Jim May – Storytelling in Classrooms and Schools
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Jim May Writes…
I tell stories to children because I learned many years ago that nothing in my ten years of experience as a classroom teacher held my elementary student’s attention like a story.
For some twenty-three years now, I have made my living as a professional, full time storyteller. That storytelling produces a singular, intensely vital experience in my listener’s imagination continues to be reinforced nearly every day of my professional storytelling life.
I remember a particular occasion telling stories to an auditorium full of primary-aged students (grades k-2). After the program was finished, the students filed past the front of the stage where I was standing and greeting a few as they passed. One second grade boy walking by, looked at me over his should and shouted in mid step: “Thanks for the movies!”
I am reasonably sure that he was responding very literally, simply and profoundly to the mechanism in the brain (the cortex where complex thought functions) that produces images in response to oral language. Joseph Chilton Pierce and others have theorized that the brain is activated by oral language in a manner that causes neural brain cells and neural pathways to be stimulated (and even to grow, creating new, neural pathways, etc) in a way that is not possible when image and language are artificially coupled as in television, dvds, computer screens, in which case the most creative part of the brain shuts down because the image is ready made, not personal, original or connected to the viewer’s personal, internal, neural life.
Levels of listener/viewer involvement can be observed if one contrasts the facial attitude of someone listening to a story as opposed to someone watching tv. The “TV face” is more likely to be glazed over. The listener — or someone using American Sign Language (ASL), since signs are also not literal — is having an active experience with the story, is, in fact a co-creator of the narrative
Some of the questions we answered included.
1. What are the implications of this insight for school curriculum?
2. For the relationship between parents and children, teachers and children, children and their peers?
3. Is storytelling different than reading aloud which also allows the listener to produce the images in response to language?
4. Is the brain growing differently (or less) in our media driven world?
More about Jim May
Jim May is an Emmy Award-winning storyteller and writer, and a former elementary and college teacher who had performed live for over one million school children and families in the Chicago area over the last 20 years.
His children’s picture book, THE BOO BABY GIRL MEETS THE GHOST OF MABLE’S GABLE (Brotherstone, 1992) is in it’s second printing and is a favorite of teachers, librarians and parents across Chicago Land, many of whom find that their students and children demand that the book be reread to them over and over again — ESPECIALLY DURING THE HALLOWEEN SEASON.
His collection of stories, THE FARM ON NIPPERSINK CREEK, won a best book award from the Public Librarian Association and was praised by Publishers Weekly: “…like Garrison Keillor, May describes life as he knows it…like soothing…elegaic bedtime stories;” Booklist: “…these well spun tales will delight readers;” and the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Deftly combines a child’s sense of awe and freedom with an adult’s awareness of life’s stickier complexities.”
Jim has appeared at Millennium Park, The Art Institute, Brookfield Zoo, on the Roy Leonard and Studs Terkel Radio Shows and numerous times on WTTW, channel 11 in Chicago. His touring schedule has included venues in Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Mexico and Canada.
He was inducted into the National Storytelling “Circle of Excellence” (Hall of Fame) in the year 2000.
For more information on Jim May go to his website at: http://www.storytelling.org/JimMay/
Tags: Arts in Schools, Illinois Storytellers, Language Literacy, Midwest Storytelling, Schools Programs
Coaching Storytelling, Episode List, Literacy, Storytelling in Schools | Brother Wolf | 
June 15, 2008 12:41 pm
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By Stacey Wicksall, September 20, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
This audio cast gave me the “ah-ha” moment I have been suspicious of, yet not fully cognizant of until this evening: I am already a storyteller and I know that when I am in that mode I have the kids hanging on my every word! In this mode, teaching is pure joy for both myself and the kids.
As Jim pointed out in the podcast, it is uniquely liberating for everyone involved to have nothing between the storyteller and the audience. I, too, love picture books (after all, I am a teacher-librarian), but to a certain degree they are dictatorial because the images are prescribed rather than imagined. Actually, for this reason, I often find it more fun to read chapter books aloud. But even still, with storytelling there is still an advantage: namely the ability to incorporate your whole being into the story through the use of expression and gesture. It is quite impossible to hold a book, read and become completely one with the story. In addition, the best stories to tell are the ones we have lived or read and can relate to on a deep level because they correspond to our own lives and lend themselves best to genuinely expressed emotion. Those are the stories that strike chords with children that may resonate for a life time.
I am hoping to get my hands on the DVD he mentioned as well as the Story Proof book that was recommended. This pod-cast was immensely helpful and I cannot thank you enough for creating this wonderful site!
By Bob Miller, October 8, 2008 @ 10:48 am
The fable has been a useful teaching tool. we learnt that Aesop used his
storytelling talent to teach people a moral. Many of the classic fables had
religious theme to them. Homer also used his storytelling ability to teach and
entertain the people. From these two authors came the greatest classic
stories and when anyone tells a new fable they join a classic group of
storytellers.