Synergising Quizzing and Storytelling
- dnyaneshchaudhari0
- Jun 10
- 6 min read
Deeptha Vivekanand
Winner, World Teachers' Quiz 2025, Season 5
Deeptha is an educator, a professional storyteller and a teacher trainer. She turned to full-time storytelling in 2009 after a career in Corporate Learning & Development. As a performer, Deeptha enjoys narrating personal stories, folktales, legends and myths from around the world.
Through her venture ‘Ever After Learning’, she conducts storytelling performances and workshops for children, young adults and adults. She is frequently invited to speak on storytelling, offer story-coaching and consulting, and develop story-based content for educational institutions, corporate organisations and community initiatives. She has led storytelling workshops for many organisations and MNCs.
She currently resides in Chandigarh, where she is involved in integrating storytelling into the curriculum, across all grades. She has also co-created an online training module titled ‘Storytelling As Pedagogy’, commissioned by the CBSE.
Congratulations on reclaiming the title and winning the World Teachers’ Quiz, Season 5! Please tell us more about your winning experience this season.
Thank you so much! Winning Season 5 was a completely different experience from my first win. The competition gets tougher each year, with so many incredibly knowledgeable and sharp teachers participating. This season felt particularly challenging – the questions were diverse, covering a vast array of topics, especially in the final rounds. The online format adds its own layer of complexity, requiring not just knowledge but also quick reflexes on the buzzer and the ability to stay calm under technical conditions. I recall having hit the buzzer a nanosecond too late on a few occasions, which could’ve otherwise got me 100-200 points more! An unstable internet connection during the final had me bumped out of Google Meet twice. Safe to say the pressure was immense! Preparing for the quiz involved a lot of focused revision across various subjects, staying updated on current events, and practising recall speed. The winning moment was a mix of disbelief and great joy.
How do you feel about winning the title twice over?
Winning it the first time was a dream come true. Winning it a second time feels surreal and incredibly humbling. It was also a deeply personal experience. It wasn't something I necessarily expected, as the competition is so fierce. But, somewhere in my heart, I wanted to win. There’s a profound sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. It feels like adding another significant chapter to my own story of learning and growth, both as an educator and as a person. It’s a huge motivation to keep exploring, keep finding those hidden stories, and keep sharing them with my students.
How did the quizzer in you emerge? Tell us your story!
Oh, the ‘quizzer’ in me probably emerged in my childhood! I was always that kid with a lot of questions, constantly reading whatever I could get my hands on – encyclopaedias, newspapers, random fact books. Even now, I love Berty Ashley’s Easy like Sunday morning quiz in The Hindu and Joy Bhattacharya’s This Week’s Quiz in the TOI. But I owe a great deal to my father. He was an avid quizzer himself and was my first inspiration. I remember him taking me to open quizzes when I was young, and our Sunday ritual of watching quiz shows such as The Bournvita Quiz and Mastermind on TV together. His passion for knowledge and the excitement of the quiz floor were infectious. My father showed me the joy of the quest for knowledge, and I've found my purpose in turning that knowledge into stories that inspire others. Losing him earlier this year made this win extra special; it feels like a tribute to his love for quizzing and learning, a way of continuing the spark he lit in me.
How does quizzing and teaching go hand in hand for you?
They are deeply intertwined for me. Quizzing, at its heart, is about seeking knowledge, making connections and testing understanding. These are fundamental aspects of teaching as well. My passion for quizzing fuels my curiosity, which in turn helps me make teaching more engaging. I'm always learning something new, which I can then bring into the classroom. As a story-educator, facts and information, to me, aren’t just dry data points; they are potential characters, settings and plot twists. Every piece of knowledge has a context, a history, a human element – a story behind it. I use stories to give context to the facts, make abstract concepts relatable, and help students remember information by connecting it to characters and events they can visualise and empathise with. Quizzing fuels my content and storytelling is my delivery method. It's a perfect synergy.
Are such engagement activities like quizzes and contests important for teachers? If yes, how can they benefit from it?
Oh, absolutely, 100%! I think activities like quizzes and contests are incredibly vital for us as teachers. We're constantly giving, sharing knowledge, energy and passion with our students. But we also need ways to recharge, to keep our own wells of knowledge and enthusiasm full.
And you know, there's also that fantastic inter-disciplinary aspect. Quizzes jump from history to science to arts to current events in seconds! That constant mental shifting helps you see how everything is connected, which is brilliant for teaching because it lets you draw links between different subjects and show students the bigger picture – how all these seemingly separate 'stories' actually fit into one grand narrative of the world. It really broadens your perspective.
Participating in a quiz really sharpens your skills. You're working on critical thinking, quick recall, processing information under pressure – these are all crucial for the classroom too! And from a story-educator's point of view, it hones that ‘narrative instinct’, helping you connect seemingly unrelated facts quickly, which is exactly what you do when you need to build a compelling story to explain a concept.
It also gives you a firsthand understanding of why engagement works. Quizzes are fun and tap into that natural human curiosity and the thrill of discovery. Experiencing that yourself reminds you of how to make learning exciting for your students, understanding what makes a 'story' captivating, whether it's a historical event or a scientific process.
Honestly, it’s also just a fantastic break from the routine! Teaching is demanding work, and having a fun, competitive activity is a great mental exercise that breaks the monotony. And the networking aspect is huge – connecting with other passionate educators from all over, sharing experiences, triumphs and challenges... It builds a wonderful sense of community, creating a shared narrative for our profession.
Winning, of course, gives you a confidence boost, but even just participating successfully and learning new things reignites that passion for teaching and learning. Plus, when our students see us engaging in learning, enjoying a quiz, showing that curiosity, it sets such a powerful example. It shows them that learning is a lifelong adventure, an exciting story waiting to be explored. So yes, incredibly important, for so many reasons!
In today’s world where ChatGPT and the like are popularly used for information generation, how important is general knowledge for teachers and students?
Such a timely and important question! With tools like ChatGPT giving us information so quickly, it might feel like, "Well, why do we need to know things anymore? We can just ask the AI!" But I actually think general knowledge is more important than ever in this age.
AI tools like ChatGPT are fantastic at giving you facts, lists, summaries – they give you the plot points, maybe even a quick synopsis of a story. But that's all it is. It's data. General knowledge, on the other hand, gives you the layers: the context, the background, the human drama, the implications. It provides the actual narrative that makes those facts meaningful and memorable. Without that broad base of knowledge, when the AI gives you information, it's hard to understand its real significance, its relevance, or even its accuracy.
General knowledge is what allows us to critically evaluate what the AI is telling us. Does this fit with what I know about the world? Are there missing pieces? Is the AI's version holding up? It helps us ask the right questions, spot potential biases, and think deeply, not just accept generated text at face value. It’s about having the wisdom to navigate the information landscape. It's what allows us to bring empathy and understanding to the facts.
And perhaps most importantly, general knowledge is the spark! Relying only on AI for answers can stifle our natural curiosity. It's our existing knowledge base, our general understanding of how things fit together, that sparks the desire to dig deeper, to ask ‘why?’ or ‘what if?’, to uncover the compelling narratives that AI might not even hint at. It’s the spark of the storyteller, constantly seeking the 'why' behind the 'what'.
So, for both teachers and students, general knowledge isn't obsolete; it's the foundation. It’s what turns raw data into meaningful understanding, enables critical thinking, connects us to the human experience, and keeps the flame of curiosity burning in this age of instant information.
Your message for teachers…
To all my fellow educators: Remember that every subject, every concept, every fact has a story waiting to be discovered and told. Embrace curiosity in all its forms. Be the quizzer, the seeker of knowledge – because every new piece of information is a potential thread for a captivating tale in your classroom. Don't just teach facts; tell stories. Use your passion and general knowledge to weave to inspire a lifelong love of learning in your students. You are not just educators; you are the keepers and tellers of the world's most important stories. Keep learning, keep exploring, keep sharing those stories and, keep quizzing!