You Can Do That?! Helping Children Handle Big Emotions Through Storytelling and Playacting

• In Event: Early Childhood Teacher Research for Professional Development: Teacher Inquiry Projects in Diverse School Contexts

Abstract

In this presentation, a lawyer-turned-early-childhood-educator examines what happened when she intentionally redirected upset/sad/mad/frustrated children to original storytelling and playacting, to help them deal with their strong emotions. The research occurred over approximately eight months at a private preschool in a Bay Area suburb, at which the teacher researcher serves as a float/substitute teacher.

This teacher researcher believes that we must turn language/literacy and social/emotional curricula on their heads, by infusing these curriculum areas with an emphasis on “mindfulness” and “heartfulness.” Combine mindful, heartful social/emotional curriculum with mindful, heartful language and literacy curriculum, and even more amazing things can happen. As McNamee (2015) observed, Vivian Gussin Paley’s discovery in 1979 of the tremendous importance of having children act out their own stories – as dictated to and transcribed verbatim by their teachers – holds valuable lessons for present-day, early childhood educators. McNamee argued that original storytelling and its dramatization address fundamental, social and emotional learning goals – including, but not limited to, friendships, working together, and respecting oneself, others, and property (pp. 57-61).

This project aimed to expand on Paley’s and McNamee’s work by allowing for original storytelling and playacting to occur at any moment, with the specific intention of redirecting a child in the throes of emotional or physical turmoil to this language/literacy activity meant to calm and focus the mind and spirit. Using original storytelling and dramatization as both an instructional tool for traditional language and literacy goals (e.g., vocabulary development, comprehension, etc.) and as a mechanism for re-directing a child’s emotional pain, frustration, anger, and/or sadness (so as to defuse conflict, promote amends-making, ease internal stress, and teach about empathy) simply makes sense.

Four girls and six boys, ranging in age from three to four years old, comprised the student population serving as the primary source of data for this study. The teacher researcher analyzed 1) the children’s original stories and art; 2) interactions/conversations between, among, and with the children; 3) conversations with families; 4) notes of an interview with the students’ primary caregiver; 5) reflection journal entries; 6) data memos and research group feedback memos; and 7) photos and videos.

This teacher researcher’s analysis proved that she had gathered data supportive of the notion that we intentionally can redirect young children to original storytelling and playacting during an emotionally or physically intense moment, so as to reduce interpersonal conflict and alleviate emotional stress. Her presentation will include a review of these results, as well as a discussion of what she now considers to be necessary components of successful redirection to language/ literacy activities. Further, she will touch on the importance of professional self-reflection in order to “remain in conscious interchange” with the children, so that teachers may keep themselves well “within the zone most ripe for teaching” (Meier & Henderson, 2007, p. 26).

Author

• Nicole Friedenberg, Old Firehouse School