Real stories

Thornton Creek 1st Grade Classroom | 06/13/2008 | 9:15 – 10:30 am |
Present: Mari Brockhaus, Mary, Parent Volunteer, Academic Assistant, 24
students, myself

This week I had the opportunity to sit in on a storytelling session led by a parent volunteer. The parent has been telling stories using persona dolls, one each of a different ethnic background, for a whole year. This week was the last session. It was remarkable watching the children gather around, in silence and with the utmost attention for the story to begin.

This week's story, much like every other, had to do with a real life situation that the children might encounter in their lives. The goal was for them to solve the 'problem' that the story posited.

The story went something like this — Four children get out to play during recess. They have been working on a fort under the play structure. One of them reaches the fort first and decides that nobody else can get in. After some persuation the child agrees to let the others in if they each answer a question correctly. All the questions have to do with her likes and dislikes thus giving her ultimate control over who gets into the fort. As the story proceeds, every child except one is inside the fort. The loner on the outside has no way of getting in.

At this point, the parent paused and asked the class what they would feel if they were any one of the four children and what they might do. As always, the answers the children gave were creative and so telling of how real these stories are in their own lives. One child said he would go get an adult to help resolve the situation. Another said, he would talk to the dominating kid and tell her how what she was doing was so unfair. Another said that if he was one of the kids let into the fort, he wouldn't go in because his friend was left outside. That last answer touched me the most. Children are so caring, so giving, in ways that adults fail to me. It is yet another piece of evidence towards the inner goodness of children they are they are all born with.

As the story continued, the adult then told them how the story really ended. The three children who had been tested by their 'friend' decided they did not like how she was 'playing' and so they decided to abandon her and start their own game. They did to her what she had done to them — abandoned them. She then went on to beg to be let in to the group which she was after some talking to by all the others.

What struck me about this ending was how it was dramatically less compassionate than the ones that the children had come up with. It also made me wonder what might have happened if the children had never been provided with a 'real' ending. By giving them a 'real' ending, they were being told how they 'should' handle such situations instead of truly letting them figure out their own ways of handling such situations. It is my guess based on their answers that the children would have handled the situation just fine, using more compassionate means than were now being provided to them through the 'real' ending of the story.

How often and in how many ways do we adults pollute the pure and caring world of the child? Can we see that we do this, even through our stories? Would we stop doing it if we saw how we do it? I ponder these questions and implore you to do the same.