Not just looking, but SEEING

          There is a story that I have long loved to tell.  It concerns a man, in one version he is a prophet, in another he is a magician, who wanders upon a wedding feast. "All are welcome!" cries the father of the bride from the steps of his home.  "Come one, come all!!"  After seeing this, the man goes to his home, and puts on the clothes of a beggar, rubbing dirt and mud on his skin and hair.  Hobbling back to the wedding, he still finds the father of the bride proclaiming that "All are welcome!"  But, when the man in his disguise approaches the wedding hall, he is turned away. 

          The man changes his clothes yet again, but this time he dons the robes of royalty, and this time the father of the bride not only welcomes him in, but bows to him, and allows him to sit at the family table.  During the meal, the man, instead of enjoying the food, puts the food on his clothing - even pouring the wedding wine down the front of his shirt.  All the guests are puzzled by the man's actions, and finally, besides himself with curiosity, the father of the bride asks what the man is doing.  The man looks at the father of the bride and says, "Earlier today, I came dressed as a beggar, and though you said all are welcome, you did not let me in.  Yet, when I came in these rich robes, you treated me as an honored guest.  And so, since I am the same person, and it is only my clothing that has changed, I assumed that what you welcomed in here today was not me, but my garments, and I was simply feeding what you invited into your feast!"

          This notion of being judged by one's appearance is something I think that every human being can relate to, and when I began, through Storytelling Arts, to tell stories in Youth Detention Centers, I found that this story hit home even more deeply.  While I have not yet read the book "Blink", I know it's premise - that we all have "hard wiring" that leads us to make instant decisions about who we think someone is, or is not.  Our past experiences can deeply color what it is we see before us.  And, I have found, while some of that is a good thing, that first glance is not always the whole story, any more than the first line of a folktale is the entire plot.

         In the Detention Centers, it is so easy to be swayed by the physical environment - metal detectors, guards, doors that lock, buzzers, cameras - things that we see in movies and television that project "Danger!!!"  Then there are the young people we are going to see - dressed in identical jumpsuits, walking with their hands behind their backs in a straight line - their faces sometimes stone-like, and hard to read.  If one were to stop at that first assessment, one would RUN - no way storytelling would work here - that's crazy!  But it is then that a teller - that I have learned to take a breath, and really SEE, not just look, but SEE, with more than my eyes, with my guts, with my, for lack of a better word, and not to sound too ooey and gooey, with my soul.  And when I do that, I see people. Children really, who, like children do, like we all do, have made a mistake.  People who deserve to be seen for all of what they are, not just their external circumstances or appearances, just as the man in that ancient folktale.

          While I am grateful when people express an admiration for the work  in the Detention Centers that I (along with three other amazing storytellers) am HUMBLED AND HONORED to do for Storytelling Arts, I can truly say that the person receiving more out of these sessions is ME.  Each and every time I go, my perceptions are challenged, and I am forced to look deeply within myself, and exam the lens I am seeing the world through, and that is a very, very, VERY good thing.

Julie is a self proclaimed “creativity junky” whose first art form was dance. After graduating from New York City’s High School of Performing Arts, she danced and sang in numerous musicals across the country and Off Broadway. She has acted in everything from Shakespeare to the work of young playwrights in NYC high schools. Along the way she learned stilt walking, clowning, American Sign Language, and how to tell stories.

Her storytelling work encompasses all her skills as a performing artist, as she brings every aspect of a story to life. Her stories have been heard in such venues as the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the New Jersey Storytelling Festival, and in schools, libraries, bookstores, hospitals, radio and private events across the tri-state area. As an artist for Hospital Audiences Incorporated, Julie performs in halfway houses, drug rehabilitation centers and senior citizen homes.

She is also the voice for several children's and young adult audio books for the Andrew Heiskill Library for the Blind and Handicapped in NYC. When not telling tales she can be found performing as a dancer in shows across the country and as a clown doctor for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit, entertaining children in NYC hospitals.

Fifth Graders Working With Ravens

 - Julie Della Torre, Storyteller

The strongest work we as storytellers do in the classroom, the work that has the most impact on students is when the teacher and the storyteller work collaboratively--two professionals working together, a professional storyteller and a professional teacher--each bringing unique skills to the project.

The professional storyteller does the work of learning her/his story in-depth.  The storyteller researches and finds the story, learns the text, analyzes the story, and studies the culture from which the story emerges. She/he understands different types of stories from the folklore genre.

The professional teacher knows her/his students.  She/he is eminently familiar with grade curriculum and the skills students need in their classroom.

By telling stories and leading literary discussions of the stories, the storytelling gives a class an oral text from which to work on all types of curriculum. We storytellers hope that teachers learn from our tellings and from the follow-up discussions and activities. In truth, we storytellers, if we take time to listen to teachers, learn much more.

I was the storyteller for a Storytelling Arts residency in a middle school in Paterson, New Jersey.  As part of the residency I told stories to the 5^th and 7^th grades and facilitated follow- up discussions.

The goals for the project were to

·         Increase students' awareness, comprehension, and appreciation of literature.

·         Improve listening skills.

·         Stimulate students' imaginations.

·         Help students' to have a more intuitive understanding of story structure which will carry over into their writing skills.

·         Reinforce teachers' understanding that the ancient art of storytelling can serve and integral role in the school curriculum

·         Increase students' awareness, comprehension, and appreciation that stories are the world’s culture

 But as you will see below, the fifth grade teacher, Ms. Kober, went far beyond these goals. It was the second year for me in her classroom.  I told the story ‘The Seven Ravens’ from the Brothers Grimm. Ms. Kober spoke of her experience with storytelling. She said, “Last year I didn’t know what to expect, but now I know what I can do with it (storytelling). It’s great when you come in because I’m not a good storyteller. I can’t do it. So it’s great to have you and then I can take it from there.”

And she did! After hearing the story, she had the students do all sorts of reading and writing.

Ms. Kober went on, “All of the skills you see are prior skills. This was just a great way to review. They loved it. I was amazed that they could sequence the story after just hearing it once. And they could read and follow the directions to make origami ravens. That’s reading informational text.”

Take a look at the writing assignments her students completed and what a beautiful bulletin board it made for showing off their work.

 

 

 

 

 

Storytelling and Technology

January 2013 SAI blog post

Maria LoBiondo

 

If you, like me, are tiptoeing your way into using digital technology and are alarmed by the prevalence of electronic screens in our midst, you may find a recent book some comfort.

 

Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human is a breezy summation of research and musings on why we love stories. An English professor at Washington and Jefferson College, Gottschall defines story broadly, including folktales, dreams, video games, and reality TV. He argues that we humans can’t live without story and that technology may change the form stories come in, but not their essence.

 

There’s a lot in this book that sounds familiar but I enjoyed Gottschall’s take on it. The paradox, the author says, is that stories in all forms are pleasurable and may temporarily free us from our troubles, but without some kind of conflict you don’t really have a story: “Beneath all the wild surface variety in all the stories that people tell—no matter where, no matter when—there is a common structure… Stories the world over are almost always about people (or personified animals) with problems.”

 

You knew that, right? But one conundrum that hasn’t been solved is whether stories serve an evolutionary purpose. Gottschall considers many theories, all still conjecture. What no one seems to doubt is that stories are part of what make us human, and that they are good for us.

 

Gottschall calls stories “flight simulators,” allowing us to safely train for big challenges in the social world. A fascinating example refers to research on “mirror neurons” that may help explain how newborns as young as 40 minutes old can imitate facial expressions and manual gestures. These neurons may be the basis of our ability to run powerful fictional simulations in our heads.

 

Gottschall also addresses the idea that story as we know it—mainly in the form of fiction—may disappear. He most surprised me with his suggestion that as digital technology evolves our attraction to story in ever more varied forms may morph into an addiction and take us over completely.

 

As a storyteller, my fear is that the bells and whistles of technology will mask the depth of what story can bring when we connect face to face through sharing and listening. Nourishing the human connection, allowing stories to nourish our hearts and minds, must never be allowed to fade away.

 

Maria believes that a story is a gift from heart to heart between teller and listener. A professional writer and editor, her love of fairy, folk, and wisdom tales has been lifelong, although studies leading to her bachelor’s degree in education from Boston College and years as a preschool teacher deepened her appreciation.

Maria’s life experiences have included work in low-income communities with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Utica, N.Y., and Providence, R. I., and participation in artist Judy Chicago’s needlework effort, The Birth Project.

She has told stories for the past 13 years at several venues, including Princeton’s Littlebrook School, the Princeton Montessori School, the Catholic Community of St. Charles Borromeo in Montgomery Township, and the New Jersey Storytelling Festival. She is a member of the Princeton Storytelling Circle.

Truth in "Lies"

Last week I told stories for nine groups of first graders: one in which a tortoise rides on eagle’s back, one in which a strange visitor arrives one body part at a time, one in which a wolf demands that a little girl sing to him, another in which a man’s doctor is none other than a python.  Midway through the second day, I realized I had not yet heard that oft-asked question, “Is that true?”

 

These six and seven-year olds seemed entirely comfortable in the imaginative world of folk and fairy tale, where every story is really a story about the human condition, providing metaphors which do not have to be analyzed in order to be useful.  They seemed to intuit that these traditional tales contain truth even if the events never happened.

 

As teachers and parents we want our children to value honesty and to be able to live in the everyday world where we cannot count on physical magic, understand the language of the animals, or witness a giant pumpkin’s sky-born seeds turning into stars.

 

Perhaps it was partly this desire to prepare children for “the real world” that was behind one teacher’s consternation when a boy in her class told me that his father had gone to a skeleton doctor (not an orthopedist, but a doctor that was a skeleton) and got better.  “I forgot to tell you,” she quietly told me as I left the room,  “He is always lying.  He’s been referred to counseling.”  Her concern for her student was palpable.

 

In the days since that session, I have found myself trying to “unpack” this brief episode.  Many of us often feel the need to soften or stretch the truth, and we sometimes to go even further in both our discourses with others and our internal conversations.  The stories told by this little boy, new to both the school and the community, may come from his need to be acknowledged and to fit in. 

 

For me, his claims certainly confirmed that he had absorbed the story I’d just told, a folk tale from Zimbabwe called “Nyangara, the Python.”  In the tale, a group of brave children accomplish a task from which the men of the village flee.  They carry a chief’s doctor, a huge snake, down from his mountain cave and the very ill chief, gently tended by Nyangara, immediately regains his strength.

 

Coming to this story as an adult, I have always focused on the irrepressible innocent courage of the children, rather than on the magical powers of the snake.  But I am guessing that the boy who spoke of the skeleton doctor was hearing something very important about a child/father relationship.  In the tale, the chief refers to all of the kids as “my children” and prepares a great feast for them because they were able to do what the men were too frightened to do.  It is clear that the children save the man’s life.

 

Though I know nothing of this student’s family, I do know how it feels to be able to make an ailing parent feel better.   I vividly remember the months before my own father had the back surgery he so needed.  I was seven, the oldest of five, living on a busy dairy farm.  In school, I was a rather timid second grader.  At home, I was the capable one who could feed and dress my baby twin sisters while my mother was out in the barn or keep my two other sisters occupied by reading to them.  Nothing, however, made me feel as useful and as important as giving my dad a back rub.  “Press hard,” he’d say as I leaned into the tight muscles along his spine.  “That’s right.  That helps.”  

 

Now my father is 87. His heart is failing, his memory in shambles.  Sometimes, instead of dutifully working on his checkbook or cleaning his kitchen, I tell him a story I’m working on.  He is an attentive listener, still a thoughtful man, one who appreciates the truths wrapped up in the “lies” of the story.  I am grateful.

 

LURAY GROSS works extensively in schools and the community presenting workshops and performances for all ages. She is a believer in the power of stories and poems as resources nurturing heart, mind, and spirit. Under the auspices of Storytelling Arts, Inc., she brings multicultural folktales into the classroom and facilitates response and elaboration, particularly through writing. Her own love of the spoken and written word, of the outdoors, and of music were all nurtured by her experiences growing up on a busy dairy farm in Pennsylvania.

Luray is the author of three collections of poetry: Forenoon was published in 1990 by The Attic Press in Westfield, NJ, and Elegant Reprieve won the 1995-96 Still Waters Press Poetry Chapbook Competition. The Perfection of Zeros, was published by Word Press in 2004.

My Heros!!

JULIE PASQUAL is a self proclaimed “creativity junky” whose first art form was dance. After graduating from New York City’s High School of Performing Arts, she danced and sang in numerous musicals across the country and Off Broadway. She has acted in everything from Shakespeare to the work of young playwrights in NYC high schools. Along the way she learned stilt walking, clowning, American Sign Language, and how to tell stories. Her storytelling work encompasses all her skills as a performing artist, as she brings every aspect of a story to life. Her stories have been heard in such venues as the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the New Jersey Storytelling Festival, and in schools, libraries, bookstores, hospitals, radio and private events across the tri-state area. As an artist for Hospital Audiences Incorporated, Julie performs in halfway houses, drug rehabilitation centers and senior citizen homes. She is also the voice for several children’s and young adult audio books for the Andrew Heiskill Library for the Blind and Handicapped in NYC. When not telling tales she can be found performing as a dancer in shows across the country and as a clown doctor for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit, entertaining children in NYC hospitals.

To really understand how ironic what I’m about to write is, you have to understand this about me – when I was a kid, I HATED school. Not disliked, not “I’d rather be watching TV” – we are talking full on LOATHING!!! It wasn’t that I was incapable of doing well, it wasn’t that I was bullied, and didn’t have friends, it wasn’t even that I didn’t want to learn – no, it was just that I was the proverbial square peg being cramped into that round hole. I am, and have always been, a person that NEEDS to dance to their own drummer – schedules, too much structure, make me buck like a horse in the wild west. School, with all it’s rules, and requirements felt like a prison to me, so much so that as a child on Sunday nights, I would stay up as long as I could, hoping to extend my weekend that much longer. But always sleep would take me, and Monday, dreaded back to school Monday, always arrived.

So, in my mind, if school was a prison, than the teachers, were the guards. Like an inmate who knows who holds the power, and the keys to their cells, I eyed them with wariness. I was obedient, and dependable – always afraid of their power of me, over what my parents thought of me, over my life. It was only when I got to high school, and had a teacher, who really SAW me, encouraged me, and in a way adopted me, that I began to see that teachers were actual humans. Mr. Andros, my teacher/mentor/second dad showed me that teachers are heroes who day after day sometimes literally go into battle in their classrooms. They work for little money, and even less respect, it seems, but they have the most important jobs in the world. And now, years after many a school day spend eyeing educators with fear and suspicion, I find myself totally OVERJOYED to offer them whatever I can in my role as a storyteller.

In folktales there are often magical helpers that appear along the way as the hero or heroine makes their way on their journey. Often times they’ll give the hero something that, on the surface at least, looks to be simple, of little relevance to the task at hand. But time and time again in these stories, it is that little object that enables the hero to succeed. I like to think of the tales I tell like little presents, like Jack’s magical beans, that once planted in the minds of a teacher, might just help them in their heroic work of educating our future. I try with each visit to a classroom, not just to introduce the wonderful world of stories to the students, but also to their teachers, knowing I don’t even know a quarter of what they know, but hoping, beyond hope that I have served the story well enough so that it’s wisdom, and timelessness, can be seen by the classroom teacher, and, if they want to, use it in a lesson plan, or a discussion.

Oddly enough, given my history with teachers, it is that aspect that often gives me the most joy in my work with Storytelling Arts. I get to repay all those people, those heroes, who watched me looking at them like they were monsters, but taught me anyway. Who saw my gaze of distrust and fear, and kept offering all they had –day after day. Sr. Ann Robin, Mrs. Franklin, Mr. Manchester – I don’t know where you are today, but believe me - I GET IT NOW!!! I understand what incredible work you do, and while I still live outside, around, and on top of “the box” rather than in it, and too much scheduling still makes my stomach clench – I am trying to repay the debt I owe you, and every teacher whose classroom, my reluctant younger self ever entered! It’s the most I can do, as all you teachers – you hero and heroines go on your daily quests to open the minds of the world.

Moral Play

Hello, I am Julie Della Torre, Master Storyteller with Storytelling Arts, Inc. I have been working as a Professional Storyteller since 1985 and have 9 years of elementary school teaching experience along with the study of child development and curriculum. More information about our work in storytelling and education can be found on the Storytelling Arts website www.storytellingarts.net

The best book about storytelling and playing with ideas that I’ve read this year is Big Ideas For Little Kids by Thomas Wartenberg. The subtitle is Teaching Philosophy Through Children’s Literature, and he runs a wonderful website www.philosophyforchildren.org I’m rereading the book right now in preparation for the upcoming school year.

I read about the book in the NY Times and received it as a gift for Mother’s Day. I devoured it that very day and put it into practice the very next day. The book is all about holding deep discussion with children after sharing picture books with them. Storytelling offers an even more immediate and intense philosophical experience. The old folktales and fairy tales and myths are full of inherent moral and ethical problems. The reason for their existence is to help us figure out life and to teach us ways of being in the world.

I was ready for this book. I have read widely and deeply on this issue of holding deep conversations with children. Vivian Paley is an inspiration. She truly listens to children and tries to figure out what they are really saying. As I reported last week, her many books have been invaluable. Robert Coles and his The Spiritual Life of Children and his The Moral Intelligence of Children helped me realize that very young children are dealing with very big issues. Children are trying to make sense of the world.

Back to Wartenberg. The first discussion Wartenberg reports is on wondering about bravery after reading a Frog and Toad story. (‘Dragons and Giants’ by Arnold Lobel) The day after I read this chapter I went into a third grade class to tell stories. I told the same stories I had planned to tell, but used the concept of bravery in the follow-up discussion. I told the story of Baba Yaga’s Black Geese (many versions exist), in the story a little girl is left in charge of her baby brother. Inadvertently she leaves the boy alone and Baba Yaga’s geese kidnap him. The little girl has to go and save the baby boy. She does so with the help of three animals.

Before the story I asked the students what they thought about bravery, how they might define it, what they thought it meant to be brave, and had they ever been brave. In the free wheeling discussion many points were made.

• Being brave is when you’re never afraid.
• No, being brave is when you are afraid but you do it anyway.
• Being brave is when you don’t even think about it. You do something scary without even thinking about it. Like when a fireman saves someone. You just do it.
• You have to do something for someone else.
• Being brave is when everyone else can do something and you’re scared, but you do it anyway. A girl was uncomfortable with this and came back with the thought that maybe if the ‘others’ were doing something bad, then maybe it would be more brave NOT to do what everyone else was doing.

After I told the story we talked about bravery again. All the third graders thought the Little Girl was brave according to our definitions. It was very scary to go to Baba Yaga’s hut to save her brother, but she did it. However, new issues surrounding bravery came up because of the story.

• During the discussion before the story, the students didn’t think you could be brave if someone helped you. After the story many changed their minds. But, there was a condition. “You have to listen to the help and follow what they say.” Well now, that’s interesting.
• One girl said, “The girl was lucky that Baba Yaga was asleep.” This led to a discussion of whether luck has anything to do with being brave.
• And then there is the whole problem of the little girl. She left her brother alone. That wasn’t very responsible. It was her fault the boy was taken. In part, she was trying to save her own skin. Is that considered being brave?

The ideas in this book resonate now with stories I learn. I just learned a delightful story of the Hodja and the Moon in the Well. I did not learn this story as an example of bravery, but now I see two more questions of bravery arise

• Can you be brave if you do something you think is brave, but no one else thinks is brave?
• Can you be brave if no one is there to witness it?

The New Jersey Storytelling Festival is being held this Sunday, September 12^th at The Grounds For Sculpture. (Find information at New Jersey Storytelling Network www.njstorynet.org . Or go directly to the Grounds For Sculpture website at www.groundsforsculpture.org.) I will be telling a whole program of stories about being brave. Maybe I’ll see you there.