At Our Common Core: Stories

By January 5, 2015Learning

The little girl in this video is telling a story in her second language, English. I am inspired, aren’t you? I love her use of language and imagination and her ability to hold a narrative thread throughout the story with poise and confidence.

Everybody is talking about the Common Core- Hate it or love it? Good intentions or bad intentions? Administration vs. parents and teachers? I don’t know. I do know that children remain smart, capable, creative, brave and infinitely curious. I believe that at our core, we have much in common with one another. Storytelling as both a teaching and learning tool addresses the core needs of students and teachers to connect, teach, learn and share.

Next week I begin a nine week storytelling residency in Watkins Glen, New York. The focus of our work together is letting children listen, retell and romp with stories. We will play games, engage in story drama, sing, dance and become a community through storytelling. Our social, academic, and personal needs will be expanded during our time together. I believe that children, teachers and parents need to feel connected more than ever and stories, both personal and fantasy do that. Telling stories helps children feel heard. Telling stories allow teachers to imbed social and academic content. Sharing stories help parents teach their children about resiliency, family history. At our most basic common core, all individuals need stories~ we can’t help it because we need one another at our core.