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The Age of Fairy Tales
June 22, 2012
The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.
-Elbert Hubbard
-Elbert Hubbard
"Early childhood is the age of fairy tales. Language used in fairy tales is uncomplicated and doesn't exceed a child's comprehension capabilities. Any fairy tale is, by definition, simple yet mysterious. Hardly does one begin the narration with "Once upon a time..." that children calm down and are carried away into the world of their fantasies. Fairy tales support the development of imagination and creative thinking, one of the fundamental psychological formations of the preschool childhood. The imagination of a child is the soil from which sprouts and grows to perfection a scientist, an inventor, an artist.
"Fairy tales are one of the best means of developing this important psychological process of the early childhood — imagination. The style of a fairy tale is easy to understand for a child. Children cannot reason logically at this age, and fairy tales do not overburden them with logic. No child likes to be instructed directly, and fairy tales never teach children in this way. At most, fairy tales hint at what would be the best thing to do in this or that situation....
"When reading or reciting fairy tales to a child, we introduce her to the world of coded situations and problems, to the world of experience, enigmas, and mystery. Imagination development necessitates enriching sensory experience. The more a child hears, sees, and experiences, the more she knows and acquires. This means that she possesses more elements of reality in her experience, and so her imagination is considerably more productive and much more active.
"Yet the environment of a fairy tale is not enough for developing imagination, for how the narration is presented is extremely important to how it is perceived and comprehended. This is where adults step in — psychologists, parents, teachers, and other people responsible for the upbringing and development of any given child. During this period, when representational thinking is rapidly developing, the material needs to be presented so that the child can see the action of a fairy tale in its most vivid, representational way. Television and theater are not the only means of acquiring such experience; one can play the plot out, live through it. Role playing should be arranged so that all senses are activated."
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Comments (2)
Displaying All 2 CommentsInternational School of Dakar
Senegal
In my kindergarten class, I prefer to use folk tales instead of fairy tales. In fairy tales, the problem is solved by some type of magic e.g. a fairy godmother, where as in folk tales, the characters, usually animals, figure out their own way to solve the problem. I read multiple versions of the same tale, and small group of children act out their own version.
Hilltop Early Childhood Services
Rego Park, NY, United States
I'm surprised to see this posted. To me, it seems like yet another variation of the push-down curriculum. Most research that I've read shows that children don't really "get" the nuances of fact/fantasy until around 7 years old, This does include them in early childhood, which is technically birth-8, but is not referenced in this article.
Introducing most traditional fairy tales, with their scary and often sexist views, before young children are able to understand them is an example of not taking development into consideration.
Yes, I know that in other countries, fairy tales are often introduced to younger children, and this article cites an author from Russia. But there's nothing from CCIE to mitigate the inappropriateness of the advice for preschool aged children.
There are plenty of other ways to stimulate imagination than to use wicked stepmothers, witches, and the like. When could easily read, I loved to take out fairy tale books - but I was in the second grade and up. I read every failry tale book in the library and the librarian sent to other libraries for more fairy tales for me. But, by that age, I knew that they were make believe. And I've been a stepmother for many years, and still chringe at the word.
Save the fairy tales for older children. There are lots of real things in children's lives that are scary - no need to add to them.
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