Abstract
In this article, we began with a personal account of the effects of ‘story.’ We further explore concepts of ‘story’ as they are found in human development, in culture, and in educational implications. We look at how stories not only guide us in our identification processes, but are central to our feelings, emotions, and even the strength with which we learn. We explore ways that storytelling may be used as a pedagogical tool and share some ways that we have used stories and storytelling with pre-service teachers. Our own inflated visions of our worth may have caused generation after generation to record these heritage stories. The strength of story may also be explained as a genuine concern for adults' teaching the fledglings what has been learned in a previous era. The original concern may have been related to survival. We can ponder these questions and be mystified about why every culture and every civilization since the beginning of time seem to have told their own stories of their creations, their heroes, their tricksters, and the wonder of fantastic tales. Whatever the early reasons were for the transmission of the heritage of a people through stories, it did happen and continues today. Although the stories were originally told and passed down by word of mouth, there were compilers who saw the value of preserving the tales that had provided so much pleasure in the courts of the royalty (Perrault and the French fairy tales); or the linguistic value of the original language of the tales (The Grimm Brothers in Germany); or Joseph Jacobs from England, who saw the interest of children as an audience (Hawley and Spillman, 2003). As the stories were written and perpetuated, they became part of the lives of children and were more important to each succeeding generation.