by PinayWriter

Created on: August 04, 2008

I believe that I would not know half of what I know now had it not been for my mother's love for reading me stories when I was younger. Sure, I later found out in my literature classes in college that the fairytales that I loved when I was younger were actually based on scary realities that were repackaged to teach children not to talk to strangers and all sorts of things. But the seed was planted and now it is a tree bearing fruit.

If it wasn't for the stories that my teachers used when I was in school I would never answer the real questions that I needed answered.

I had always hated math and I told my teacher once in grade school that I don't need to learn how to multiply and divide since they are just pretty much addition and subtraction. Then she told me about the jeepney driver who couldn't multiply and divide well. He lost a portion of his earnings because he couldn't divide a twenty into four people. But he knows how to add them together. He keeps getting confused and he would give them the wrong change. Instead of being honest, some people wouldn't tell him that he gave them extra change. He didn't know any better because he couldn't multiply the number of people who rode his jeepney to the amount of a single person's fare.

Somehow I never believed her until I rode a jeepney during my college years and the driver gave me the wrong change. I was paying for me and my friends. My friends sniggered when the driver struggled. It took him a while to figure out. We had to tell him how much our fare was really worth.

I realized that the only thing I remember about math during my grades school years were the stories. The life experiences that would be shaped by what the lesson we had that day. And because of those stories, I remembered how to multiply and what to divide.

I am an English teacher now and it is amazing how I rely on the stories that I know to teach a language to people of all ages. I tutor businessmen, mothers as well as teenagers and they all enjoy their lessons more when there is a story they have heard or want to tell me.

I think our minds like connection so much that in a single picture, we can see a whole story happening. And it is the best way for us to unlock the true potential of every child.

The values that a culture gives emphasis on can be seen in the way they tell stories to one another. It can be read in the works of those whom people keep in their bed stand. Also it is heard from the mouths of grandmothers and grandfathers of all generations.

The

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