CHAPTER XVI
STORY-TELLING
=Value of the Story.= Story-telling is the true pedagogical method of instruction, and to some extent of education, in early childhood. The story has many values, spiritual and intellectual. The wise teacher will use it to (1) entertain, (2) enlarge the experience by giving pictures of other children, homes, lands, social and geographic situations which no one child could experience, (3) acquaint the child with world characters and literature, (4) increase the vocabulary and the use of language, (5) cultivate imagination and concentration, (6) portray the effects of wisdom or foolishness, (7) present ideals of life, (8) give inspiration, courage, faith, sympathy.
=What to Choose.= Stories should be selected that will give the greatest number of these values, and that are suited to the stage of development of the children to whom they are told. In this age of cheap printing and authorship, the mediocre is always at hand, and the most valuable must be searched for as precious jewels. Life is so brief that there is not time even for all of the best.
The best story must first be true, not necessarily in a realistic sense of having actually happened to a certain individual in a historical time and geographical location, but it must be true in expressing the eternal verities, the principles that govern the universe. This rules out the tale in which error or vice succeed, or in which brute strength conquers spiritual strength. In the “true” myth, fairy tale, or allegory, Right eventually triumphs as it actually does in the universe, although possibly long delayed; wrong is punished; error and ignorance bring their unhappy consequences; wisdom and skill conquer circumstances; and the forces of the universe (whether presented as natural forces or as gods, fairies, or Providence) assist those who strive for righteousness and to assist their fellows.
It must next be vital. No less vicious and undermining than the untrue story is the weak, sentimental, mawkish, dull, or mediocre tale. In the reaction against such, and for want of a guide, children of reading age resort to sensational, flamboyant, lurid tales found on any cheap stationer’s counters and even in respectable editions in these days. Other children unfortunately take to such pabulum temperamentally.
It must also be positive, not negative. Moreover, the grewsome, harrowing story, the hypocritical, the morbid, are equally a crime against childhood.
The story must be of interest to the children. It must, therefore, have action, dramatic quality, and for children under six, repetition, humor of situation, fun, brevity, rhythm.
=How to Tell Stories.= For the person who “cannot tell a story” as for the person who “cannot swim”, there is one essential: forget _yourself_ and plunge in, and practice until you have gained confidence.
1. Tell something in which you and the children are interested, and keep at it repeatedly until you feel at ease.
2. Recall stories that interested you at that age.
3. Tell stories the children themselves ask for, refreshing your memory by reading up a standard version, or by asking the children to tell it to you.
4. Study Mother Goose, Æsop, and Bible stories as models of the best story-telling. 5. Live the story as you tell it—see it as pictures in your own mind. Tell it so vividly that the children can play it out afterwards.
6. Use direct speech in telling conversation.
7. Make your pictures vivid by a few descriptive words, especially of colors and sounds; increase your vocabulary of adjectives.
8. Beware of making it too long, especially for very little people.
9. Use perhaps a very few natural gestures, but do not try to act it out. Children have not the mental ability to hear narrative and see action at the same time.
10. Children love the same story repeated, and they want it told _the same way_, in order to see the same pictures; therefore have your story clear in your mind the first time you tell it.
11. If you are telling a classic or standard story, respect it as it is, just as honestly as you would an historic or scientific fact. If you do not wish to tell it that way, don’t tell it at all, but don’t tinker it.
12. Do not try to memorize a story, except possibly the conversations.
13. If a story is clearly told, the child will usually absorb and discern the ethical principle involved, without any necessity on your part to obtrusively “point the moral.” Sometimes a child will draw an erroneous or unexpected inference because his judgment is yet immature or his ethical experience is elementary or perverted. Under such a condition, try to tell another story that will concretely clear his thought.
When you are able to tell a story spontaneously, joyfully, forgetting yourself, losing yourself in the story and in the children’s interest, you will be ready to study story-telling as a science and an art, and you will have learned by your experience some of the fundamental principles of the art.
The first requisite, however, is spontaneity, naturalness, self-confidence. To attempt to study method before attaining this quality is to incur the danger of substituting “finish” for vitality.
=Times and Occasions.= For effective story-telling choose the time when the child can give attention, and when the environment is without disturbing influences of noise, sights, other interests, interruptions. There are occasions, however, when the child is restless, tired, irritable, when a story that has much of rhythm and repetition will soothe him.
It is certainly unwise to try to secure his concentration when he is hungry, or eager for active exercise. Bedtime stories usually should be told before the child is undressed, and should be of a quiet, sedative kind, that the child may not be kept awake either through excitement, or thinking on vivid pictures.
Let the child have opportunity to absorb it into his soul. Therefore wait for the child, in his own time, to give it back, either by telling it, dramatizing, painting, drawing, cutting, modeling. This will foster the child’s initiative. When the child himself asks “What shall I do” is time enough to suggest directly such reproduction. Meantime, as a means of suggestion, it is valuable thus to illustrate a story yourself some time after it is told—immediately or some hours or days later. When the child is ready, he will imitate and ask to do it also, but his response should be spontaneous on his part, and of his own initiative.
=Selection of Stories.= Story-telling naturally begins in the latter part of the first year, with simple finger plays, and the cadence of Mother Goose. Here belong “This Little Pig”, “Open the Door”, “Ride a Cock Horse”, and other simple rhythmic nursery rhymes.
In the second and third year, more of the simple finger plays, such as “Here’s a Ball for Baby”, and the Mother Goose rhymes that have much repetition, can be used. During this stage the child loves little anecdotes about babies, dogs, cats, mother, father. In the “tell it again” stage from two to six the child enjoys following a sequence of incidents and seeing the pictures.
It is in the fourth or fifth year that his imagination and store of mental pictures is sufficiently developed so that he can make up stories of his own, and now his imagination is not yet limited by an appreciation of realities. This is the stage when fairy tales and myths begin. Interest in nonsense syllables, long words, rhyme, absurdity of statement, humorous situations, is now ripening.
In the fifth and sixth year he is ready for fables, and other animal tales such as those of the Jungle Books, for stories of primitive life, for Hiawatha told in Longfellow’s original version.
In the sixth and seventh year his horizon is widening beyond his own immediate home and times. He is ready for little stories about children or grown-ups of other countries and times, for historical incidents, great adventures. Children can now begin to follow the continued story, and this is excellent training in concentration; or they can be told the beginnings of a story, and the situation left as a problem for their own imagination to work upon.
The stories that the child himself tells are always a clue both to his interest and his mental development. The story he can tell will represent a simpler stage in development than the story he can appreciate and absorb.
=Where to Find Stories.= Mother Goose is the true classic of the nursery. It must be wisely selected, however, for children. There is much that is crude, and rude, as in all folk tales, and this should be culled out.
Fairy tales and fables also need to be carefully selected. Andersen’s are ideal, allegorical, true. Grimm’s and Abbott’s are collections of German and English folklore. They, too, need careful selection. Many of them reflect the undemocratic conditions of an older form of government—the cruelty of the autocrat, the superficial superiority of wealth and station, the resentment of the oppressed. Felix Adler points out that Æsop’s Fables reflect this resentment of the oppressed against the oppressor, and the trickery of the former to match the power of the latter.
The great world myths, both of the Greeks and the Anglo-Saxons, should become the early heritage of every child. Simple incidents from the Iliad and Odyssey, from Greek and Norse mythology, from the Siegfried stories, Beowulf, the legends of King Arthur, can be told during the fifth and sixth year, thus giving a first speaking acquaintance with these epics.
The following list is suggestive of types adapted to each age; it does not attempt to be exhaustive. There is so much of the classic and permanently good, far more than any one child could possibly absorb, that it is a double loss to the child if he is given the trashy and mediocre. The ambitious parent needs to take care that the child has time to think over, feel vividly, see clearly, the tales he is told, and that too much is not given in one year.
A Guide to Stories and Poetry
=Six Months to Two Years.= Rhythm, repetition, simple word-pictures of familiar objects or experiences; nonsense syllables.
=Six Months to One Year.= Chanting or singing nursery rhymes. Reading of great rhythmic poetry for sake of rhythm and feeling.
One to Two Years
Mother Goose: Ride a Cock Horse Jack and Jill Humpty Dumpty Hey Diddle Diddle Baby Bunting Rock-a-bye, Baby
Poems and Songs: Sleep, Baby, Sleep What does Little Birdie Say Wee Willie Winkie (Brewer) Hush, my Dear (Watts)
Stories: Simple incidents of children, animals, birds
Folk Tales: Three Bears Old Woman and Her Pig
Two to Three Years
Mother Goose: Little Boy Blue Little Bo-peep Little Tom Tucker Little Miss Muffet Pease Porridge Hot Hickory, Dickory, Dock Old Mother Hubbard Cock Robin
Poetry: Little Drops of Water I Love Little Pussy I Saw a Ship A-Sailing Lady Moon (Houghton) Friendly Cow (Stevenson) Little Lamb, Who Made Thee (Blake)
Folk and Fairy Tales: Three Little Pigs Henny Penny Goody Two Shoes Slovenly Peter Elves and Shoemaker Babes in the Woods
Greek Myths: Apollo and his Sheep Mercury
Norse Myths: Thor and his Chariot Frey and her Weaving
Bible Stories: Moses in Bulrushes Christ Child in Manger
Three to Four Years
Mother Goose: Song of Sixpence Lucy Locket Old King Cole Simple Simon There Was a Crooked Man If All the World Were Paper The Man in the Moon Three Little Kittens
Poetry: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star My Shadow (Stevenson) The Baby (MacDonald) Spring (Nash) Owl and Pussy Cat (Lear) The Jabberwocky (Dodgson) Pied Piper (Browning) How the Waters Come Down at Lodore (Southey)
Folk and Fairy Tales: Tom Thumb Sleeping Beauty Jack and Beanstalk Diamonds and Toads Rose Red and Snow White Jungle Books
Greek Myths: Arachne Latona and Frogs King Midas Narcissus Phaëton
Norse Myths: Thor and his Glove Thor and his Hammer Thor at Jotenheim
Bible Stories: Jesus blessing little children Jesus healing Jairus’ daughter Garden of Eden The Flood and the Ark David and his Harp Daniel Elijah and Ravens
Four to Six Years
Mother Goose: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe As I Was Going to St. Ives When Good King Arthur Ruled this Land Where Are You Going, My Pretty Maid
Poetry: Which Way Does the Wind Blow? Robin Redbreast (Allingham) The Fairies (Allingham) Laughing Song (Blake) The Year’s at the Spring (Browning) Ariel’s Song (Shakespeare) Come, Follow, Follow (Shakespeare) Lullaby for Titania (Shakespeare) Answer to Child’s Question (Coleridge) Nonsense Songs (Lear) Love Songs of Childhood (Field) Book of Joyous Children (Riley) Child’s Garden of Verses (Stevenson) Hiawatha (Longfellow) America
Biography, History and Travel: Robinson Crusoe Columbus’ Voyages Mayflower and Pilgrims Paul Revere John Smith and Pocahontas Betsy Ross and the flag Stories from childhood of Benjamin Franklin Abraham Lincoln Edison Mozart
Norse Myths: Journey of Thor Finding of the Hammer Loki’s Tricks Youth of Siegfried
Folk and Fairy Tales: Dick Whittington Ugly Duckling Discontented Fir Tree Epaminondas Thumbelina Beauty and Beast Gulliver’s Travels Just So Stories Uncle Remus King of Golden River
Fables: Dog in Manger Lion and Mouse Hare and Tortoise Bundle of Sticks Ant and Grasshopper Sun and Wind Boy who cried “Wolf”
Greek Myths: Ceres and Persephone Philemon and Baucis Orpheus and Eurydice Io and the Gadfly Pygmalion and Galatea Ulysses Callisto and Arcas The Wooden Horse Jason and the Golden Fleece Vulcan
Bible Stories: Creation Story Child Samuel Joseph and his Brethren Children of Israel in Egypt The Passover Journey to the Promised Land David and Goliath Samson Ruth The Boy Jesus Jesus feeding the Multitude The Resurrection
Juveniles: The Goops Alice in Wonderland Through a Looking Glass Rip Van Winkle
Six to Nine Years
Poetry: Piccola (Thaxter) The Sandpiper (Thaxter) Song of Spring (Hemans) Pilgrim Fathers ” Bugle Song (Tennyson) Sweet and Low ” The Brook ” We are Seven (Wordsworth) The Daffodils ” My Heart Leaps Up (Wordsworth) The Cloud (Shelley) Ode to Skylark ” The Children’s Hour (Longfellow) Village Blacksmith (Longfellow) Psalm of Life (Longfellow) Building of Ship ” Evangeline ” Tales of Wayside Inn (Longfellow) A Morning Song (Heywood) Hark! Hark! the Lark (Shakespeare) Indian Summer (Whittier) Barefoot Boy ” For a’ That (Burns) Highland Mary (Burns) Annie Laurie Wind and Moon (Macdonald) Old Oaken Bucket (Woodworth) Robert of Lincoln (Bryant) Vision of Sir Launfal (Lowell) Lochinvar (Scott) Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)
Folk and Fairy Tales: Andersen’s Fairy Tales Jataka Tales At Back of North Wind (Macdonald) Arabian Nights
Greek Myths: Labors of Hercules Laocoön The Odyssey Tales from Ovid
Norse Myths: Sigurd the Volsung (Morris)
Classic Tales: (selections) Canterbury Tales Fairie Queene Tales from Shakespeare Pilgrim’s Progress
Legends: Beowulf King Arthur Robin Hood American Indian Legends
Bible Stories: Life of Jesus, including Crucifixion Abraham Jacob Joseph Moses Joshua David Solomon Daniel Esther Elijah Paul
Biography, History, Travel, Science: Local pioneer history Pilgrim Fathers William Penn Washington Lincoln Significant historic tales from England Vikings Pharaohs Greek Roman Incidents from life of Homer Copernicus Galileo Caxton Eli Whitney Longfellow Whittier Harriet Beecher Stowe Swiss Family Robinson Darwin’s Voyage of Beagle The Snow Baby (Peary)
Juveniles: Pinocchio (Collodi) Hans Brinker (Dodge) Birds’ Christmas Carol (Wiggin) Mrs. Wiggs (Rice) Five Little Peppers (Sidney)