When the time comes that the actors lose their unconsciousness it is the end of the
story−play. Drilled work, the beginning of the art, is then the necessity.
I have indicated that the children may be left undisturbed in their crudities and
occasional absurdities. The teacher, on the other hand, must avoid, with great judgment,
certain absurdities which can easily be initiated by her. The first direful possibility is in the
choice of material. It is very desirable that children should not be allowed to dramatize
stories of a kind so poetic, so delicate, or so potentially valuable that the material is in
danger of losing future beauty to the pupils through its present crude handling. Mother
Goose is a hardy old lady, and will not suffer from the grasp of the seven−year−old; and the
familiar fables and tales of the «Goldilocks» variety have a firmness of surface which does
not let the glamour rub off; but stories in which there is a hint of the beauty just beyond the
palpable – or of a dignity suggestive of developed literature – are sorely hurt in their
metamorphosis, and should be protected from it. They are for telling only.
Another point on which it is necessary to exercise reserve is in the degree to which any
story can be acted. In the justifiable desire to bring a large number of children into the action
one must not lose sight of the sanity and propriety of the presentation. For example, one
must not make a ridiculous caricature, where a picture, however crude, is the intention.
Personally represent only such things as are definitely and dramatically personified in the
story. If a natural force, the wind, for example, is represented as talking and acting like a
human being in the story, it can be imaged by a person in the play; but if it remains a part of
the picture in the story, performing only its natural motions, it is a caricature to enact it as a
role. The most powerful instance of a mistake of this kind which I have ever seen will
doubtless make my meaning clear. In playing a pretty story about animals and children,
some children in a primary school were made by the teacher to take the part of the sea. In
the story, the sea was said to «beat upon the shore,» as a sea would, without doubt. In the
play, the children were allowed to thump the floor lustily, as a presentation of their watery
functions! It was unconscionably funny. Fancy presenting even the crudest image of the
mighty sea, surging up on the shore, by a row of infants squatted on the floor and pounding
with their fists! Such pitfalls can be avoided by the simple rule of personifying only
characters that actually behave like human beings.
A caution which directly concerns the art of story telling itself, must be added here.
There is a definite distinction between the arts of narration and dramatization which must
never be overlooked. Do not, yourself, half tell and half act the story; and do not let the
children do it. It is done in very good schools, sometimes, because an enthusiasm for
realistic and lively presentation momentarily obscures the faculty of discrimination. A much
loved and respected teacher whom I recently listened to, and who will laugh if she
recognizes her blunder here, offers a good «bad example» in this particular. She said to an
attentive audience of students that she had at last, with much difficulty, brought herself to
the point where she could forget herself in her story: where she could, for instance, hop, like
the fox, when she told the story of the «sour grapes.» She said, «It was hard at first, but now
Stories To Tell To Children
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