Telling Tales in Schools : Storytellers Sharpen Kids’ Imagination--and Slip Some Lessons In

Stroking his 4-inch-long, white beard and holding his bifocals in his right hand, “Grandpa Jim” Lewis described the gray gunk that bubbles on the top of a kettle when cow tongue is boiled.

Dana Hills High School students shrieked “eeeews,” and some squirmed in their chairs as the Santa Claus look-alike continued his story.

He explained that his grandmother dropped the tongue into the “water closet,” but scooped it out of the commode and served it for dinner without telling anyone what had happened.

It wasn’t a true story, but the teenagers listened as if their grandpa were telling them a story about the good ol’ days.

For Lewis, 64, the story may be a bit gross, even absurd. But it accomplished something. It communicated with students and got them to use their imagination.

“I don’t tell gory, gruesome stories,” Lewis said. “I tell value stories. They’re fun, non-didactic.”

Lewis earns his living through anecdotes. Besides his role as Santa Claus at a department store and appearing in holiday commercials, stories provide his main income.

He used to build boats in Dana Point, leaving in 1981 to sail the Mexican Pacific, where he picked up tales to share with curious listeners.

“Every culture has its different version of Cinderella,” he said. “Everywhere you look there are stories.”

Lewis and about 30 other members of the South Coast Storytellers Guild in Dana Point tell anecdotes at educational centers ranging from kindergarten to college, but also at museums, juvenile halls and hospitals.

According to Lewis, stories provide the best means to teach children everything from the Homestead Act to minding their manners.

“It’s a positive thing,” he said. “I can be a teacher without all the rigmarole. I can teach values and show kids this without hitting them over the head with a two-by-four. I can give them something they can hang on to.”

Storyteller Linda Pruitt returned to school as an adult and majored in American studies. But when she heard a storyteller at Mission San Juan Capistrano, she instantly knew that’s what she wanted to do.

“It has disturbed me so much when I hear kids say, ‘Ew, history, I hate history,’ ” Pruitt said. “History is stories. I wanted to give [stories] a voice again.”

Both Lewis and Pruitt say that television has inhibited younger viewers from thinking aloud. People think visually, Lewis said, and no longer communicate with one another. He believes storytelling can bring zest back into animation.

“It’s a lot different from Disney coloring and drawing,” he said. “We make them use their imaginations.”

Kellie Dearden, 16, a student at Dana Hills high who listened to Grandpa Jim’s stories, said storytelling seemed a lot like acting, except more personal.

“If you’re all stressed out, you can just let it out in a story,” Kellie said. “It was fun to see them put themselves into a situation and act it out. I like it because you can relate to it.”

Pruitt, 46, said it is this “connecting with people” that gives a story power.

“Each person finds their own depth of meaning in a story, from children to adults,” Pruitt said. “They find a different message for them that they need at that time.”

However, storytellers aren’t actors, she said. They do not memorize their lines, and they look directly into the eyes of their listeners. They follow a story outline, but each time the anecdote comes out a little different, she said.

“In acting, you have a memorized script. You have that stage and the audience is out there,” Pruitt said. “In storytelling there is no wall there. You are so connected with that audience. You are talking to them, and they know they are the ones you’re speaking to.”

Rob Rigg, a theater teacher at Dana Hills High School, said his students have performed monologues and improvisations, but teaching them the ability to simply tell a story is a skill they can use every day.

“It’s being able to express yourself without fear,” Rigg said. “I think our culture has lost a lot of that. We tell jokes, but that’s about as far as it goes.”

Stories aren’t just for tucking children into bed, Pruitt said. Storytelling should not have to end just because a listener is grown up. People never out grow their love for stories, she said.

“We all have something in common,” Pruitt said. “When you a tell a story, you reach that person on an innermost level.”