Let us tabulate some of the things the child naturally does as his part
in story-telling. The table will be incomplete, but it may be suggestive.
What is the child’s part in story-telling?
(1) _It is listening._
(2) _It is remaining silent._
(3) _It is commenting._
(4) _It is joining in._
(5) _It is re-telling._
(6) _It is partial re-telling._
(7) _It is telling other stories._
(8) _It is inventing stories._
(9) _It is expressing sometimes story images in other media._
(10) _It is sometimes playing the stories._
(11) _It is growing by the power and grace of the story._
(1) _It is listening._ Let us not underrate the child’s quiet part as
listener harkening to the story again and again to catch wider and deeper
vision of it.
(2) _It is remaining silent._ When it is the silence of delight, be
content; this is result enough. When it is the spiritual silence out
of whose brooding may be born reverent awe or insight into justice or
cheerful good will or virile endeavor, bring all your wisdom to bear to
decide whether you will help or hinder by leaving the child to himself,
and in case of doubt give the story the benefit of it, trusting it to
deliver its own message in due season.
(3) _It is commenting._ On the other hand, do not be unmindful of another
opportunity. A child, like an adult, is inclined to talk some stories
over; meet him halfway. Indeed, in some cases, lead the way; stimulate an
inert class to talk over some of the more objective type of stories. It
is your opportunity to get and clarify the child’s point of view.
(4) _It is joining in._ We learn, from the snatches of story-telling
history that have come down to us, that it was the custom of the audience
to join in at the rhythmic repetitions, as people do at the chorus
of a comic song. The children show the same tendency; encourage it.
It not only pleases them, but it is an easy and natural beginning in
reproduction. The child’s dramatic sense prompts him to come in also when
the story-teller reaches dialogue; encourage this also.
(5) _It is re-telling._ Rightly conducted, reproduction of stories is
profitable for shaping the pupil’s thought and language mode. But is the
exercise rightly conducted? The children listen in breathless delight
as the teacher tells the story; she demands it “back,” the children
struggle, interest flags, teacher and children toil on, and joy dies out
in story and listener. This is too bad. Story-telling is a legitimate
opportunity for unalloyed pleasure; the school is not too lavish of such
times. What is the root of the trouble? It lies in one or more sources:
the practice of requiring premature reproduction of some types of story
not grasped by the children to the definite point of re-telling; the
teacher’s unreasonable or wrong standards of achievement; the pupil’s
lack of familiarity with the story, due to the teacher’s tendency to turn
reproduction into a test or task.
The tendency of the school to require immediate verbal reproduction
of all stories is unwise utilitarianism. It is limiting the teacher’s
choice of stories undesirably. Feeling compelled to demand reproduction
of every story, the teacher confines her choice to stories the children
will take hold of easily. We can all testify that we have heard and been
moved or delighted by recitals we could not reproduce; their purpose was
to accomplish exactly what they did accomplish. The child is capable of
responding in æsthetic pleasure or spiritual uplift to stories as yet
beyond his re-telling. It is highly desirable that he be given the chance
of contact with such material and that its seed be given time to root
and flower. To urge him to immediate reproduction is to develop shallow
glibness at the sacrifice of something finer. Under the compulsion
of reproduction the teacher excludes, also, not only beautiful and
spiritualizing stories, but long stories. Long stories are not desirable
on the mere ground of length, but even this ground has its claim. The
longer stories give sustained exercise to the imagination, and they give
the story-teller ampler field to set forth character or action and to let
the story yield fuller measure of delight. Short and long and longer and
shorter are all in place. And not all need nor should be reproduced.
How much should the teacher expect when she asks pupils to tell back any
stories they have heard only once, or at most twice? Exactly what the
pupil gives, what he grasped. Many teachers are disturbed, however, by
the meager “language training” afforded by this very brief re-telling.
Why not let the stories, by reiteration of them on the teacher’s part,
impose their thought process and language mode on the forming habit
of the child? This does not mean that reproduction must be verbatim
repetition, nor that the children’s individuality is to be suppressed.
But what a mockery, especially in some quarters, is this prevalent
idea in the schools that the child must not be familiarized with the
language of the story, but that he should be compelled to “tell it in
his own words.” Alas, “his own words”! Would not familiarity with the
story’s language bring riches to the thought-starved and language-starved
children of some unschooled parents, anxious that their children shall
enjoy advantages denied to themselves? Would it not help in foreign
sections?
(6) _It is partial re-telling._ Let the children come into possession of
the story naturally and gradually. At each re-telling of it by yourself
look for firmer and fuller reproduction. Help to keep the children’s
interest centered in the story, not so much by commenting patronizingly,
“How well John told the story!” but rather by openly enjoying the story
John is telling. Let language come, as it should, with the effort to
express the thought. And do not interfere with composition by unnecessary
questioning. Your first method of helping the pupils’ reproduction might
be by supplying omitted parts rather than by questioning analytically
for them, as is so commonly done at present. (Questioning has of course
its place: it serves to lift into consciousness the relations existing
among the parts of the story.) Try co-operative telling: tell part
yourself, then let a child or several in succession tell the next,
helping if necessary but not anticipating, and perhaps finish the story
yourself. The children will soon be able to manage more. Simple, artistic
illustrative picture or blackboard sketches, showing in succession the
main divisions of the story, will help to give it uninterrupted sequence.
(When divisions are made either orally or pictorially, they should be
true portions of the whole.) Presently the children will find themselves
telling the whole of some stories without undue feeling of strain, and
with great pleasure to themselves and their classmates.
Is it natural, by the way, to reproduce in the same company a story just
heard? This is the common school practice. In an adult audience this
would of course never be done except on the frank basis of practice in
so doing or for some other accepted purpose. The children enjoy dwelling
on the story. And they may practice, with the motive of telling the
story at home. The teacher need not, therefore, strain at devices to
make reproduction more natural, yet she might often take advantage of or
contrive more natural occasion for it. The natural occasion is social
intercourse and entertainment. There is space only to indicate one or
two ways of securing this attractive natural motive. Sometimes let at
least a day elapse before asking for the reproduction; you may then
let the exercise be an opportunity to enjoy the story again. Tell the
same story over and over (if it be a good one) yourself on appropriate
occasions, and encourage the children to do the same thing. Let
individuals, or groups, or classes, visit and exchange stories.
(7) The child’s part, _telling similar stories_ and (8) _inventing_
stories, should go without saying. Do not neglect the opportunity offered
by (8). If you reduce the class to workable groups at a time for this
exercise, it should be practicable. Do not press prematurely the creative
imagination, but do not neglect it. Give play to the natural working of
a little child’s fancy, the boy’s or girl’s, the youth’s imagination.
It is wise to follow the lead of the child here, then be at hand, not
to deprive the child of the efficiency of independence and of the
pleasure of making, but to help when necessary that his attempt may be
encouragingly successful.
(9) _It is sometimes expressing story images in other media._ Here,
again, the adult will do well to follow the lead of the child; of course
of the most freely expressive child. The inert must be stimulated. Left
to himself the child would not commit some of the excesses in sensible
representation that adults impose upon children, though objective
representation is natural to man at the childlike stage. It is not
necessary that the child represent materially every set of language
ideas. The teacher should not, on the other hand, stop natural attempt to
represent even the more elusive kinds of ideas; there may be a budding
Watts or Chase in her class, capable of picturing the highly fanciful and
spiritual.
Keep the exercise growing. Its aim is to give constructive outlet to
the child. The child’s conception of the story, with expression of it
and each re-hearing, is growing. The practice of keeping a child’s
first attempts at expression in drawing or modeling or cutting or his
attempts at any one stage too long about the classroom, before his
eyes, is dwarfing. There is, of course, the other side to the question.
To accept nothing as accomplishment is deadening to effort. It is
possible, however, is it not, to meet the child on childlike standard
of achievement, to acknowledge the day’s accomplishment, yet without
disheartening him, or even talking to him about the better things he will
do, to keep _our_ own faces turned toward the morrow?
(10) _It is playing the stories._ This, if not done with every story
without discrimination, or without reference to the children’s
instinctive selective sense, if kept at least fairly spontaneous and
progressive, is a form of constructivity heartily enjoyed by the
children. It is wise here again to follow the child’s lead. Let us
understand, however, by this the lead of the majority of our most normal
children and of the most gifted individuals. Many children meager in
imagination, feeble in initiative, inadequate in execution, will need the
strong lead of other children or of the teacher, qualified child seer
from her experience with more favored children. Let her give to these
from her abundance, becoming best playfellow and guide. But let her keep
herself in the attitude of _playing with the children_.
Let us see how playing the story might develop. As soon as the story
takes possession of the child he shows a tendency to enter into its
persons and its action; to mimic the voices, to ape the manners, to do
the doings. Give outlet to this; let the child take on and play out the
life of the story, or yourself propose playing the story.
Do not, by the way, clutter up the child’s direct outlet with staging
and properties and stage terms. It destroys spontaneity and reality. Let
the schoolroom be the place, and, as a rule, the school furnishings any
necessary things, and the school children, in their ordinary clothes,
the people. The delight of “dressing up” may sometimes be allowed; but
a mere suggestion in costume, if it be something distinctive of the
character impersonated, is all that is necessary; a gold paper crown, for
example, will at once make a queen of any child. Why not with the little
children talk simply and naturally: “Let us play” (not act nor dramatize)
so and so. Who’ll be so and so? I’ll be so and so. Where will you have
your home? And so on. Do not at the beginning _press_ even this simple
kind of planning; let the play develop with the playing of it. Help the
children, however, gradually to gain in planning.
Playing has a tendency to make the form static; it is a mistake to let
this happen too soon. Do not, as is the practice, stop telling the story
yourself after the children have once played it. You will find that their
intimate experience in playing it will bring a more pointed attention to
the next hearing of it, and that their next playing will be richer in
detail, or stronger in structure, or truer in characterization, or more
appropriate in dialogue. Do not, of course, keep the children on one
story either for playing or other form of reproduction until they weary
of it.
Far from deploring, by the way, the child’s crudities in dialogue,
appreciate the opportunity to let him express himself and to develop his
language sense. Keep the language way open to him. He will catch the
force of your comment on how some character spoke, himself suggest to
another pupil what the person the pupil is impersonating should say, note
how you talk when you impersonate, or how you respond in dialogue with
him.
Playing the stories is open to educational abuse by being turned into
insincere show work. This results, too, in exclusion of pupils who do
not excel. Keep playing the stories, at least for the little children,
the spontaneous universal thing they make it—_play_. Their own selective
sense guides them in assigning or assuming rôles. It is abused, also,
by adult patronage. The teacher laughs at the children rather than with
them, or laughs when the true child seer would be serious. The child
thoroughly enjoys playing the stories, but this does not mean that he
laughs constantly or at his own performance. Encourage him to catch the
fun or humor of a situation or of a remark; enjoy the playing openly
when it is merry, laugh and laugh heartily, but do not turn his genuine
playing into a sham. Do not, on the other hand, take him too seriously;
he does not always take himself so. In short, get the child’s point of
view here as elsewhere.
The “last’s the best of all the game;” it is (11) _growing by the power
and grace of the story_.
May the child nurtured on the wit and wisdom of the simple story simply
told live happy ever after!
Thus we arrived at this place together, where the people were
in the habit of spinning up the tow. It was an enforced custom
with them that each in turn should relate some little tale, or
history, and to tell the truth, not only the noble women, but
also myself and my friend, found our entire pleasure in such
stories, and we often used to stop old beggars and give them a
trifle more for telling us them.
—JUCUNDUS JUCUNDISSIMUS, 1680.