Stories Matter: They help learn about perspectives.
By Shelisa Sergio.
Why does it matter that stories help teach about perspectives? Stories are important because they help to understand points of view. One way is to look at things and situations from different perspectives. Stories are a great way to learn about perspectives.
To start, the stories in the book or the storytelling matters because it helps to understand different perspectives. Stories make you picture what’s happening in your head so you can look at the situation from a different perspective. For example, a short story called “Bread,” by Margaret Atwood shows bread from different perspectives. The first perspective is someone who likes bread and lives an average life whereas the second perspective is completely different.
Stories can help you learn a positive perspective. Using the short story, “Bread” as an example, you could see bread as normal food that you enjoy eating for breakfast, adding all kinds of savory and/or sweet things to the bread. Maybe you have several types of bread in your fridge or on the counter top that’s been sitting there for a while, so you give some to your pet because they wanted some. Not worrying about bread running out. You live a carefree life not having to worry about anything. You could live a happy life that you are satisfied with, living the time of your life but others don’t know that.
On the other hand, another perspective that could be learned from is that not everything is perfect, or a sad perspective. Now imagine you’re reading a book about an only child. From other’s perspectives in the story, people may think it’s good to be an only child because there’s no one to annoy you and no competitor to be the parent’s favorite. There are advantages but there are also disadvantages. The only child has no one to talk to, no one to help them, and no one to annoy. They would want a sibling to keep them company or share some bread with but the reader might think otherwise, liking the idea of being an only child. It’s all based on people’s perspectives and their opinions on how they see a situation.
People can also see different perspectives on what happens in storytelling. Some uneducated people might think it was good to live in ancient times because there were no electronics and everything was normal, but once you hear about how it was like in ancient times, your perspective might change. A story of Guam legend about two lovers who couldn’t be together, so they tied their hair and jumped off a cliff to their deaths isn’t what you thought life was like. Being able to only date people from your part of the island is different.
To sum up, stories are a great way to learn about perspectives. One way is to look at things and situations from different perspectives. There are positive and negative perspectives people can learn from knowing that not everything they see is what they think it is.