Storytelling is a great tool to develop
a child’s imagination and creative skills in a fun and engaging way for
children. Until starting my journey through my career in childcare I never put
a thought into how much children need their imaginations and creativity skills or
how much storytelling can enhance theses skills. As a child it was a routine
for my grandparents to read to me every night since I was a baby, until I started
using my literacy skills in primary school I never really understood the importance of storytelling. Donaldson
states within his review, ‘’creativity and enterprise are central features of
modern life that should be developed and extended throughout a school career.
Young people’s experience at school should have stimulated their imaginations
in ways that engender excitement, are personally fulfilling and foster creative
thinking. In addition, they need to be ready to enter the adult world with the
‘softer’ skills, dispositions and attitudes that will be essential in their
future lives, including the desire and the capacity to contribute, individually
or as a member of a team.’’ (2015, p.28). Within his report he also suggests 6
areas of learning an experiences, one of which is expressive arts. Schools and
teachers are to encourage children to develop their creative skills, talent and
artistic and performance skills. Expressive arts provide opportunities to
explore thinking, refine, communicate each other’s ideas, to engage in thinking
and imagination while being creative. Expressive arts gives the chance for the children
to explore issues of cultural and personal identity. For children to participate
in expressive arts they require perseverance, close attention to detail and
application which will benefit the child as a whole. (Donaldson. 2015).
Professor Dai Smith stated ‘’it is
clear that countries across the world recognise the significance and potential
of the arts in enabling improved educational, social and economic outcomes.’’
(2013).
During one of our seminars within university
we were given a task to write a letter to primary school children as if we were
Victorian’s living in their era. We were given so much freedom in what we would
include in the letter as well as the person we wanted to portray ourselves. As
a group myself and two other students decided to be a poor Victorian girl, who
was too poor to attend school due to having to work as much as possible to
provide for her family. Due to knowing very little about the Victorian times we
had to do a lot a research around what kind of jobs were offered at the time and
how they lived to gain the knowledge to write the letter effectively. It was really
interesting having the freedom to do our own research. Throughout our research
we found jobs for children such as a rat catcher in which we decided to write about
in our letter to the primary school children. You would never in this day and age
find a child working as a rat catcher and it goes to show how much thing have changed.
Throughout research we also found it was normal for large families to live in
extremely small home for example the child we chose to portray ourselves as was
1 of 6 children living with their mother in a 1 bedroom flat in East London. Creating
the story behind the child we were portraying ourselves as gave us the opportunities
to gain information in which we research ourselves, to use our imagination
skills to create this child in our minds, as well as using our creativity
skills to put all this together and create a letter written from the child we
were portraying throughout. Even for us as adults writing this letter we learnt
so much about the Victorians in a fun and engaging way. For children there is no
end to what they can learn through storytelling, using their imaginations and
creativity through an exciting activity all can engage in.
Within education there is an approach
is which can be used called ‘Mantle of the Expert’ that uses imaginary context
to create engaging and purposeful activities for learning. The approach work by
the teacher planning out an fictional activities where the children are part of
an team where they take on the responsibilities of an expert. The children are then
set instructions by the client to work on an assignment, it has been planned to
create tasks and activities that involves the children in their own research
and studying and developing wide areas of the curriculum. For example a class are
cast as a team excavating an Egyptian tomb for a museum. To compete the task
the children must do their own research around ancient Egyptian history and
find out facts of the era. The children will be learning a wide range of the
curriculum including history, art and design, geography and religious
education. While competing the task each child will also be developing their
reading, writing and problem solving skills throughout. The whole Matter of the
Expert approach has been designed to teach the whole curriculum at all times,
but is still to be used selectively by the teacher alongside a range other
methods.
I have included a video below created by Tim Taylor, a teacher, trainer
and author in England. He has worked in schools for more than 25 years promoting
and developing Mantle of Expert. (Taylor. 2018).
While carrying out our seminar
task previously discussed I can say first hand how well this approach works. Evan
as adults completing the task of writing a letter to primary school children
portraying ourselves as a Victorian in their era, it gave us that freedom and independence
to do our own research around the subject, learning first hand from our own
work and experiences.
Donaldson, G. (2015). Successful
Futures - Independent Review of Curriculum and Assessment Arrangements in
Wales.
Smith, D .(2013). An independent report for the Welsh Government into Arts in Education
in the Schools of Wales Arts Council of
Wales.
Taylor, T. (2018). How We Can Make
Learning Irresistible For Children. Online
at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyeeNtN9GGI&feature=youtu.be
[Accessed 18.05.2019].
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