Lost

“A tailor’s apprentice was once traveling and he went into a great forest. Not knowing his way, he lost himself and, when night fell, was forced to seek a bed in this painful solitude.”

This young tailor loses his way in the beginning of a Grimm Brothers’ story called “The Glass Coffin,” but the heroes of many tales pass through this same forest. It’s the place where Hansel and Gretel found the gingerbread house, it’s the Forest of Arden, and it’s where Dante found himself at the beginning of Inferno. “When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a forest dark, for I had lost the path that does not stray.”

Stories, like dreams, take us back again and again to familiar places that we have never actually visited. I think they are familiar because they make up the landscape of our souls. When we encounter them in dreams, we know where we are and, although we may feel lost, we also recognize landmarks at each turning of the road. When we encounter these places in stories, we can visualize them in great detail as soon as they are introduced.

Of course, we also lose ourselves in this same dark forest in our real, waking lives. It happens to most of us more than once. You could even say it’s part of the human developmental journey. I see my twenty-month old grandson occasionally toddle into it as he begins claiming independence from his mama, and I, who have journeyed more than half of my life’s way, see it looming in the shape of old age and its inevitable conclusion. In my case, these thoughts are passing; and for the most part, they remain in the intellectual realm. My grandson is protected by all of the adults who hover around him like guardian fairies, ready to whisk him to safety at the slightest hint of danger.

However, some people live in this wilderness, and are forced day after day to seek their bed in its painful solitude. I think this describes the state of most adolescents. They are truly lost because there is no map they can follow that will lead them safely from childhood to maturity. They have to find their own way and make their own path, and the journey is fraught with hazard: drugs, violence, ill-intentioned friends and strangers. Some teens are lucky enough to meet a guide whom they trust to point out the pitfalls in the road. Some, like the arrogant older siblings of folktales, scoff at the wisdom of these advisors and end up paying dearly for their distain. And there are surely others who are never even offered advice.

For the past three years, Storytelling Arts has provided a storytelling program for residents at a juvenile detention facility. During this time, the four of us who teach these workshops have met well over a hundred children who, for one reason or another, have been sent by a judge to live under lock and key for some period of time. The facility is well run by staff who have the residents’ best interest at heart. Although the kids are locked up, most of them are not serving hard time. Some are remanded to the detention center while they wait for a bed in a rehabilitation facility or residential training program. Others return home after only a few days. But there are some who stay on for weeks or months and then leave to begin a longer, more painful, incarceration.

These long-term residents form the core of our storytelling program. They hear many stories and they are the only students who engage in discussions and activities through the entire arc of our residency plans. The also provide continuity for  more transient residents by explaining the program and connecting the stories we tell to other tales and to their lives. We tellers see the long-term kids four times a month for several months and we develop comfortable relationships with most of them. We hardly ever know why they were locked up and, in many cases, we find it hard to believe that the intelligent, curious, and thoughtful teens in our workshops could have done anything bad enough to merit a long incarceration. But we know they did. They are the wanderers who lost their path and got themselves so tangled in the darkness that they couldn’t find a way out on their own. It must be very hard to maintain perspective under those circumstances. As nearly as I can recall from my own adolescence, concepts like right and wrong seem vague to a person who is truly lost.

However, when we meet these teenagers, they are no longer seeking shelter in the painful solitude of the forest. Someone has found them and gotten them into a place where their physical safety is not at risk and where their emotional bewilderment can begin to be addressed. To continue the journey metaphor, we meet them in the hut of the woodcutter or the cave of the wise old woman, but unlike the heroes of folktales, these children have arrived too late for their helpers’ wisdom to work its magic. The deed has been done and it has consequences that can’t be avoided, not with all of the wisdom that hindsight can provide.

The kids get straight in their new residence, their thinking becomes clearer, and then, because there are few outside distractions, they are forced to reflect on their past actions and to try to anticipate their future. And that future is often unbearably bleak. Those who are waived up to adult status because of the severity of their crime, or who, on their 18^th birthdays, are sent to adult correctional facilities to serve out the term of their sentence are moving into a place that is probably much darker than any they have visited. What makes this situation even sadder, at least for us, the tellers, is that it is so clear that the huge majority of these children could have been saved if they had met someone along the road to advise them and to whom they had listened. Because the truth is that some of those step-sisters and older brothers in the folktales may done fine if they had met an advisor they were tempted to hear. The wizened old woman doesn’t appeal to everyone, no matter how much she knows, and just because she happens to be standing around the corner when the hero loses his way doesn’t mean she is holding the gift he needs to succeed.

One of the boys whom we have known the longest and loved the most just left us to begin a long incarceration in an adult facility. When we talk about this young man who has so gracefully and gratefully received our gifts with no hope that they can change the course of his next few years, we say to each other, “You never know. Something he has now may help him get through the next journey intact.” And maybe that’s so.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Diane Wokltein's Stories Touch Us All

Diane Wolkstein was a teacher, mentor and close friend. I miss her greatly.

One of my favorite stories is ‘I’m Tipingee’ from her collection, The Magic Orange Tree.( You can hear this story on the SAI YouTube Channel ) It is a story of community, among other things, and it has brought community to me through the telling of it.

‘Tipingee’ became a favorite of an elementary school in Glen Rock, New Jersey. For 12 years I told stories in this K-5 school. I taught students and teachers how to tell stories. The school year of stories culminated with a school wide storytelling festival. Everyone, students and teachers, told stories for an afternoon. Before splitting up into small mixed age groups, the school population would gather to start the afternoon with an annual telling of Tipingee. Everyone knew the story; everyone chanted and sang as one. Imagine 350 kids and teachers listening so quietly and then bursting into “I’m Tipingee. She’s Tipingee. We’re Tipingee, too.” We all delighted in the experience together. Diane writes of this extraordinary community in the introduction to the 20^th anniversary edition of The Magic Orange Tree.

Professionally Tipingee has broadened my community as well. I tell ‘Tipingee’ in tandem with other tellers. With Elizabeth Nordell (SAI) I tell an English/Creole version. With Julie Pasqual (SAI) I tell an English/Sign Language version. In this way we spread the story to others.

‘I’m Tipingee’ will always have a special place in my heart. I thank Diane for bringing it to our storytelling community that we may pass it on.

--Julie Della Torre

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Diane Wolkstein grew up one town over from where I live, so when I first started appearing in local storytelling events, audience members often asked if I knew her.  I didn't at first, but when the opportunity availed itself to take a series of workshops with her I signed up.  I trekked in and out of a bitterly cold New York City to her apartment on Patchin Place in Greenwich Village.  There I was warmed by the stories shared and by her welcoming smile.  Her collection of Haitian stories, The Magic Orange Tree, is a legacy Diane Wolkstein gifted not only to the storytelling community, but story lovers everywhere.

--Ellen Musikant

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          There is a photo somewhere in my parents’ house of me, as a little girl, climbing on the statue of Hans Christian Anderson in Central Park.  One of the many advantages of growing up in NYC is that Central Park, and all of its marvels, were available to me anytime I wanted.  I did not attend any of Diane's storytelling there, but years later, when I heard about it, I could imagine my younger self, sitting listening to her, with the background of that beloved statue.  And, the year she asked if I - me, Julie Pasqual - would actually tell a story there, well, my heart about burst in pride.  It was an "I made it moment," just the fact that she knew my name floored me, but that she also thought that I was good enough to stand before that statue and tell to audiences that had cut their storytelling teeth on her, and Laura Simms, and other great and wondrous tellers, well - I was stunned.  It was another couple of years before I felt like Diane and I really talked, and that was about one of her passions - the people of Haiti, I had recently returned from working with a community there, and I could see the love she bore the brilliant, joyful residents of that troubled region.  We sat on a subway one day - I literally almost running into her, and swapped stories of the many smiles, and bright eyes we had seen on our visits.  Though she hadn't been in years, Haiti - as Haiti does - had not left her soul.  Some people just tell stories, some just write them, some just collect them.  But, Diane did this and more - she lived them with a full-hearted passion that set the bar high for all of us that have come after her, because of her.  If I ever get to stand before that statue and tell stories again, I hope her light will feel my soul, and guide my telling.

--Julie Pasqual

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When I was first starting out as a storyteller, I found in the library a copy of Diane’s The Red Lion. The tale is from Persia, and recounts a prince’s journey to face his greatest fear, which he must do to succeed his father on the kingdom’s throne. The prince runs away several times before summoning the courage to meet the red lion. And, of course, he is triumphant – but in a surprising way. I always enjoy telling this hero’s journey tale, especially to those on the cusp of adolescence preparing to face their own red lions. It has helped me face red lions of my own. I never had the pleasure of hearing Diane tell this story and I wish I had. The times I did hear her tell I could sense the passion she felt for storytelling and her intense desire to share it. She will be missed.

--Maria LoBiondo

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 I was in Diane’s physical presence only 5 or 6 times, yet her work has had a deep influence on me as a storyteller.   She was a model of grace and power in her telling and a model of dedication and scholarship.   As have other SAI tellers, I’ve found stories from The Magic Orange Tree especially compelling.  My favorites are “The Name” and  “One, My Darling, Come to Mama.”   The first for its sauciness and the second for much more.

  “One, My Darling” has sparked profound conversations among students.   How is it, many wonder,  that Philamandre, despised and neglected by her mother as a child, does not hesitate to lovingly care for her mother when the woman appears years later.    

  Although I rarely tell this powerful story to young children, I did tell it for a second grade class I had grown to know well.   At the close of the story, a hand shot up.  

  “Why,” demanded the boy, “is she so kind to her mother when her mother was mean to her?”  

     Before I could respond, another hand flew up.  It was Allora.  “I know.”

    “Tell us,” I said.  Allora stood to explain.

    “Philamandre was kind to her mother because she did not want to be like her mother.”   

    Students have also responded deeply to “White Wave,” a Chinese folktale that Diane published with beautiful illustrations by Ed Young.  I tell the story in my own words, but frame it by telling the children how Diane found the story and include, as well, the way she ends the story:

    Many years pass.  Finally nothing remains of the young man, the shrine he built for a goddess and the moon shell in which she once lived.  

   Nothing remains except the story.  That is how it is with all of us; eventually what remains of our lives are our stories. 

--Luray Gross

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   My story has something in common with the experience Julie Della Torre recalls. It includes a tale from Diana’s The Magic Orange Tree and there is community singing, too. However, the community in my story is one that feels far away from a Glen Rock elementary school.

 Almost fifteen years ago, I began telling stories in the Morris County Youth Detention Center. When I introduced myself to my first audience of about twenty teenage boys, they scoffed at the idea that I had anything to offer them, but as any storyteller would expect, most of them changed their minds somewhere during the first five minutes of the first story. After that, I taught storytelling workshops at the detention center every week and, although residents came and went, there remained a consensus that Storytelling was, ‘okay.’ That is, it was okay to listen to, discuss and, sometimes, retell stories, but most kids drew the line at active participation as tellers or listeners.

   One day, maybe five months into the program, I invited my friend and colleague, Mary Rachel Platt, to be a guest artist at the facility. The boys who were in residence that day had been there for a long time and most of them were frustrated and worried. They walked into the classroom and slumped into their seats, each one wearing the sullen expression that only teenagers can achieve. Mary began her telling with “Cric, Crac,” the ritual we all learned from Diana to introduce a Haitian story. Her friendly ‘cric’ was greeting with a rolling of eyes, so she just started the tale of Tayzanne, a magical fish.

   There is a song that recurs throughout this story. Its words are simple, but the melody is haunting. By the first time Mary sang it, the boys were engaged in the story. When the song was repeated for a second time, I thought I heard it softly echoed by someone else in the room. I truly didn’t believe my ears, but at the third repetition, the echoing voice was stronger. More voices joined in until, when Mary finished the story by singing the refrain one last time, she was just one voice in a choir made up of every boy in the room.

   Tayzanne is not a happy story, but it was the story those boys needed that day, a tale to take them away from their own worries, if only for the time it took Mary to tell it. There is a lot of Diana in this memory. She truly understood the power of story to describe and mold cultures, preserve rituals, and change lives. From her I learned to forget myself, the teller, and trust the story to catch and hold its listeners.

--Paula Davidoff

Listening: the other side of telling

As a teaching artist, I do much of my work in other teachers’ classrooms. Over the years, I have both spent a fair amount of time talking with administrators, planning with teachers, and observing student / teacher interactions. One thing I have observed is that in most school situations, students are given few opportunities to speak at any length. There are many reasons for this, some more legitimate than others, but I think that however valid the reason for keeping students quiet, the result is that, by the time they get to middle school, many children are uncomfortable expressing their opinions in front of teachers and classmates. There is always the suspicion that when an adult poses a question, he or she does so with an answer already in mind, and students quickly learn that wrong answers might be greeted by classmates with distain or ridicule. The irony of this situation is, of course, that one of the best ways to assess what a student knows is by listening to him talk. Student discussions throw light on the speakers’ misconceptions and missing knowledge in a way that most pen-and-paper tasks cannot, and aural assessment can be done in a fraction of the time it takes to read and evaluate a stack of essays.

Because we don’t have to worry about things like test scores and administrative edicts, my colleagues and I have the luxury of allowing students to spend hours of workshop time in talk. Although the work of our programs develops literacy skills and broadens our students’ knowledge base, these outcomes are a means to our main program goal, and not the goal, itself. Creating opportunities for unfettered student discussion is a crucial part of our process toward the goal of encouraging independent thought and increasing self-confidence. It is through discussion with each other that students develop their own ideas and gain assurance that they can voice them convincingly.

That said, productive student talk has to be directed, and I think directing classroom conversation is one of the most important skills we teaching storytellers can develop. I would bet we all agree that the most crucial element of that skill is our ability to listen. There are times when student discussions call for adult intervention, but they occur less frequently than most adults (myself included!) imagine. A guidance counselor who co-teaches in one my programs once told me that before interjecting a remark, a facilitator should always say to herself, W.A.I.T. –  Why Am I Talking? I have learned that the reason for my own impulse to speak up is usually that I’m afraid the kids won’t be able to resolve an issue unless I lead the discussion. Silence and patience have taught me that, given enough time and direction, they usually reach on their own the point I wanted to make. As they talk without adult interference, students gain confidence in their ability to speak for themselves. The model of an adult respectfully listening, voicing agreement or disagreement with only a word or a nod, teaches them one of the most important rules of successful social interaction, namely that it requires a balance of action and observation; of speaking and listening.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat at the back of a workshop that was being led by four student storytellers who participate in a storytelling program at Frelinghuysen Middle School in the Morris School District. In that program, which I direct, students learn to tell stories through a variety of artistic media. It is a long-term program and students who join in their 6^th grade year often remain in the program  until they leave the school after 8^th grade. Every year, when I introduce a new group of 6^th graders to the storytelling program, I ask some older student storytellers to take part in the presentation. The students who were leading the workshop in question had been in the program for a year.

Near the end of the session, one the workshop leaders, Anjel, said to the new recruits, “Storytelling is a very relaxed place.”

A 6^th grader responded, “Why? What do you do?”

Anjel paused. He and his classmates had just finished a twenty-minute explanation and demonstration of what they do in Storytelling, so that, clearly, was not the focus of the 6^th grader’s question. Anjel looked toward the back of the room where I was sitting. I shrugged. I didn’t have an answer. I was a bit surprised when I heard him describe our workshops as “relaxing.” Although I know the students enjoy themselves, the program isn’t easy. I expect participants to accomplish a lot in the 40 days I see them, and many of our projects require them to take risks, both socially and artistically.

One of the other leaders, a girl, spoke up in answer to the question. “Well, in Storytelling you can be yourself.”

“Right,” said Anjel, “you can say anything and you know no one will make fun of you.”

“And,” another leader chimed in, “we talk about everything.”

The sixth grader nodded his head as if his question had been answered satisfactorily, but I can’t believe he felt that it had.

However, upon reflection I realized that the student storytellers’ description of the atmosphere in their storytelling workshops demonstrates another way in which listening to students helps them grow, both intellectually and morally.

‘Unfettered student talk’ is an expression I used earlier. It’s hyperbole, of course. We fetter if things start getting out of hand, but I believe that another thread in the binding of the trust essential for our programs to succeed is our willingness to let students talk about anything. Anything.

Children have so many questions about the world, and in a world where many traditionally ‘adult’ topics are the subject of daytime talk shows and after school soap operas, today’s children must carry in their heads a stock of confusing information about topics like sex, drugs, health, and religion that they have no opportunities to organize or clarify. The traditional sources of worldly wisdom: parents, teachers, and clergy, are often not good sources of information for teens. Parents immediately worry that the child’s question refers to his own predicament; teachers are warned against broaching subjects that are socially or politically controversial; and the clergy usually toe the party line. Even when a child knows an adult who is willing to listen and engage in conversation, it’s often hard for the child to begin it.

By the time our children get to middle school, they are full of questions, and they have reached the time of life when their most interesting sources of information are their peers. Every middle- and high school teacher has overheard conversations between students that are so full of misinformation it would be funny if we didn’t realize that the likelihood they will make decisions based on these falsehoods is high. Here again, listening to student talk becomes an invaluable tool, because it allows us to recognize our students’ misconceptions and redirect their line of inquiry. It also gives us insight into what topics they worry and wonder about.

Once in a middle school storytelling workshop, I told the story of Bearskin, a Grimm tale about a soldier who makes a bargain with the Devil. I had told the story at least a hundred times before to audiences of teenagers and adults and it always introduces interesting conversation about a variety of topics. This day, however, the conversation turned in a new direction when a boy asked,

“Wait, was that the real devil?”

I had fielded the question before and I responded as I usually do when I want more information before committing myself to an answer by asking, “What do you think?” I was expecting a reference to something religious, and the boy was not a little kid, so I was taken aback when he replied,

“I just want to know if he was the real devil with the horns and tail and pitchfork.”

Luckily for me, this statement began a discussion among students about the possibility that such a creature existed. I listened to students offer their various interpretations of Old Scratch, before suggesting that the devil in my story might be a metaphor. This was greeted with protests along with citations from the story to prove the students’ point that the character was, indeed, real. Finally, the first boy, in exasperation, said,

“I’m talking about the devil who takes you to hell if you’re bad!”

Silence. The boy had opened a topic of conversation that is frequently censored in school, namely contemporary religious belief. The other students were uncomfortable, and I didn’t want my response to undercut the teaching of a parent or priest. The silence was broken by a girl who asked in a quiet voice,

“What really happens after you die?”

Unsurprisingly, this was the question that was really on every child’s mind. As soon as the girl asked it, they all began to talk at once. Some gave explanations they had heard in church or on television; others told stories of the death of a relative or friend. As I listened, I realized that it didn’t matter that I had no answer to the girl’s question. What these children needed was an opportunity to talk about life and death, a topic too loaded and too uncomfortable for many adults to entertain. I joined the conversation when I thought I should, but I offered neither answers nor platitudes. Just before the bell that would end the class, I told a short parable about the difference between heaven and hell which I knew would both clear the air and send the students away with something concrete to think about.

So, as it turns out, I agree with Anjel and his fellow storytellers that people are more relaxed in a place where they know they can speak freely and that their ideas will be taken seriously. And as talking helps students to understand and articulate their own thoughts, listening to students talk helps us understand them. Their conversation opens windows into their lives, their thoughts, their interactions, and their attitudes, and I believe that our willingness to let these scenes unfold without judgment or interruption offers our students a unique and important educational experience.

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.

Making New Things Familiar

Unless I’m actively promoting myself as a storyteller, I almost never tell people what I do for a living. When I fill out forms that require me to state my occupation, I write “teacher,” and when asked about my job, I say that I teach literacy education. It’s so much easier than saying I’m a storyteller. I learned years ago that when I tell people what I really do, I have to explain myself. And the explanation is never satisfying because a person who has not experienced storytelling can’t understand what it is.

The conversation goes something like:

“You read aloud?”

“No, I don’t read stories, I tell them.”

“Uh huh.”

“I mean, I don’t hold a book, I just look at an audience and tell the story.”

“You memorize it?”

“Not exactly, I sort of perform it.”

“Oh, you’re an actress!”

So, after a while, I just stopped saying that I’m a storyteller. It’s too frustrating.

But a few months ago, I was sitting in my kitchen writing a check for a plumber who had just unclogged my bathroom sink. He was telling me about a wedding he had just attended. Mostly he was marveling about what it must have cost. When he told me the name of the venue, I said,

“Oh, I know that place. I did a job there once.”

Because it would have made no sense to say I taught literacy at a wedding venue, when the man inquired about my job, I had to come clean.

“I’m a storyteller,” I said, resigning myself to the inevitable nonexplanation.

The plumber’s eyes grew wide. He put down the pen he was using to write my receipt and said, “You mean you’re one of those people who can stand in front of an audience, and just by talking, make everyone feel like they’re in another world?”

I was floored! What could I do but say “yes” as modestly as possible?

“I saw a storyteller once,” he continued. “It was, maybe, fifteen years ago, when I was in high school. We had an assembly and this lady came out on the stage. At first it was kind of embarrassing, because the whole school was in the auditorium and none of us knew why she was there. Honestly, she didn’t look like much, but when she started talking, it was like she cast a spell over the room. Everyone was sitting at the edge of their seat with their mouths hanging open. I’ll never forget it.”

As we talked more about the experience, he told me that the storyteller had left a stronger impression on him than “shows or musicals or movies.” I wasn’t surprised to hear this, because I’ve had the same experience listening to my teachers and colleagues tell stories. The conversation did, however, make me wonder, once again, why the quiet art of storytelling packs such a big punch. I decided to begin asking my audiences about it. One of the places I asked was in the fifth grade classroom of my friend, Joan Kenny.

I have been telling stories and facilitating writing activities in Joan’s classroom for several years. At this point, I look for opportunities to teach there because I know I will always find myself working with a group of extraordinary students: children who are passionate, curious, thoughtful, creative, and willing to take risks to learn something new. Joan’s kids represent a cross section of public school students from a racially, culturally, and economically diverse community, but year after year, they defy the current stereotype of  the unmotivated and uninformed American public school student. You don’t have to be in that classroom for long to understand why. Joan is a wonderful teacher, one of the best I’ve ever seen. She makes everything exciting, and her classroom is a place where students know their thoughts and ideas will be met with interest and respect. When I told her what I wanted to ask her students about storytelling, she said,

“Tell them you need their advice. That always pulls them in.”

So when I met with the students, I asked them if they thought listening to a storyteller might help kids learn. Their answers were, of course, all positive, (They are very polite to classroom visitors!) but it was their actions that impressed me. Some of the things they said were,

“Listening to a storyteller helps you learn because it makes you imagine.”

“And get ideas.”

“Stories evoke emotions.”

“When you tell us a story, it makes new things seem familiar.”

“A story stays with you.”

When I asked the student who made the last remark to give me an example, he stood up and gazed at a spot on the ground in front of him with a worried expression. Then he spoke. 

“When the man saw the injured bird, he picked him up very gently.” As he spoke, he stepped forward and bent over, cupping his hands as if he were scooping an object off the floor. 

I realized that he was mimicking the actions and facial expressions I had probably used several weeks earlier when I told his class a story called “Just Rewards.” Before I could say anything, another boy jumped up and walked toward one of the desks. His hands were also cupped as if he were holding the bird, and when he reached the desk, he pretended to place the bird on it and make it comfortable.

“That’s the basket,” said a girl who was watching.

“He’s putting in a soft blanket,” added another student.

As I watched and listened, I was pretty sure that I was seeing a much more detailed version of the story than the one I had told. The movements were more elaborate and continuous, as were the visual details that students continued to describe.

When the second boy sat down, all of the kids had their hands in the air. One after another, they told bits of stories, using their faces and bodies as well as their voices. Each time, I saw and heard something new. The children were not simply imitating me; they had synthesized the information I gave them when I told the stories, and they were giving back their own interpretations. Moreover, they had processed the stories after hearing them only once, and could still recount them weeks or, in some cases, months later.

None of this anwers the “why” of my original question. Why does my plumber have such a powerful memory of the storyteller he heard when he was a teenager? Why are Joan’s fifth graders able to remember and retell a story with so little effort?  I know that there are philosophical and physiological explanations for why people react to storytelling the way they do, and I think some of them are probably right. I also think that part of the answer to my question lies in something one of the fifth graders said: Story makes new things seem familiar.

When a storyteller gives a tale to an audience, she presents it in ways that touch each person’s mind and heart and spirit. The story becomes more than words. It is a gesture that a grandmother used to make, an expression on a father’s face, the sound of an old friend’s voice. Each listener recognizes something in the teller’s words and movements that helps him place the story within his own experience. The story becomes more than text or spectacle. It becomes a personal memory, part of the listener’s own life journey.

Receiving a story is a complex and unique experience. Which is why people who have never heard a storyteller just can’t understand what she does!

Paula Davidoff, Storyteller