Narrative, Imagination,
Philosophy and the
young child
Dr Sue Lyle
Former Head of CPD,
Swansea Metropolitan
University.
Director of:
Dialogue Exchange
April 18, 2016
Story
 When did you last tell a story?
What are we?
We are story-telling creatures
 To a far greater degree than we are consciously
aware, we look at the world in terms of stories all
the time. They are the most natural way in which
we structure our descriptions of the world around
us. We naturally see our own life as a story, as we
do those of others... Through the media, we view
the pageant of public life as a continuous
kaleidoscope of story.
 Booker, C. (2004;2) The Seven Basic Plots: Why we
tell stories. New York: Continuum
Narrative Understanding
 Narrative Understanding is
the primary meaning
making tool
 Narrative Understanding
rests on the assumption that
human beings make sense
of experience by imposing
story structure on it
 Narrative is our way of
experiencing, acting, living
and dealing with time
Implications
 The narrativity principle has
important implications for
how we plan learning and
teaching
 The curriculum should be
conceived as a story to be
told, a story to be heard, a
story to be created –
TEACHING AS STORYTELLING
SUMMARY
 We are story-telling
animals
 We have a basic need
for story to organise our
experience
 Children and adults are
no different – we all need
story
 Key authors: Bettelheim
1976; Rosen, 1985; Bruner
1990; Egan 1991; Paley,
1991; 2005; Lyle, 1998;
Murris, 2016)
Key Question
 What is the most important
resource in any classroom,
and particularly one with
young children?
 What word was most
frequently used by
respondents to the
Cambridge Primary
Review?
HOW DO WE CONNECT TO STORIES?
 Story depends on the
imagination
 Imagine a Panda
 Your bedroom
 A dragon breathing fire
 Imagination is central to all
learning
 Particularly powerful for the
young when playing
 WE HAVE TO FEED CHILDREN’S
IMAGINATIONS THROUGH STORY
AND PLAY
Stories and Learning
 Stories = thinking.
 Promote wondering =
‘I wonder’
 STORIES SUPPORT CHILDREN’S:
 Emotional engagement
 language acquisition
 articulation
 emotional intelligence
 exploration and
understanding of concepts
 knowledge and
understanding that is
meaningful
Who is the child?
Our work with children is the product of who we think the child is.
Myth busting: Kieran Egan
 Learning goes from the concrete to
 Learning goes from the simple to
 WRONG
 WRONG
 Is Peter Rabbit concrete or
 Children master the complex rules
the abstract
abstract?
 How about the small birds who
begged Peter to assert himself and
escape from the gooseberry net in
Mr McGregor’s garden?
 How about the anxiety felt by
Hansel and Gretel?
 How about children’s grasp of
symbols by age 4?
the complex
of language and social interaction
and adults can’t work out how to
operate simple machines.
 Start with what they know and build
on that
 WRONG
 Children’s minds are full of monsters,
talking middle-class rabbits and
titanic emotions.
 Build on the distant and different,
the fantasy and imagination.
Support from cognitive research:
Alison Gopnik
 THEORY OF MIND
(PSYCHOLOGICAL WORLD)
 Between 15-18 months a
child has developed a
theory of mind and
demonstrates empathy.
 PHYSICAL WORLD
 Understands causality
 COUNTER FACTUALS
 Understands ‘what if?’
John Wall
 Even the youngest child under the most
difficult of circumstances interprets their
own worlds and relations, however much
they are also constructed by them…
Each of us is and has been shaped by
many layers of surrounding persons,
communities and histories…. from the
moment of birth open to the world and
active in creation of herself...
 Wall, J. (2010) Ethics in the light of
childhood.
The cognitive & cultural
tool of oracy
 Language shapes the pre-
literate child’s learning and
thinking through:
 Story
 Pattern, rhyme, rhythm
 Metaphor
 Abstract binary opposites
 Fantasy
 Awe and wonder
 Drama and role play
The story so far
 Children and adults are active
participants in constructing
themselves and the world.
 Children's development is incoherent
and discontinuous, rather than orderly
and predictable.
 The child develops like ginger –
influenced by intersectionality:
gender, class, ethnicity, age,
(dis)ability and experience.
 Children’s emotions and imaginations
are powerful.
 The child accesses the abstract world
through fantasy and metaphor.
Barriers
 Influence of prevailing
psychological and social
perspectives both on child
and on ways of knowing.
 Hegemonic discourses
about child and childhood.
 Government dictats about
‘good practice’
Multiple models of the
child today:
 The developing child – not-yet-adult – needs time to unfold
 The innocent child – needs protection
 Criminal/unruly child (evil) – requires control/socialisation
 Ignorant child (blank slate) – needs to be developed
 Excluded child – needs protection
 Disabled child – victim
 Economic child – preparation for the workforce
 All deficit models of the child who is less than the adult
Philosophical roots:
all presuppose the adult/child binary
 Rousseau – the child will
unfold naturally (nativist)
 Locke – the child needs to
be developed (empiricist)
 Kant – needs to be
interacted with in order to
become ‘fully human’
(interactionist)
Childism
 Such models of the child
feed prejudice against the
child and constructs
discriminatory practices.
 Positions the child as citizen-
to-be not as citizen.
 Prevents critique of
developmental psychology
and socialisation theories
that inform current practice
in settings and on training
courses.
Epistemic injustice –
Mirander Fricker
 Childism is a socially structured
prejudice that all children are
subject to.
 It renders children susceptible to
identity prejudice.
 It corrupts hearers' judgements of
speaker credibility.
 Credibility deficit leads to lack of
respect for the child speaker.
 The child is wronged specifically
in their capacity as a knower – a
distinctive epistemic injustice.
 To be wronged in one’s capacity
as a knower is to be wronged in a
capacity essential to human
value.
The Posthuman child:
Murris, 2016
 Education should not start
from ideas about what a
child should become
(according to adults) but by
articulating an interest in the
child who is coming into the
world.
 A subject’s coming into the
world is always shaped by
the actions of others. The
space that is created by the
adult for the child must allow
freedom to appear
 To give the chance for the
child’s own, unique voice to
bring something new into the
world.
Children are people
 I attribute to the child the same needs I find
in myself: for autonomous action, for
personal choice, for privacy, for respect
from others, for personal exploration, for
moments or periods of psychological
regression, for nurturance, for meaningful
work, for a reasonable level of power…, for
leisure, for equal treatment in situations of
dispute.
 Kennedy, 2006, The Well of Being
Bringing it together
 What happens when
children are immersed in
stories – where their
imaginations drive the
curriculum they create for
themselves?
 What happens when we
support children’s play and
meaning-making with
philosophy?
 Philosophy by children with
adults where the context of
the play, the connections
with other human beings
and non-human objects
endlessly constructs and
reconstructs ‘child-storyartefact-movement-talk’
 Stanley & Lyle, (2016) (in
print
Story-Play-Philosophise
 Let the children decide where to take
the story – their role playing,
philosophising and storytelling.
 Create storytelling spaces
 Construction areas
 Pop-up role-play – small world and
dressing up
 Creative areas – art, craft,
 Themed around the story
 Through play children experience in
an embodied way concepts that are
recognized as philosophical problems.
 As children give shape to their selves in
the aesthetic space of play where
they can explore their moral selves
WHAT STORIES?
 From age 2-7 focus on Fairy
tales, myths, fables,
traditional stories – told orally
as often as possible with as
much animation as possible.
 Picture books.
 Children’s own stories.
 Through stories the children
experience in an embodied
way concepts that are
recognized as philosophical
problems.
Planning a Storytelling Philosophical
curriculum 3-7 years
 Use Story to work with
children’s:
 Imagination
 Emotional engagement
 Fantasy play
 Drama and role play
 Metaphor
 Rhythm, rhyme and
pattern
Stories express emotions
 struggle
 fear
 loneliness
 anger
 deprivation
 love
 courage
 friendship
 determination
 jealousy
 persistence
 kindness
 triumph
 cruelty
Fairy tales embody abstract
concepts through binary opposites
• friends / enemies
• right / wrong
• powerful / weak
• fair / unfair
• friend / foe
• beautiful / ugly
• naughty / well behaved
 truth / lies
 anger / forgiveness
 brave / afraid
Create opportunities for
philosophical play and story telling

Children’s play is like “a traveling troupe of medieval
players who arrive, set up their theatre, and then begin
performing. It is a world that is run more like a theatre is run
than like an everyday world”. Sutton-Smith, 1997: 159.

Stories stimulate philosophical play

Create spaces where the children play within a story
setting they have co-created.

Seek to make meaning from the children’s conversations
and play .

Look for the philosophical potentials.
Marion the Princess and the Dragon
Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. She lived in a castle
and there was a prince and a witch. She came up and hurt the princess.
The dragon was friendly the dragon killed the witch. The dragon rescued
the princess. The princess went outside and went to the park then back
to the castle again. She took her coat and shoes off and put on her PJs
and she danced with the prince.
The day the dragon came
Once, there was a little girl called Ellie and her mother was very nasty.
Her dad was called Miskin and her mum was called Donna. They also
had a dog that was really smelly and their dog was called Ben.
Just then the almighty wind flew about the ground and a dragon came.
The dragon was red and had blue spots all over his body. His eyes were
glowing and his nose purple. His horns were gigantic and peach and his
claws were brown. The little girl screamed but then Becky came to help,
she was the little girl’s grandma. Becky jumped up onto the dragon’s
face and took the little girl out of his mouth. The dragon said, “aaaaahh!’
and cried.
He was only in disguise, he was actually a kind elf who was making a joke
and he didn't mean to scare anyone. Becky felt sorry for the dragon and
said to him, ‘please don’t cry’. They all became friends and they all lived
happily ever after as they lked off to the park.
Preschool children use abstract
concepts naturally
•
It’s my turn (fairness)
•
You’re not my friend any more (friendship)
•
Not now (time)
•
No that toy is mine (ownership)
•
You’re the baddy and I’ll be the goodie (good/bad)
•
You’re not sharing (sharing)
•
Don’t scream at me. That’s not what friends do (friendship)
•
The fairy is here but she’s invisible (proof)
•
That’s going to be impossible (possibilities)
•
The dragon is going to get you back (revenge)
•
Only girls can play this game (gender)
Explore concepts & emotions:
developing thinking skills
 Philosophical play creates a
multiplicity of possibilities for
children’s thinking
 Q: Can you be friends with a
monster?
 Q: What if the monster had
no friends? Would you
change your mind?
 What if it was so small it could
fit in your pocket?
 Q: I wonder what would
happen if a monster came to
our classroom?
Build on fantasy
 Would you rather…
 Have a magic wand
 Or,
 A magic carpet?
Reception
Listening to children
 Be attentive to the children, their stories and
their needs
 Find diverse ways to let the children's stories be
created and told
 Respect the stories that children create, build on
them, develop them
 Think and talk about stories to explore abstract
concepts.
 Their stories and our response to them is an
important part of safeguarding the rights of
children.
Implications for ITE
 Students need to examine
their beliefs about child
 Examine key concepts and
the emotions associated with
adults/children, eg freedom,
control, power, social status,
 Ask: who is worth listening to
from an epistemic
perspective?
 Philosophical play needs an
experienced listening ear
from adults that can connect
with the imagination.
Conclusion
 If the teacher has an
equity-focus and seeks
children's questions, their
conjectures and beliefs and
can help the children clarify
their thinking, exchange
ideas and subject them to
enquiry, then the child has
the opportunity to become
who they are.