Story in the Early Years

Welcome to Story in the Early Years, our new series about the stories of children and adults, and how (and why!) Story can be integrated into teaching and learning. This series consists of 3 DVDs and their downloadable Viewers’ Guides and is designed for anyone who is interested in children’s “story process.”

For most adults, story process means reading books written for children by adults. Vivian Paley, the only Kindergarten teacher to ever receive a MacArthur genius grant, found herself paying close attention to the stories children told. She has written more than 10 books about life in the classroom (and beyond), in which she tells about collecting stories, and connecting them to adult ideas and stories. Her teaching years, once she realized the depth and breadth of children’s stories, focused on thinking of new ways to help children construct their “own literature.”

In a lecture she gave in 1997, Story and Play: The original learning tools, Paley had this to say:

Even as we learn more and more about play, more and more schools are taking play away. I think part of the reason is that those of us who truly do believe that play and its structure – story – are the wheels that go around, the connective tissue, don’t spend enough time explaining it to each other in story form. Listening to what the actual play sounds like, writing it down, describing it to each other and proving to ourselves, much as the children prove to themselves how to build a tower out of blocks, so it doesn’t fall by continually putting a heavier block on a lighter block – bang! – a heavier block on a lighter block – bang! And after a year of trying, suddenly – oh! – it needs to be balanced on both sides. Now it won’t fall.

For us to understand play, which is far more complex in its terminology, we have to study play and the story form of play ’till we ourselves become players and storytellers, far longer than the little children study how to get blocks to rise up into towers without immediately falling.

We have produced several programs about storytelling. This first, Far Ago and Long Away, talks about storytelling techniques for adults and includes a brief look at Paley’s work. Later we took a more in-depth look at storytelling and storyacting, in three programs devoted exclusively to Paley’s work.

This new series, Story in the Early Years, is our latest contribution to the study of story. In addition to the DVDs and Viewers’ Guides, we offer this blog. (On the blog we posted some short clips from each of the DVD introductions; click here if you would like to take a look.)

As you work on the goals we have outlined, please feel free to send us your questions and ideas.

Thank you for joining us.