Albert Einstein once famously said "If you want your children to be intelligent,
read them fairy tales. And if you want them to be more intelligent, read them
more fairy tales." Hi, I'm Sarah Baldwin. This is another Sunday with Sarah and
you guessed it, the topic of today's episode is fairy tales: why and how
they're used in waldorf education and how you can bring fairy tales into your
life at home with children. So why fairy tales? Well, fairy tales are stories that
have been collected over thousands of years, passed down orally from generation
to generation, and they are filled with symbolism and archetypes and spiritual
truths that speak to a child and all of us at a very deep level. And for the
young child, under the age of seven, we're trying to teach them that the world is a
good place that they've come into. That the world is a righteous and just place,
and fairy tales feed that need for a young child because in a fairy tale
good always overcomes evil and a child finds that very satisfying.
In Waldorf education we tell stories "by heart," we say. A teacher will often
memorize the story and just be able to tell it eye to eye, heart to heart, to the
child which is a wonderful experience. I urge you to try it. It's challenging but
memorizing those stories for yourself is a rich experience. Repetition:
we will tell the same story every day for a week or two weeks. Children will
often ask to hear it again and again and you might get bored as an adult
repeating the same story but it's really satisfying for a child. It allows them
to take the story in at a very deep level. It becomes a part of them, they
will remember that story for the rest of their
life and tell their own children someday those stories. One recommendation to
you is to think back to your own childhood. Think of the fairy tales that
you loved, that you still remember and start with those because chances are
if a story resonated deeply with you as a child, your enthusiasm for that story
will transfer to your child and your child will love it as well.
So parents often wonder and raise the question: "Well, fairy tales are dark,
they're scary, they're sexist." One thing it's important to understand is those
fairy tales are full of archetypes. You've got the witch or an evil
stepmother or a wise king or the heroine or the hero. And what's important to
realize is that all of those elements, all of those archetypes are part of
ourselves, part of the human being. A child will relate to each of those
characters. As adults we want all those different elements of ourselves to be
integrated. And the other thing is in telling a story
we don't over-dramatize the story because yes, some of them are scary and I'll talk
in a little bit about age-appropriate stories for different ages. You don't
want to read Hansel and Gretel, say, to a three year-old but an older child can
handle that. But, if we tell the story in a very gentle, even-toned way,
without a lot of over-dramatization, a child will just picture it in his or her
head just as scary as he or she can handle. If we over-dramatize with a big,
ogre's voice or a wicked witch, you know, that that can be scary for a child.
But by just telling the story, very matter-of-fact,
the child gets those deeper meanings and finds it deeply satisfying without being
frightening. So, I believe every home should have a collection of the Complete
Grimm's Fairy Tales. These were stories that were collected by the Brothers
Grimm and put into word and published. If you don't already have
a copy I recommend the Pantheon Edition. This
translation is one favored by many Waldorf teachers and it's the
translation I used in a kindergarten for many years. But there are also folktales
from around the world. And not just European folk tales, there are Asian
folk tales and Indian folk tales. There's a collection of stories, I don't know if
it's still in print, called "Best Loved Folk Tales from Around the World" that
has folk tales from Scandinavia and the UK. So get familiar with some of them.
I will tell you that I have not read every story in Grimm's collection of
fairy tales but as I was preparing for this video and gathering my thoughts, I
just made it a goal for myself to read through this whole collection.
Another suggestion I was going to make is to read fairy tales to yourself as an
adult before going to bed. Sometimes when we read the story and take it into our
sleep, we gain new insight into the story so that's something you could try. So as
I mentioned, there are age-appropriate stories that meet the child, that are
more developmentally appropriate. So for young three and four year-olds, one of
the simplest Grimm's stories is called "Sweet Porridge."
I used that when I taught a nursery class of three and four year-olds and
did it as a puppet play. "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is a
great one for the younger child. The Russian folktale "The Turnip," where a big,
giant turnip has grown in the ground and the grandfather can't pull it out so he
enlists the help of the grandmother. Together they pull and pull and they
still can't pull it out and then they get to the grandchild and then
the dog and then the cat and finally with the help of a little mouse, working
all together they pull the turnip out of the ground. For four and five year-olds,
the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" is a great one. "The Three Little Pigs," and from
Grimm's "The Shoemaker and the Elves," one of my favorites. Then, when the child
gets to be five, going on six, this is when you can get into some of the meatier
fairy tales that we think of: "The Frog Prince," which is actually the very first
one, it's called "The Frog King" in the original Grimm's, it's the first fairy
tale in the collection; "Little Red Cap" which we know as "Little Red Riding Hood."
You'll be surprised, sometimes, if you're not familiar with the original
Grimm's and only the Disney versions, just how different they are. I'll do
another video later on those differences. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves." By
six years-old they love "Hansel and Gretel" and one of
my favorites is "Snow White and Rose Red." In a
waldorf school, fairy tales are a big part of the first grade curriculum and that's
when you can get into stories like "Cinderella" and "Rapunzel" which, if you
read the original versions, are quite dark but very satisfying for
children. So, there's so much more I could say on this subject. I will say more on
the subject in future videos. As always, subscribe to our YouTube channel, the
Sunday with Sarah YouTube channel. If you have any questions or comments for me,
and I imagine this topic will will bring up a lot of questions, you can send them
to sundaywithsarah@bellalunatoys.com
and I may answer them on a future video. So thanks so much for watching! See you
again next time. Bye.