A national conversation on the Art of Storytelling with Children
The Gift of Storytelling
The Gift of Storytelling
By Robert (Max Tell) Stelmach
________________________________________
Margaret Read MacDonald, author, librarian, and storyteller, in “The Storyteller's Start-up Book”, outlines several lists of why we should tell stories - starting with her own list and following with those by Dr. Spencer Shaw, from “Storytelling For Young Listeners”; Pamela J. Cooper and Rives Collin from their book, “Look What happened to Frog: Storytelling in Education”; and Gail De Vos from “Storytelling For Young Adults”. Ms. MacDonald concludes by inviting us to write our own personal reasons for telling stories.
About ten years ago, after first reading Ms. MacDonald’s invitation, I created my own list of reasons why I tell stories. It is an extensive list that I will not quote here, though it may be read on my website at www.maxtell.ca. What I would like to speak about here is empowerment; the empowerment and the gift of reading through storytelling.
Let me start with a personal story. When I was young, I hated and feared books. I have a short term memory problem. My short term memory has been tested at a fifty percentile; not very conducive to learning how to read, since reading depends so much on memorization. Both the spelling and the meanings of words too often escaped me. The image I now have of my early experience as a reader is not of a butterfly fluttering just out of reach, but of a tiger jumping at me from the jungle. I was so frightened by books, I crossed my eyes when reading, making the task impossible.
Although I was not told stories or read to as a child, I loved singing. Luckily for me, I had a reasonably good voice, so that my choir teacher invited me, periodically, to lead the school choir in a song. If it were not for my love of singing, and the support and appreciation of my choir teacher, I might never have learned to read. But since I loved singing and most other kids (especially boys) did not, I ended up on a more level playing field. The task was also made easier because I only had to concentrate on a few words at a time and did far more listening than reading. Rhyme, rhythm, and the fact that others, particularly my choir teacher, liked my singing, also made the learning process easier, so much so that my poor memory never raised its ugly head in regard to song.
I was in grade eight when the importance of reading hit me like a baseball bat. The principal, Mr. H. D. Veres, called me into his office. He warned me against taking Liberal Arts in high school, and said that Industrial Arts was best for me. “Robert,” he concluded rather sadly, “you’ll never graduate from high school, let alone university.”
I was shocked, but I also knew the facts – I was a lousy reader. At the time, I did’nt know what Liberal Arts was, and had nothing against Industrial Arts, but knew the latter was not for me. So I decided to change my ways. But how?
The strange thing was; the answer came from a grade school drop-out.
At age sixteen, I had a summer job with a tile company. One day, we were short of work, so I was loaned out to another contractor to level gravel in the basement of a new house. A truckload of gravel had been dumped through a basement window. I was given a rake and shovel and told to get to work, levelling the gravel. I didn’t mind the work; I enjoyed physical labour. But there was a problem.
As far as I know, back in the mid-sixties, at least in Ontario, where I lived, there was no such thing as portable toilets; and it was the custom of construction workers, at that time, to use the mounds of gravel in unfinished basements to do their business. I soon found proof of this and almost lost my breakfast. To get the job done, I had to concentrate on something else.
Much to my surprise, I started writing a poem in my head. It wasn’t a long poem, so I worked it and re-worked it. Whenever I thought I had finished, and remembered my nose, I dug back into my poem, re-writing, until all of the gravel was raked flat. Then I ran upstairs for a breath of fresh air.
I was soon heading home in the company van with the foreman of the tile company driving. It was a long drive home. Part way, I remembered my poem, found an old envelope on the floor of the van, and brushed off the dry mud. I found a broken pencil in the ashtray, bit it sharp, and scribbled my poem. Then the foreman asked what I had written. Utter embarrassment!
I stuffed the envelop into my pocket, then leaned my head against the right front window of the van, pretending, as any self-respecting teenager would have done, that I was deaf. Undeterred, the foreman pulled to the side of the road and told me that we weren’t going anywhere unless I told him what I had written. After much kerfuffle on my part, I admitted that I had written a poem. Still determined, he cajoled me into reading it out loud.
“Wonderful!” he said.
I was shocked.
“How many poems have you written?”
“Just one.”
“I quit school when I was in grade two, but, I think you’re a poet.”
I’d never heard anything like it before in my life. Someone had told me I was something; not that I was stupid because I couldn’t read. No. He had told me I was a poet. What a gift, a gift I would never forget. He turned my life around, for he saw in me something no one had ever seen before. He saw potential. He empowered me. It took years of reading, yes reading, and a lot of it, before I was able to write as good a poem as I did that first day. And it took even longer, until after I had graduated from university, to figure out how I was able to write that first poem.
I was able to write it because I had loved to sing, but also because my school choir teacher had encouraged me. Without her, I would never have been able to write that first poem. Without her, I may never have learned the basics of reading, and ultimately the fascination of reading. Without her, I probably would never have become a writer. So, my choir teacher was a gift-giver too, the first gift-giver, which brings me back to storytelling.
There are many children today who are very much like I was when I was young. Reading for them is either a chore, something foreign, something frightening, or all three. They are second language students, some of them refugees; children of First Nations; children from broken homes; or children whose parents simply don’t have the time or the inclination to read, let alone read to their children. These are the children that need and deserve a gift, the gift of story, or the gift of song, a gift that will excite them to the wonders of language and the wonders of the written word.
Such a gift was given to me, and I feel it my duty and joy to pass it on to as many children as possible. And I say to teachers and librarians alike, that if you pass on the gift of reading, even if only to a few children, through storytelling, you will have empowered those children and made a mark in their lives they will never forget.
Robert Stelmach, a.k.a. Max Tell, is a writer of stories, a singer of songs, and an educator. His latest music CD, Dragon with a Flagon, is “a fun choice for family listening and a solid addition to public library collections”, School Library Journal, January 2005. You may view his website at: www.maxtell.ca
By Robert (Max Tell) Stelmach
________________________________________
Margaret Read MacDonald, author, librarian, and storyteller, in “The Storyteller's Start-up Book”, outlines several lists of why we should tell stories - starting with her own list and following with those by Dr. Spencer Shaw, from “Storytelling For Young Listeners”; Pamela J. Cooper and Rives Collin from their book, “Look What happened to Frog: Storytelling in Education”; and Gail De Vos from “Storytelling For Young Adults”. Ms. MacDonald concludes by inviting us to write our own personal reasons for telling stories.
About ten years ago, after first reading Ms. MacDonald’s invitation, I created my own list of reasons why I tell stories. It is an extensive list that I will not quote here, though it may be read on my website at www.maxtell.ca. What I would like to speak about here is empowerment; the empowerment and the gift of reading through storytelling.
Let me start with a personal story. When I was young, I hated and feared books. I have a short term memory problem. My short term memory has been tested at a fifty percentile; not very conducive to learning how to read, since reading depends so much on memorization. Both the spelling and the meanings of words too often escaped me. The image I now have of my early experience as a reader is not of a butterfly fluttering just out of reach, but of a tiger jumping at me from the jungle. I was so frightened by books, I crossed my eyes when reading, making the task impossible.
Although I was not told stories or read to as a child, I loved singing. Luckily for me, I had a reasonably good voice, so that my choir teacher invited me, periodically, to lead the school choir in a song. If it were not for my love of singing, and the support and appreciation of my choir teacher, I might never have learned to read. But since I loved singing and most other kids (especially boys) did not, I ended up on a more level playing field. The task was also made easier because I only had to concentrate on a few words at a time and did far more listening than reading. Rhyme, rhythm, and the fact that others, particularly my choir teacher, liked my singing, also made the learning process easier, so much so that my poor memory never raised its ugly head in regard to song.
I was in grade eight when the importance of reading hit me like a baseball bat. The principal, Mr. H. D. Veres, called me into his office. He warned me against taking Liberal Arts in high school, and said that Industrial Arts was best for me. “Robert,” he concluded rather sadly, “you’ll never graduate from high school, let alone university.”
I was shocked, but I also knew the facts – I was a lousy reader. At the time, I did’nt know what Liberal Arts was, and had nothing against Industrial Arts, but knew the latter was not for me. So I decided to change my ways. But how?
The strange thing was; the answer came from a grade school drop-out.
At age sixteen, I had a summer job with a tile company. One day, we were short of work, so I was loaned out to another contractor to level gravel in the basement of a new house. A truckload of gravel had been dumped through a basement window. I was given a rake and shovel and told to get to work, levelling the gravel. I didn’t mind the work; I enjoyed physical labour. But there was a problem.
As far as I know, back in the mid-sixties, at least in Ontario, where I lived, there was no such thing as portable toilets; and it was the custom of construction workers, at that time, to use the mounds of gravel in unfinished basements to do their business. I soon found proof of this and almost lost my breakfast. To get the job done, I had to concentrate on something else.
Much to my surprise, I started writing a poem in my head. It wasn’t a long poem, so I worked it and re-worked it. Whenever I thought I had finished, and remembered my nose, I dug back into my poem, re-writing, until all of the gravel was raked flat. Then I ran upstairs for a breath of fresh air.
I was soon heading home in the company van with the foreman of the tile company driving. It was a long drive home. Part way, I remembered my poem, found an old envelope on the floor of the van, and brushed off the dry mud. I found a broken pencil in the ashtray, bit it sharp, and scribbled my poem. Then the foreman asked what I had written. Utter embarrassment!
I stuffed the envelop into my pocket, then leaned my head against the right front window of the van, pretending, as any self-respecting teenager would have done, that I was deaf. Undeterred, the foreman pulled to the side of the road and told me that we weren’t going anywhere unless I told him what I had written. After much kerfuffle on my part, I admitted that I had written a poem. Still determined, he cajoled me into reading it out loud.
“Wonderful!” he said.
I was shocked.
“How many poems have you written?”
“Just one.”
“I quit school when I was in grade two, but, I think you’re a poet.”
I’d never heard anything like it before in my life. Someone had told me I was something; not that I was stupid because I couldn’t read. No. He had told me I was a poet. What a gift, a gift I would never forget. He turned my life around, for he saw in me something no one had ever seen before. He saw potential. He empowered me. It took years of reading, yes reading, and a lot of it, before I was able to write as good a poem as I did that first day. And it took even longer, until after I had graduated from university, to figure out how I was able to write that first poem.
I was able to write it because I had loved to sing, but also because my school choir teacher had encouraged me. Without her, I would never have been able to write that first poem. Without her, I may never have learned the basics of reading, and ultimately the fascination of reading. Without her, I probably would never have become a writer. So, my choir teacher was a gift-giver too, the first gift-giver, which brings me back to storytelling.
There are many children today who are very much like I was when I was young. Reading for them is either a chore, something foreign, something frightening, or all three. They are second language students, some of them refugees; children of First Nations; children from broken homes; or children whose parents simply don’t have the time or the inclination to read, let alone read to their children. These are the children that need and deserve a gift, the gift of story, or the gift of song, a gift that will excite them to the wonders of language and the wonders of the written word.
Such a gift was given to me, and I feel it my duty and joy to pass it on to as many children as possible. And I say to teachers and librarians alike, that if you pass on the gift of reading, even if only to a few children, through storytelling, you will have empowered those children and made a mark in their lives they will never forget.
Robert Stelmach, a.k.a. Max Tell, is a writer of stories, a singer of songs, and an educator. His latest music CD, Dragon with a Flagon, is “a fun choice for family listening and a solid addition to public library collections”, School Library Journal, January 2005. You may view his website at: www.maxtell.ca
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