DreamScope Theatre

© 2025 Puja Goyal

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Ms. Surabhi stood at the edge of the classroom map, finger tracing rivers like old memories. “This,” she said softly, “was once the cleanest river in India. People called it Ganga Ma. She was worshipped. Fed. Bathed in. Spoken to.”

And then she paused.

The class, usually loud with shuffling feet and unsharpened pencils, stilled.

Story had entered the room.

Because when we say “climate change,” children hear icebergs melting, forests burning, ozone depleting — all in grim PowerPoint palettes of grey and red. Important facts, yes. But facts don’t make your heart beat faster.

Characters do.

What if we began with a girl named Tara, whose breath grew shallower as trees were felled from her forest? What if her tears turned into acid rain, and her hairline receded like a coastline inching away from safety? What if every animal she once cared for began to disappear — and she didn’t know why?

That’s when children lean in. That’s when it becomes real.

Because climate change isn’t just science. It’s grief. It’s memory. It’s longing for home.

And sustainability? It isn’t a chapter. It’s a value. A rhythm. A way of seeing the world not as a resource, but as a relative. A grandmother’s backyard mango tree. A crow’s daily visit. The silence when sparrows vanish.

Through storytelling, we shift it from content to context. We bring emotion into instruction. We name the nameless losses — and allow children to imagine restoration, not just resignation.

Imagine telling the story of a boy who invents a way to bring rain back to his thirsty village — not with machines, but with poems he teaches the clouds. Or a girl who makes friends with a sea turtle that remembers the time before plastic.

These aren’t distractions from curriculum. These are anchors. They give meaning to data. They make space for empathy before apathy sets in.

And here’s the surprising part: children start telling stories back. About their grandmother’s millet recipes, about the frog they rescued, about the tree they named after a cousin who moved away. They don’t need to be told to care. They just need permission to imagine.

As educators, we are not just instructors of knowledge. We are keepers of wonder. And in this planetary moment, perhaps our most urgent role is to teach children how to love a world they’re inheriting — not through fear, but through stories stitched with hope.

So the next time you prepare a unit on sustainability, start not with “3Rs” but with a tale. Let the river speak. Let the whale remember. Let the landfill whisper its forgotten name.

You’re not just teaching science.

You’re telling the story of Earth.

And the children are listening.

Coming Soon: The Storytelling Classroom—a professional development workshop by DreamScope Theatre, designed for educators, facilitators, and communicators seeking to elevate their teaching through the art of storytelling.

Because the future of education begins with how we speak, listen, and connect.