My dad is a great storyteller.
I remember being a little girl and listening to my father read Winnie the Pooh. He did the absolute best Eeyore voice. “Oh, bother,” he would read in a voice that was just perfect for Eeyore.
The research clearly shows that reading to young children promotes literacy skills, builds vocabulary, and builds connections between parents and children. Reading stories with kids can also enhance creativity and build memories that will last a lifetime.
When my kids were little, we would read stories and we would also something we called “circular stories.” Someone would start the story – usually with “Once upon a time” – and then we would take turns filling in the details. I might say, “Once upon a time there was a squirrel named Chester who was desperately searching for nuts to store for the winter.” Then my kids would build on the story – maybe Chester had gotten hit on the head and couldn’t remember where he hid the nuts, or he had a nemesis who stole his nuts and hid them in a cave guarded by a honey badger. The circle kept going and each of us would build on the details that the previous person had added into the story. This was great fun and encouraged creative thinking because there was never a wrong answer! We wouldn’t end the story until one of us added something so hilarious that we would all laugh ourselves silly.
Creativity is something that our world desperately needs, however, we don’t know how to teach creativity in schools. I say this as a lifelong educator and school district administrator – our society, our culture doesn’t understand creativity or creative thinking. We understand having a plan, getting things right, meeting expectations, and following what everyone else is doing. Creativity takes understanding to a deeper level and challenges the ideas of what “right” looks like, sounds like, and feels like.
Let me get back to my dad and his storytelling.
My father’s stories were mostly about family, and they still are. When my dad tells our family stories, I am pulled in: I can see the people and I try to understand their relationships and interactions. I am constantly trying to find myself in his stories: where do I fit? how does any of this relate to me?
I think my father’s stories mean so much to me because I am still trying to figure out how I fit. Eeyore also wonders how he fits and we see how important it is for him to have people who keep including him in the story.
“After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said ‘Bother!’ The Social Round. Always something going on.”
When I was a very young teacher, I asked my students which character from Winnie the Pooh they related to the most. In the exercise, I realized that as much as I want to be Piglet, who is always optimistic and such a great friend, I definitely relate to Eeyore and his “Oh, bother” perspective. I think that is one of the realities of being a creative person: there has to be a deeper understanding of the human condition to create because there has to be questioning and wonder.
Who is the storyteller in your family? How are you capturing the stories of the generations that came before you? It has become so important to me that we capture all of the stories of our families – the generations who have come before us and the current generations. Our stories reflect the truths of our families, whether it is in what we share or what we choose not to share. But it is our families that shape us, that help us to write our stories, and it is our families who will be there for us regardless of how our stories evolve.
