[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: P.S. Re: R.I.P. VIVIAN PALEY -- What a rich life(-story) . . . that so enriched ours 

Tue Aug 6 13:25:07 PDT 2019

Felt a great resonance with this thread in the fabric of the universe
yesterday when I heard that the great author (storyteller) Toni Morrison
passed away.
Similar to Paley, she gifted us many "once upon a times".
-greg

On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 8:38 AM Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>
wrote:

> Thank-you for these two articles and the NY Times Obit.
> Here is a review of one of her books along with a short interview by
> Derrick Bell
> from the Times archive.  September 6, 1992.
>
> YOU CAN'T SAY YOU CAN'T PLAY
>
> By Vivian Gussin Paley.134 pp. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press.
> $15.95
>
> VIVIAN GUSSIN PALEY'S book "You Can't Say You Can't Play" is arresting in
> its title, magical in its appeal and inspiring in its message. It
> resurrects the special delight of reading to children from books that
> convey different meanings to them than they do to adults. Here, Mrs. Paley,
> a teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and the author of
> a number of books about teaching children (including "The Boy Who Would Be
> a Helicopter"), captures and exploits this duality: her book is part
> fiction, part real; it is aimed at adults but has as its characters the
> children in her kindergarten class.
>
> Mrs. Paley recognizes the deep hurt of young schoolchildren who are told
> by their peers, "You can't play; don't sit by me; stop following us; I
> don't want you for a partner; go away." So she suggests to her quite
> resistant young charges that along with bans on hitting and name-calling,
> they should shun play practices that divide the class into a ruling group
> and outsiders.
>
> While most of the children concede that her suggested rule, "You can't say
> you can't play," is very fair, they don't think it will work. It is, they
> tell their teacher, just not human nature. And the strongest opponents of
> the rule are those children who do most of the excluding. Stating the case
> with more candor than tact, one little girl wails that if kids can't
> exclude kids they don't like, "then what's the whole point of playing?"
>
> Most teachers address peer rejection by trying to help the outsiders
> become more acceptable to the insiders. Often this only worsens the
> children's sense of exclusion. Mrs. Paley, who is in her 60's now, still
> remembers her first-grade teacher, who said of an overweight girl in the
> class, "She'd have friends if she lost weight and changed her dress once in
> a while." Mrs. Paley's philosophy is both more humane and more ambitious:
> "The group must change its attitudes and expectations toward those who,
> for whatever reason, are not yet part of the system."
>
> Social scientists studying the problem of rejection would probably do it
> in a thick volume so heavy with statistics, footnotes, education jargon and
> legal theory that most readers would risk terminal boredom. But Mrs. Paley
> is a teacher, and she seems to have adopted an approach to her readers (and
> to her students) that is described in the epitaph of the Rev. William
> Burton, headmaster of an English grammar school in the 1920's, who "taught
> as a learner . . . led as a follower [and so] . . . set the feet of many
> upon the way of life."
>
> With imaginative skill, the author introduces her children -- and her
> readers -- to a fairy tale about a magpie endowed with human wisdom but
> also beset with fears and foibles. Mrs. Paley intersperses Magpie's
> adventures with her dialogues with her kindergartners. But the children,
> though engrossed by each new episode of Magpie's story, are not easily won
> over by the lessons.
>
> Mrs. Paley seeks the counsel of older students in other classes. The fifth
> graders think the idea of barring rejection in play is a good one, but only
> in kindergarten because, as one girl puts it, "rules are big things then."
> The fourth-grade class agrees that it would work for kindergartners but not
> for themselves: "We're much meaner than in kindergarten." The kindergarten
> kids "trust you," they tell her. "They'll do what you say. It's too late to
> give us a new rule."
>
> Even the second graders are doubtful about accepting a rule barring all
> exclusion. They prefer that one child serve as a "boss" to settle disputes
> about who plays with whom. In fact, they would rather obey a boss than vote
> to settle disputes. "See," one girl explains for the group, "the bad thing
> about voting is, if you don't vote for that person she'll see all the
> people who don't like her. If it's a boss, that's only one person [who]
> doesn't like you so you don't feel so bad." Equally pragmatic, one
> fifth-grade boy tells Mrs. Paley: "In your whole life you're not going to
> go through life never being excluded. So you may as well learn it now."
>
> The general feeling, Mrs. Paley concludes, is that "friendship comes
> before fairness, and the plan is seen as an intrusion into friendship."
> This is an attitude all too familiar to those working for civil rights.
> When the Supreme Court ordered the racial desegregation of public schools
> in 1954, the critics of the decision contended that it interfered with the
> right of whites to non-association with blacks. Though the Court rejected
> that argument and a myriad of similar ones, it could do nothing about the
> toll that coerced remedies would take on the intended beneficiaries.
>
> Mrs. Paley's kids learn this harsh fact quite early. While admitting their
> feelings are hurt when classmates won't play with them, they agree with one
> child who warns: "Yeah, but it hurts more if the teacher forces people to
> play with you." "He's right!" someone calls out. "Last year, one time some
> guys wouldn't let me play and the teacher came up and told them they had to
> . . . and, boy, was it ever uncomfortable standing there, listening to my
> friends argue with the teacher about letting me play."
>
> MRS. PALEY has the answer for her class. "Story is never enough, nor is
> talk. We must be told, when we are young, what rules to live by. The
> grown-ups must tell the children . . . so that myth and morality proclaim
> the same message while the children are still listening." Sound advice,
> certainly. And it seems to make a difference. Mrs. Paley concedes that "
> 'you can't say you can't play' is apparently not as natural a law as, for
> example, 'I say you can't play.' " Still, she observes that by the end of
> the year the children who obeyed the rule not only included more kids in
> their play but also were more expansive in their storytelling.
>
> But what are we to do with a nation -- a world really -- filled with
> people who from an early age learn to exclude others and to expect
> exclusion themselves? More to the point, how does one prepare the children
> who have learned the inclusion lessons Mrs. Paley effectively teaches to
> live in an exclusionary world? "You Can't Say You Can't Play" illustrates
> how the teacher's art can attack the evil of exclusion at its childhood
> root. Now, Mrs. Paley, we need your help in weeding out the pernicious
> practices that afflict the adults of our exclusionary society.
>
> A version of this review appears in print on September 6, 1992, on Page 76
> of the National edition with the headline: A Kindergarten Cliquebuster. Today's
> Paper <http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html>|Subscribe
> <http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp839RF.html?campaignId=48JQY>
>
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 8:09 PM mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
>> I forgot about this set of Paley papers
>> Mike
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: Frank Kessel <frankskessel@gmail.com>
>> Date: Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 7:36 PM
>> Subject: P.S. Re: R.I.P. VIVIAN PALEY -- What a rich life(-story) . . .
>> that so enriched ours 🙏
>> To: Frank Kessel <kesfam@me.com>
>>
>>
>> Of course there are almost endless things we can say, and stories to
>> share, about Vivian.  Still, one or three of you (a) may remember this, or
>> (b) find it worthwhile now . . .  where “it” would be at least her own
>> discussion (and others’) on pp. 77 ff.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Aug 2, 2019, at 11:24 AM, Frank Kessel <kesfam@me.com> wrote:
>>
>> THE NEW YORK TIMESVivian Paley, Educator Who Promoted Storytelling, Dies
>> at 90
>> Image[image: Vivian Gussin Paley in 1988. She believed in the power of
>> storytelling in developing the minds and social qualities of small
>> children. She wrote 13 books and won a MacArthur award for her work.]
>> Vivian Gussin Paley in 1988. She believed in the power of storytelling in
>> developing the minds and social qualities of small children. She wrote 13
>> books and won a MacArthur award for her work.CreditCreditSpecial
>> Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
>> By Katharine Q. Seelye <https://www.nytimes.com/by/katharine-q-seelye>
>>
>>    - Aug. 1, 2019
>>    -
>>       -
>>       <https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?app_id=9869919170&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F08%2F01%2Feducation%2Fvivian-paley-dead.html&smid=fb-share&name=Vivian%20Paley%2C%20Educator%20Who%20Promoted%20Storytelling%2C%20Dies%20at%2090&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2F>
>>       -
>>       <https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnyti.ms%2F2YyODRT&text=Vivian%20Paley%2C%20Educator%20Who%20Promoted%20Storytelling%2C%20Dies%20at%2090>
>>       -
>>       <?subject=NYTimes.com%3A%20Vivian%20Paley%2C%20Educator%20Who%20Promoted%20Storytelling%2C%20Dies%20at%2090&body=From%20The%20New%20York%20Times%3A%0A%0AVivian%20Paley%2C%20Educator%20Who%20Promoted%20Storytelling%2C%20Dies%20at%2090%0A%0AHer%20methods%20helped%20children%20%E2%80%9Cjoin%20a%20complex%20and%20diverse%20social%20world%2C%E2%80%9D%20a%20colleague%20said%2C%20but%20they%20met%20resistance%20from%20advocates%20of%20standardized%20testing.%0A%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F08%2F01%2Feducation%2Fvivian-paley-dead.html>
>>       -
>>       -
>>
>> Vivian Gussin Paley, a pioneering teacher and widely acclaimed author who
>> emphasized the importance of storytelling in early childhood development,
>> died on July 26 in Crozet, Va. She was 90.
>> Her son, David Paley, said she had been in failing health for some months
>> and died in an assisted living facility.
>> Ms. Paley was a keen observer — and listener — of young children. She
>> wrote 13 books about their social and intellectual development, including
>> how they learn from telling stories, and received a MacArthur “genius”
>> grant in recognition of her work.
>> Her best known works include “You Can’t Say You Can’t Play” (1993), the
>> title referring to a rule she laid down in her classroom to teach children
>> about rejection. The book is “arresting in its title, magical in its
>> appeal, and inspiring in its message,” the Harvard law professor and author Derrick
>> Bell wrote
>> <https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/06/books/a-kindergarten-cliquebuster.html?module=inline>in
>> The New York Times Book Review. He said it illustrated “how the teacher’s
>> art can attack the evil of exclusion at its childhood root.”
>>
>> In “White Teacher” (1979), she described her reluctance to talk about
>> race as a white teacher in an integrated school. Sixteen years later she
>> wrote “Kwanzaa and Me,” in which she confronted racism head on.
>> Her book “The Girl With the Brown Crayon” (1997), which followed a girl’s
>> discoveries during a year of reading works by the children’s author Leo
>> Lionni <https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/authors/leo-lionni/>, won
>> Harvard University Press’s annual prize for outstanding publication about
>> education and society.
>> Ms. Paley’s teaching approach involved asking children to describe an
>> event, sometimes with only a few words, and then to dramatize it with their
>> classmates. This taught them language skills but also compassion, fairness
>> and how to negotiate relationships.
>> “She was as much an artist as a teacher, creative and playful to the end
>> of her life,” John Hornstein, a child development specialist at Tufts
>> University, said in an interview. “She is known in the field for her use of
>> storytelling, but the method she developed is far more than that. It is a
>> way in which young children join a complex and diverse social world.”
>> Ms. Paley developed her methods over 37 years of teaching, most of them
>> spent at the innovative, academically rigorous University of Chicago
>> Laboratory Schools <https://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/>. While there, she
>> won her MacArthur award in 1989 at age 60. She is believed to be the only
>> person to win the grant while working as a kindergarten teacher.
>>
>> In addition to teaching children, she mentored a generation of teachers,
>> held workshops and lectured about her experiences in the classroom. Her
>> methods of storytelling and acting have been adopted elsewhere, notably in
>> Boston, where the public school system has incorporated
>> <https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3qKorUGb2mHaGZkNm10cTd4WVE/view> them
>> into its curriculum.
>> But they met with some resistance from the education establishment,
>> especially as the No Child Left Behind
>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/opinion/why-the-new-education-law-is-good-for-children-left-behind.html?module=inline> Act,
>> which required standardized testing, became law in 2002.
>> “She wasn’t mainstream, and she wasn’t a curriculum person,” Mr.
>> Hornstein said. “To her, teaching was not about meeting a bunch of core
>> requirements that you can quantify; it was about being a human being.”
>>
>> [image: The methods of Ms. Paley, shown here in 1989, were influential,
>> and were adopted by the Boston school system. But they were at odds with
>> the increasing emphasis nationwide on testing.]
>> The methods of Ms. Paley, shown here in 1989, were influential, and were
>> adopted by the Boston school system. But they were at odds with the
>> increasing emphasis nationwide on testing.CreditSpecial Collections
>> Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
>> In her book “The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter: The Uses of Storytelling
>> in the Classroom” (1990), Ms. Paley wrote about a loner who becomes less
>> isolated by acting in other children’s activities and stories, both true
>> and fantasized, and inviting others into his imaginary helicopter to be his
>> co-pilot.
>> By using storytelling to make children feel included, Ms. Paley built
>> trust in her classroom and extended that to problem solving, said Sarah
>> Sivright, who taught with her at the Chicago Laboratory Schools.
>> For example, she said, a student named Billy liked to play with blocks
>> but never put them away. Ms. Paley and Ms. Sivright suggested that he not
>> be allowed to play with them anymore. But his classmates said that that
>> wasn’t fair because it was his favorite activity. They suggested instead
>> that he simply be reminded to clean up after each session.
>> “Billy actually did get better at cleaning up,” Ms. Sivright said. “He
>> felt supported by his community.”
>> Vivian Roslyn Gussin was born on Jan. 25, 1929, in Chicago to Harry and
>> Yetta (Meisel) Gussin. He was a medical doctor and she a homemaker.
>> Vivian received her bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of
>> Chicago in 1947 and another bachelor’s degree, in psychology, from Newcomb
>> College, the women’s college at Tulane University in New Orleans, in 1950.
>> She married Irving Paley in 1948. He survives her, as do their son,
>> David, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Another son,
>> Robert, died in 2017.
>> Ms. Paley began her teaching career in New Orleans. There, she recalled,
>> she felt burdened by an overemphasis on strict learning boundaries and
>> memorization, and came to believe that such an approach stifled learning —
>> and teaching. She described herself during this period as an “uninspired
>> and uninspiring teacher.”
>> She moved to New York and earned her master’s of science degree in
>> education from Hofstra University on Long Island in 1965 and taught at the
>> Great Neck public schools, also on Long Island, until 1971.
>> She then moved back to Chicago, where she spent the rest of her teaching
>> career at the Lab Schools. There she felt free to experiment. When the
>> school day was extended from a half day to a full day, she decided to fill
>> it with storytelling and acting.
>>
>> “She helped children use the tools they have, which are imagination,
>> sympathy and make-believe, to understand themselves and each other,” said
>> Dr. Joshua D. Sparrow, executive director of the Brazelton Touchpoints
>> Center <https://www.brazeltontouchpoints.org/about/> in Boston, which
>> studies child development.
>> Gillian D. McNamee, a protégé of Ms. Paley’s at Lab and now director of
>> teacher education at the Erikson Institute <https://www.erikson.edu/> in
>> Chicago, said that after Ms. Paley would ask children what story they
>> wanted to tell, she would connect it to other stories or to a book or
>> something that happened in class.
>> “Vivian gave us a blueprint for teaching children how to think,” Ms.
>> McNamee said.
>> Ms. Paley retired from Lab in 1995 but continued to lecture and hold
>> workshops around the world until a few years ago.
>> Storytelling, she wrote in a 2001 essay, “is still the only activity I
>> know of, besides play itself, that is immediately understood and desired by
>> every child over the age of two.”
>>
>>
>> --
>>  fiction is but a form of symbolic action, a mere game of “as if”,
>> therein lies its true   function and its potential for effecting change -
>> R. Ellison
>> ---------------------------------------------------
>> For archival resources relevant to the research of myself and other
>> members of LCHC, visit
>> lchc.ucsd.edu.  For a narrative history of the research of LCHC, visit
>> lchcautobio.ucsd.edu.
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Robert Lake  Ed.D.
> Professor of Social Foundations of Education
> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
> Georgia Southern University
> P. O. Box 8144, Statesboro, GA  30460
>
>

-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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