THE VALUE OF FAIRY TALES IN EDUCATION
The Diary of a Reading Teacher “Reading Boot Camp”
Find More Information Fairy Tales and Reading Boot Camp
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In considering fairy tales for the child, the first question which presents itself is,
"Why are fairy stories suited to the child, and what is their value ….?" Fairy
tales bring joy into child life. The mission of joy has not been fully preached,
but we know that joy works toward physical health, mental brightness, and
moral virtue. In the education of the future, happiness together with freedom
will be recognized as the largest beneficent powers that will permit the individual
of four, from his pristine, inexperienced self-activity, to become that final,
matured, self-expressed, self-sufficient, social development-the educated adult.
Joy is the mission of art and fairy tales are art products. As such Pater would
say, "For Art comes to you, proposing to give nothing but the highest quality
to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake. Not the fruit
of experience, but experience, is the end." Such quality came from the art of
the fairy tale into the walk of a little girl, for whom even the much-tabooed
topic of the weather took on a new, fresh charm. In answer to a remark
concerning the day she replied, "Yes, it's not too hot, and not too cold, but
just right." All art, being a product of the creative imagination, has the power
to stimulate the creative faculties. "For Art, like Genius," says Professor
Woodberry, "is common to all men, it is the stamp of the soul in them." All
are creatures of imitation and combination; and the little child, in handling an
art product, puts his thought through the artist's mold and gains a touch of
the artist's joy. Fairy tales satisfy the play spirit of childhood. Folk-tales are
the product of a people in a primitive stage when all the world is a wonder-sphere.
Most of our popular tales date from days when the primitive man took his evening
meal of yava and fermented mead, and the dusky Sudra roamed the Punjab.
"All these fancies are pervaded with that purity by which children seem to us so
wonderful," said William Grimm. "They have the same blue-white, immaculate
bright eyes." Children are in this same wonderstage. They believe that the world
about throbs with life and is peopled with all manner of beautiful, powerful folk.
All children are poets, and fairy tales are the poetic recording of the facts
of life. In this day of commercial enterprise, if we would fit children for life we
must see to it that we do not blight the poets in them. In this day of emphasis
on vocational training we must remember there is a part of life unfed, un-nurtured,
and un-exercised by industrial education. Moreover, whatever will be
accomplished in life will be the achievement of a free and vigorous life of the
imagination. Before it was realized, everything new had existed in some trained
imagination, fertile with ideas. The tale feeds the imagination, for the soul of it is
a bit of play. It suits the child because in it he is not bound by the law of cause
and effect, nor by the necessary relations of actual life. He is entirely in sympathy
with a world where events follow as one may choose. He likes the mastership
of the universe. And fairylandwhere there is no time; where troubles fade;
where youth abides; where things come out all right-is a pleasant place.
Furthermore, fairy tales are play forms. "Play," Bichter says, "is the first creative
utterance of man." "It is the highest form in which the native activity of childhood
expresses itself," says Miss Blow. Fairy tales offer to the little child an opportunity
for the exercise of that self-active inner impulse which seeks expression in two
kinds of play, the symbolic activity of free play and the concrete presentation of
types. The play, The Light Bird, and the tale, The Bremen Town Musicians, both
offer an opportunity for the child to express that pursuit of a light afar off, a theme
which appeals to childhood. The fairy tale, because it presents an organized form
of human experience, helps to organize the mind and gives to play the values of
human life. By contributing so largely to the play spirit, fairy tales contribute to that
joy of activity, of achievement, of cooperation, and of judgment, which is the joy
of all work. This habit of school play, with its joy and freedom and initiative, is
the highest goal to be attained in the method of university work. Fairy tales give
the child a power of accurate observation. The habit of re-experiencing, of
visualization, which they exercise, increases the ability to see, and is the
contribution literature offers to nature study. In childhood acquaintance with the
natural objects of everyday life is the central interest; and in its turn it furnishes
those elements of experience upon which imagination builds. For this reason it
is rather remarkable that the story, which is omitted from the public school system
of education, is perhaps the most valuable means of effecting that sense training,
freedom, self-initiated play, repose, poise, and power of reflection, which are
foundation stones of its structure. Fairy tales strengthen the power of emotion,
develop the power of imagination, train the memory, and exercise the reason.
Every day the formation of habits of mind during the process of education
is being looked upon with a higher estimate. The formation of habits of mind
through the use of fairy tales will become evident during following chapters.
Fairy tales extend and intensify the child's social relations. They appeal to
the child by presenting aspects of family life. Through them he realizes his
relations to his own parents: their care, their guardianship, and their love.
Through this he realizes different situations and social relations, and gains clear,
simple notions of right and wrong. His sympathies are active for kindness and
fairness, especially for the defenseless, and he feels deeply the calamity of the
poor or the suffering and hardship of the ill-treated. He is in sympathy with that
poetic justice which desires immediate punishment of wrong, unfairness, injustice,
cruelty, or deceit. Through fairy tales he gains a many-sided view of life. Through
his dramas, with a power of sympathy which has seemed universal, Shakespeare
has given the adult world many types of character and conduct that are noble.
But fairy tales place in the hands of childhood all that the thousands and
thousands of the universe for ages have found excellent in character and
conduct. They hold up for imitation all those cardinal virtues of love and
self-sacrifice,- which is the ultimate criterion of character,-of courage, loyalty,
kindness, gentleness, fairness, pity, endurance, bravery, industry, perseverance,
and thrift. Thus fairy tales build up concepts of family life and of ethical
standards, broaden a child's social sense of duty, and teach him to reflect.
Besides developing his feelings and judgments, they also enlarge his world
of experience. In the school, the fairy tale as one form of the story is one part
of the largest means to unify the entire work or play of the child. In proportion
as the work of art, nature-study, game, occupation, etc., is fine, it will deal with
some part of the child's everyday life. The good tale parallels life. It is a
record of a portion of the race reaction to its environment; and being a
permanent record of literature, it records experience which is universal and
presents situations most human. It is therefore material best suited to furnish
the child with real problems. As little children have their thoughts and
observations directed mainly toward people and centered about the home,
the fairy tale rests secure as the intellectual counterpart to those thoughts.
As self-expression and self-activity are the great natural instincts of the child,
in giving opportunity to make a crown for a princess, mold a clay bowl,
decorate a tree, play a game, paint the wood, cut paper animals, sing a lullaby,
or trip a dance, the tale affords many problems exercising all the child's
accomplishments in the variety of his work. This does not make the story the
central interest, for actual contact with nature is the child's chief interest. But it
makes the story, because it is an organized experience marked by the values
of human life, the unity of the child's return or reaction to
his environment. The tale thus may bring about that"living union of thoughtand expression which dispels the isolation of studies and makes the child live in
varied, concrete, active relation to a common world." In the home fairy tales
employ leisure hours in a way that builds character. Critical moments of decision
will come into the lives of all when no amount of reason will be a sufficient guide.
Mothers who cannot follow their sons to college, and fathers who cannot choose
for their daughters, can help their children best to fortify their spirits for such
crises by feeding them with good literature. This, when they are yet little,
will begin the rearing of a fortress of ideals which will support true feeling and
lead constantly to noble action. Then, too, in the home, the illustration of his
tale may give the child much pleasure. For this is the day of fairy-tale art; and
the child's satisfaction in the illustration of the well-known tale is limitless. It will
increase as he grows older, as he understands art better, and as he becomes
familiar with the wealth of beautiful editions which are at his command. And
finally, though not of least moment, fairy tales afford a vital basis for language
training and thereby take on a new importance in the child's English. Through
the fairy tale he learns the names of things and the meanings of words.
One English fairy tale, The Master of all Masters, is a ludicrous example of the
tale built on this very theme of names and meanings. Especially in the case of
foreign children, in a tale of repetition, such as The Cat and the Mouse, Teeny
Tiny, or The Old Woman and her Pig, will the repetitive passages be an aid to
verbal expression. The child learns to follow the sequence of a story and gains
a sense of order. He catches the note of definiteness from the tale, which thereby
clarifies his thinking. He gains the habit of reasoning to consequences, which
is one form of a perception of that universal law which rules the world, and
which is one of the biggest things he will ever come upon in life. Never can
he meet any critical situation where this habit of reasoning to consequences
will not be his surest guide in a decision. Thus fairy tales, by their direct
influence upon habits of thinking, effect language training. Fairy tales contribute
to language training also by providing another form of that basic content
which is furnished for reading. In the future the child will spend more
time in the kindergarten and early first grade in acquiring this content, so that
having enjoyed the real literature, when he reads later on he will be eager to
satisfy his own desires.
The Diary of a Reading Teacher “Reading Boot Camp”
Find More Information Fairy Tales and Reading Boot Camp
readingsage.com or reading-sage.blogspot.com
Then reading will take purpose for him and be accomplished almost without
drill and practically with no effort. The reading book will gradually disappear
as a portion of his literary heritage. In the kindergarten the child will learn the
play forms, and in the first grade the real beginnings, of phonics and of the form
of words in the applied science of spelling. In music he will learn the beginnings
of the use of the voice. This will leave him free, when he begins reading later,
to give attention to the thought reality back of the symbols. When the elements
combining to produce good oral reading are cared for in the kindergarten and
in the first grade, in the subjects of which they properly form a part, the child,
when beginning to read, no longer will be needlessly diverted, his literature will
contribute to his reading without interference, and his growth in language will
become an improved, steady accomplishment.
BY LAURA F. KREADY 1916 “A STUDY OF FAIRY TALES”
