The old man is snoring. He bumped his head on the end of the bed and couldn't get up in the morning."
It was actually raining yesterday afternoon. After school some of the children in the street were outside playing in the rain too. At that point it was not heavy enough to send them indoors. They were having fun. I went out to put some things in the recycle bin. They called out to me and chanted "Rain, rain go away; come again some other day."
I responded with the old man one and discovered to my horror that they didn't actually know it. How could they not know it? They do now. I made sure of that. They don't need to know that it was originally a rhyme for adults about drunken old men. I didn't know that as a child. I was a teenager before I found out.
As each of the youngest children in this street have arrived in this world I have given them a copy of "When we were very young." Have they been used? I believe they have because they know poems from that. Other things seem to have passed them by and I find that disturbing. Even folk tales seem not to be taught any more. Children need those and they need nursery rhymes. Cultural literacy seems to be a thing of the past.
I went to university in London where I was fortunate enough to come across people like Iona Opie who came to give my small group a guest "lecture". Well, she talked for a bit and then turned it into a discussion which led us all to realise, at least in part, how much nursery rhymes and other school ground language games have to offer. As the odd one out from Downunder she asked me some searching questions too. It was one of those times when you came away from the time spent wanting more and wondering why you had not taken up research into that topic!
I haven't been into a 5-7/8yrs school section for a while. It is obviously time I did. If children are missing out on that sort of thing then I see it as my responsibility to make sure they get at least some of it. I know their parents read bedtime stories. There are only two who do not seem to go the library on a regular basis - although their father assures me "they read a lot". I do wonder though, what happens to the children who don't go to the library? Are they limited to those "readers" - the one's that T... and H... found so "boring"?
I can't force them to learn nonsense rhymes but I have a feeling that, offered in the right way, they might just want to learn them. Summer might be even more fun now. I am working on it. Suggestions gratefully received!
Posts
1 comment:
What happens to/with children who don't go to the library?
Well, they might go to a museum or a gallery where a folk piece is illustrated
or interacted with in some way.
Their parents might well participate in a pub quiz or a bingo with the rhymes and stories to be matched.
I always thought that the Old Man was depressed or had dementia
or received a knock to his head in a compromising situation.
The folk origins of rhymes are interesting in themselves, as you showed with the meeting with Iona Opie.
"Why didn't I research that?!"
And a lot of children are getting Indian and Chinese folktales or from New Zealand and the Pacific - as well as the ones on the wide brown land.
Or the children might, again, experience street art
or talk to an unhoused person or a busker.
Or they might receive a bag at hospital or in school.
Or possibly the parts of the brain which used to be taken up by rhymes are now full of advertising jingles and catalogues and sporting commentary.
It was the same when the redirection took place from narrative to persuasive writing in the international student assessments [and the national ones too].
Post a Comment