Preview of Newsletter, Brief Summary of Meeting

Dear Families,

Expect a newsletter later next week. Here are three topics I will write about, which we touched upon in the meeting.

1) Thoughts about media and young children.
2) Thoughts about fairy tales and young children.
3) Thoughts about gender roles, stereotypes, and young children.

For topic 1, I told parts of stories, read from a book, and showed a disturbing clip from The Lion King in which Mustafa is trampled to death. While some parents expressed appreciation for an experiental process, and while this experience is one I learned to share years ago and have done so because it does help start a discussion, I want to make sure, when I write you again, that I am not leaving parents with the idea that tv or dvds are OK as long as they are not as graphic, pumped up, and stress-producing as this scene from the Lion King. Indeed, from the Disney repertoire, I have as much concern about the way young women are portrayed and the messages this sends to young girls and boys--and over the years, the greatest challenges media exposure has brought to our nursery class has not so much been boys pretending to trample a lion king to death but rather quiet conversation among girls about whether one is pretty or not, or enough like Ariel or Jasmine (from the movies), or whether one can follow the exact script from Little Mermaid or Aladdin or The Incredibles (I have also had problems with boys excluding others because others did not know the exact script of this or that movie).

Topic 2 provoked a lively discussion because (perhaps moreso to adults, perhaps not) "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids" is a compact and intense tale. Parents were open and free in sharing their opinions about fairy tales in general and whether this particular tale was the right thing for their child at this moment. From that discussion, I feel I owe you a well wrought article (hopefully by someone else, but perhaps me) about the place of fairy tale--and of coming to term with darkness--in relationship to child development and Waldorf education. It is definitely possible for me or other writers to be dogmatic--vaguely remembering that Rudolf Steiner and Albert Einstein championed fairy tales for young children so any fairy tale is good at any age--so I will only share an article if I think it just right.

We had some discussion about the language of "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids" and whether would change a word such as "monster" to "wolf." While remembering that these tales are translations from the German of the work of the Brothers Grimm, who edited told tales to make them more more in sync with the emerging ideologies of the day, I talked about the benefit for young children in a classroom setting of having the teacher know the story so well that she or he is able to be consistent in telling the text. We also discussed--and parents had a wide range of views--about considerations of editing a story or book as we tell or read it to our children. Over the years, I have found it best for me to show no fear of the words and say them ("monster," "death," "hatred," and soforth)--better for me to save the book or story until a child's older if I feel I have to edit it (there are, of course, exceptions, being surprised by a library book or book somebody hands you that you are reading with a child and have not had a chance to preview). I respect parents making their own decisions. We are always trying to artfully trying to find the balance between protection and the benefit of learning through trial, and different children and families find themselves at different points on this balance.

A problem with meetings based on experience is that they don't share every experience that is part of the class, or Waldorf education, or life. The meeting will have failed miserably if years from now parents remember their child's nursery class--"Oh yes, that was the class where what's-his-name told scary stories all year"--because I was unable to also present the many puppet shows I have presented throughout the year. As such, I invite you to come hear me tell a story I put together with folk themes from several stories at Mayfaire. I will be telling "The Fiddler and the Fairies" at 1 and at 2:15pm in the Sunflower Room (families are gathering outside first). This is not a story I memorized from text but one I composed myself, and I specifically try to prepare it without a written text (I am not telling it over and over in a classroom setting, so changes from telling to telling are not as disturbing). It tends to be more silly than scary (though the fiddler is abducted by fairies because they like his music so much, so listeners in a culture at a time when this abduction seemed imminent and manifest would likely be more on the edge of their seat), and some of the musical jokes recognize that parents and children will listen together, and the jokes are more for the parents.

About topic 3, I talked a little bit about Jack Zipes, and my revulsion towards "Little Red Cap" or "Little Red Riding Hood" as put forth by Perrault, Brothers Grimm, Golden Books, and onward. I talked about a more ancient version of the tale in which the girl helps herself. I will try to produce this version for the newsletter.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde