace back all our knowledge of the world to what we have learned to the different stories. They are powerful and are a part of all cultures, possessing the capacity to entertain us, learn history, make us laugh and cry and make us think, fantasize, are a large part of what makes people connected to each other. They enable us to visit faraway places in space and time in imagination, unlocking the endless possibilities for all who seek to learn.

Families are teachers of culture and the transmitters of tradition. As we go forward into an uncharted future, and whether we know it or not, we carry our past with us in many ways—in the homes and families of our origin, in the names we are given, in the heirlooms we inherit. Yet in times of rapid cultural change and ferment, ties to families are stretched thin; old traditions are abandoned for new religious and cultural forms or, sometimes, for nothing at all. These phenomena raise special challenges for all of us as we face choices regarding how much to retain of our familial, religious, and cultural roots—roots that, for many, have been twisted by the experience of living in a rapidly changing world. Nevertheless, how we treat our inheritances speaks volumes about who we are and how we stand in the world.

A child’s inquisitive mind constantly seeks explanations and flourishes with the ability to ask questions. When something doesn’t make sense, asking questions allows you to fill in the blanks and understand better in the context of answers. As an educator, honing and encouraging the skill to ask question serves well for students to quench their thirst for knowledge. Challenging the students from a very young age helps them ask the tougher questions later in life. Reading and questioning with the mix of critical thinking promotes logical thinking  accompanied by the ability to use deductive reasoning and think abstractly. This project incorporates the inquiry cycle as students share their personal stories an anecdotes, and learn about the cultures of the world by asking questions and get to exhibit their personal journey of learning from each other in various ways. Students are building on knowledge that leads to deeper understanding. !  A big part of the inquiry process is to present their ideas to their peers or others. Through this “Storytelling Inquiry Project” students shall develop habits of mind that encourage them to ask questions of evidence, and determine viewpoints, patterns and connections and become an important participant in the construction of meaning.

This being a living inquiry, the best place to start it is wherever one finds oneself existentially. One looks inwardly into one’s own thoughts and feelings, while facing the world, noting how one reacts with conditioned thoughts and feeling responses. Usually we are too busy reacting that we do not stop to reflect and examine our response. Inquiry starts at this point of stop. From this place of stop, we question the necessity of “the way things are,” and address the possibility of seeing the world and the self differently and hence relating to the world differently. “What if I were to…?”

—Heesoon Bai, 2005, p. 47