Now that it is summer, I am back substituting at the Reggio Emilia-based school I taught at last summer. Today I was in the toddler classroom with mostly two-year-olds. As I am wont to do, on occasion, over afternoon snack, I told the story of Coyote's Whiskers, about three little mice to sneak into Coyote's den, one after the other, and steal a whisker to take back to their mouse village. By the time the third mouse is up, Coyote has caught on and pretends to sleep ... that is, until the third mouse arrives, when he raises his head, howls loudly, and then proceeds to chase the mice out his den and up a Douglas fir tree, where all the mice can still be found today, hiding in the Douglas fir cones. That's the short of it, anyway.
Not thirty seconds after I was finished with the story, Peter burst out with the following narrative:
"Once, when I was in the woods, I saw a coyote and I sneaked up on him and stole his whiskers, and then he gave a big "RAR!" but then I put him in a cage!"
Hmm. What to make of that? His enthusiasm took me more by surprise than the changed ending. I didn't have time to think of much else at that point, as Nathan chimed in with his own narrative:
"Can I tell you a story? I was in the woods once, and I went in the door and stole Coyote's whiskers, and he went "RAR!" but then I put him, I put him in jail!"
Before I knew it, Peter and Nathan were going at it in a kind of narrative duel, back and forth, each trying to out-do the other's ending.
What the heck?! What a powerful insight into the minds of these two-year-olds! The only sense I can make of it is that they are in that phase, in which everything is experienced through the perspective of their own self, and only their own self. If they relate to the mice of the story, they become a mouse, they become the agent of the story.
Wow. I'm still trying to sort out other possible meanings to make of this. Perhaps it is simply what it is, and I should just let it be that (we/I have an awful tendency to overdue the potential analysis of children's behavior). But it was a story I simply had to share.
What the heck?! What a powerful insight into the minds of these two-year-olds! The only sense I can make of it is that they are in that phase, in which everything is experienced through the perspective of their own self, and only their own self. If they relate to the mice of the story, they become a mouse, they become the agent of the story.
Wow. I'm still trying to sort out other possible meanings to make of this. Perhaps it is simply what it is, and I should just let it be that (we/I have an awful tendency to overdue the potential analysis of children's behavior). But it was a story I simply had to share.
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