Education Standards: Can Storytelling have an Impact on Curriculum and Testing?
by Myra A. Davis and Phyllis NeSmith, The Peace River Tale Spinners

Appeared in the March/April 2000 issue of Storytelling Magazine, pgs. 12-14.

We, the Peace River Tale Spinners, recently worked with the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Department of Education to help educators understand the importance of bringing arts education into the curriculum as they work toward building literacy skills. Our focus was on building a connection between the arts and the curriculum.

Storytelling is our art form and we have persisted inour efforts to build a collaborative partnership between and among storytellers and other artists, educators, and parents. We are advocates for the arts and arts education for we believe that storytelling is a valued art form. Storytellers must partner with arts programs, councils, schools, organizations and other artists on a state and national level in order to help schools prepare our students for the real world.

Our beliefs were reinforced when we attended a wonderful workshop entitled "Working With Artists in Education: Preparation and Collaboration." The workshop was presented by Amy Duma and Barbara Shepherd from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C. One of the topics discussed was: Why Should Performing Arts Centers/Sponsors and Schools Be Involved with Arts Education?

Here are some reasons why:

1. Because the arts “are there;” they are time-honored forms of expression that tell what humans have thought and felt across generations: what motivated them, what troubled them, how they coped in the face of adversity, what they aspired to.  Overwhelmingly, when societies vanish it is their arts which endure.
2. The arts provide cross-cultural understanding through knowledge of civilizations and cultures past and present. The traditional humanistic ideal of educating “the whole person” is furthered by the combined efforts of schools and performing arts centers/sponsors.

3. The arts are a way of knowing; the arts provide educational experiences in their fullest form: skills for daily living and three processes of lifelong learning: critical thinking, creativity, and philosophic reflection.[1]

In 1994 the Consortium of National Arts Education Associations published the National Standards for Arts Education. These standards outline the basic arts learning outcomes which are an important part of the comprehensive K- 12 education for all students.[2] "Nearly all states have been revising their arts education standards and curricula in line with the National Standards, and many are now implementing new arts education standards."[3] Many states now have their comprehensive testing programs in place and students are being tested periodically through the grades to assure that they are meeting the standards for all curriculum areas.

Storytellers need to become familiar with both national and state standards.

It appears that parents and the public in general really do not accept the arts (and certainly storytelling is an art form) in all schools for all grade levels. The public places its highest educational value on instruction in the basic skills, school safety, job preparedness, and discipline. The arts are treated with ambivalence because the connections between the arts and their impact on student achievement and other student outcomes are not fully apparent.[4]

The U.S. Department of Education, OERI flyer on Priorities for Arts Education Research states:

"The arts are the embodiment of human imagination, the record of human achievement, and the process that distinguishes us as human beings. We form human communities and cultures by making art—through stories and songs, drama and dance, painting and sculpture, architecture and design."[5]

The report of the Task Force on Children’s Learning and the Arts: Birth to Age Eight states that the National Research Council found that the problems many children face in learning to read could be prevented with high-quality instruction that incorporates a range of language building activities and early exposure to stories and hooks.  The 1998 report, "Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children" highlights the importance of games, songs, and poems that emphasize rhyming or manipulation of sounds in developing language skills. It recommends that early childhood professionals should understand children's language development; learn about their sense of story; concepts of space, and fine motor development; and learn how to instill motivation to read.[6]

The report also lists three Guiding Principles that should be used to guide the development of arts-based programs and resources for young children. These principles should be thoroughly integrated in all resources for young children.

Principle #1 – Children should be encouraged to learn in, through, and about the arts by actively engaging in the processes of creating, participating in/performing, and responding to quality arts experiences, adapted to their developmental levels and reflecting their own culture.

Principle #2 – Arts activities and experiences, while maintaining the integrity of the artistic disciplines, should be meaningful to children, follow a scope and sequence, and connect to early childhood curriculum and appropriate practices.  They may also contribute to literacy development.

Principle #3 – The development of early childhood arts programs (including resources and materials) should he shared among arts education specialists, practicing artists, early childhood educators, parents, and caregivers; and the process should connect with community resources.[7]

The Goals 2000 Arts Education Partnership reported in Priorities for Arts Education Research that a child's learning and development from birth to Kindergarten is critical to later success. Educational development and child psychology have been greatly enhanced by recent research on the brain and the types of stimulation important to its growth. Education and public policy makers have responded to these findings by making "school readiness" a major concern and the First of the National Education Goals. Researchers are citing the role of music, dance, story, and images in stimulating child development and creating important bonds between child, parent, and family.[8]

The big push in education is to increase student achievement and actively engage students in their learning experience. Arts education, according to recent research, is a viable option for helping students do just that.

School Administrators report that in schools with powerful arts programs, they see increased student performance as measured by grades, tests, scores, attendance, and retention.  Partnerships with community arts organizations and individual artists can engage the expertise of community members in ways that enhance student learning.

Johnny Bullard, principal of an elementary school in Jasper, Florida, brings storytellers into his school every year prior to achievement testing. His comment to us was that these storytelling performances improve student test scores.

So where do storytellers and storytelling fit into this educational scheme?  The art form of storytelling is there to help both teachers and students. Who better can enrich the curriculum and motivate students than storytellers? Stories are our tools. Every student should have access to a rich and varied education. Hearing a wide variety of stories from many ages and cultures will help to add necessary variety to the curriculum. Storytelling and storytellers can help reach and motivate students, those with disabilities as well as those who are gifted. We can help to develop the capacities of our children, not only to find their place in a complex world, but also to help give them a life rich in meaning.

The Introduction of National Standard for Arts Education states that an education in the arts benefits society because students of the arts gain powerful tools for:

• understanding human experiences, both past and present;
• learning to adapt to and respect others' (often very different) ways of thinking, working, and expressing themselves;
• learning artistic modes of problem solving, which brings an array of expressive, analytical, and developmental tools to every human situation;
• understanding the influences of the arts, for example, in their power to create and reflect cultures, in the impact of design on virtually all we use in daily life, and in the interdependence of work in the arts with the broader worlds of ideas and action;
• making decisions in situations where there are no standard answers;
• analyzing nonverbal communication and making informed judgments about cultural products and issues;
• communicating their thoughts and feelings in a variety of modes, giving them a powerful tool for self-expression.[9]

Storytelling performances and workshops require tremendous amounts of time and effort in planning for the artist and the institutions sponsoring the artist. As storytelling artists, we must combine forces with educational institutions to form successful connections for arts and literacy. It is important that as artists, we become affiliated with the many state and national organizations that support the arts in education.  We need to be involved, to be visible and vocal so that story will become a vital part of our educational system. Develop partnerships; familiarize yourself with the national and state standards for arts education; work with educators to make storytelling a viable ingredient in the recipe for a complete education for our children.

Though we come and go through this world, our stories will live forever. The following quote from Grandmothers House' by Walter Ivey says it so well:

Tho’ I shall pass and
leave this place...
in my time be gone.
All you who come,
to share its grace...
Kindly pass it on.[10]

Myra Davis and Phyllis NeSmith are professional Storytellers and workshop leaders. You can contact them at either myrastory@aol.com or phlstory@sunline.net.

Connections:

• VSA- Very Special Arts www.vsarts.org
• AEP – Arts Education Partnership www.aep-arts.org
• NEA – National Endowment for the Arts www.arts.endow.gov
• NEH – National Endowment for the Humanities www.neh.fed.us
• Core Curriculum – www.coreknowledge.org
• Local Storytelling and State Associations
• NSN – National Storytelling Network www.storynet.org
• SFI – Storytelling Foundation International www.storytellingfoundation.net

[1] Presenters Working With Artists in Education: Preparation and Collaboration, Education Department of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C. 20566-0001, 202-416-8800 www.kennedy-center.org/education/

[2] National Standards for Arts Education: What Every Young American Should Know and Be Able to Do in the Arts, (1994), MENC-The National Association for Music Education, 1806 Robert Fu1ton Drive, Reston, VA 20191, 800-828-0229 artsedge.kennedy-center/

[3] SERVE Policy Brief, South Eastern Regional Vision for Education (SERVE), P0 Box 5367, Greensboro, NC. 27435, 800-755-3277 www.serve.org

[4] See previous #3

[5] Priorities for Arts Education Research, Jan. 1998, U.S. Department of Ed., Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Goals 2000 Arts Education Partnership,

[6]Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections, A Report of the Task Force on Children's Learning and the Arts: From Birth to Age Eight, 1998, Arts Education Partnership, Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington, D.C. 20001-1431, 202-326-8693 www.aep-arts.org

[7] See previous #6

[8] See previous #5

[9] See previous #2

[10] Grandmother's House, by Walter Ivey, poet, 1790 #302 Gulf Blvd., Redington Shores, Fl. 33708, 727-392-0847