Stories in the Classroom: Building Community Using Storytelling and Storyacting

In this article I describe how, over the past school year, I have witnessed a diverse, culturally mixed group of kindergarten children, who were strangers to one another, join hands and voices as they tackled particular challenges together. I attribute this togetherness to our daily experimentation with storytelling and storyacting (Paley, 1981, 1984, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2010). As if pieces in a puzzle, many storytelling and storyacting moments helped the students to cooperatively "click" by enhancing their relationships with one another and strengthening the sense of community in the classroom environment. I see reciprocity in the relationships as the students listen to each other's needs and ideas and, in the process, have their own voices heard. The outcome of this reciprocity has been a noticeable feeling of community and kinship in the classroom arising out of a sense of empathy, understanding, friendship, and acceptance and resulting in greater self-confidence and a sense of security for the children as individual members within the community.