“It’s no fair,” cries Mary with her daily mantra. “She always gets to line up before I do!”
No doubt every teacher and parent has heard this wail for justice; and how many times have children heard the parental remark: “Well, life isn’t fair.”
Yet other ways to impart wisdom to our children exist without hammering in our views. In Waldorf education, where storytelling pervades the curriculum, teachers are taught the use of the pedagogical story to plant seeds for character development. In this way, children are allowed in freedom to germinate in their souls moral kernels of truth, which will come to fruition in their own time. It is not, “You better change or else,” which is not freedom but coercion. When we tell tales we offer gifts.
Example: In an Indian tale a farmer asks a rich moneylender about the secret of becoming rich. The moneylender tells him to find Rama. So with three cakes the farmer sets out. He meets a Brahmin who eats one cake and later confesses he does not know where Rama lives. He meets a soldier; the same happens. Hungry, he’s about ready to eat when he sees an old, starving man. He gives this stranger his last cake. The old man transforms into Rama, giving the farmer a magical conch shell that will manifest any wish; with the instructions not to tell anyone about the shell. Later, the moneylender wheedles out the truth and steals the shell, only to find he can’t blow a note. He gives the shell back on the condition that whatever the farmer receives the moneylender will get twice as much. A win-win situation. At first the farmer enjoys what he manifests; yet after a while, even though he becomes filthy rich, resentment grows that the other receives more than he. Finally, the farmer makes one last wish…that he would go blind in one eye.
Without any lecturing, this story gives a universal truth of finding contentment with what one has; if not, one suffers needlessly. After telling the story, it is allowed to soak in overnight, without any moralizing. The following day a discussion may or may not arise.
A pedagogical story need not be an established tale. I have made them up on the spot, often using personal or fictional anecdotes (“I once had a friend…”). Exaggerating a life event I might tell the class: When I was young there was a boy in my class who we always picked on. One day he disappeared. Ran away. He nearly drowned. All of us felt badly and when he returned he became my best friend. We had our differences, but I learned to like his strange ways. I make sure my targets are not too obvious, perhaps waiting for a time when an issue fades into the background.
Another example was when discipline became an issue in my Fourth Grade class. When I taught the local history block I used Captain Hypolito Bouchard’s childhood (a French pirate who raided Monterey), to paint a picture of the importance of discipline. From the first person perspective, I described his severe hands-on-education as a boy on a man-of-war. Without such discipline he would have been killed. I made up most of it. They loved him and stood at attention and cried, “Viva la France” whenever I came in as the Captain. I could say things as his character that I could not have said as myself; for speaking as a character we all became characters in a story. I could have stood in front of the class and lectured about the need of discipline and many eyes would have rolled upward in the “whatever gaze.”
With any tale we never know how deep they will take root. We may not see any immediate benefit. Still, we can tell the tales, learn from them ourselves, and trust in divine timing. Nancy Mellon, a Waldorf teacher and storyteller, related a tale of a teacher who had told the Norse story of Loki eating the heart of a witch to her Fourth Grade. Years later at a party, one of the students was offered some crack. Instantly, she saw Loki eating the heart and fled the party. She called her old teacher and said, “Now I know what the witch’s heart was” and thanked her.
It is no accident that stories have been told by teachers from all faiths and cultures to inspire us to work on our characters. So, instead of wanting to wag our fingers at our children about their shortcomings, let us pull out those golden seeds from our bag of tales, and lovingly plant them with our tongues, so that our families and classrooms will blossom into gardens of brilliant, smiling colors.
Janaka Stagnaro 2005
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