Simon Brooks - The State of Mind

Today's blog is for performers, teachers, librarians, and parents about a situation we all should know about and be prepared to handle.  

Fellow storyteller out in the New England area, Simon Brooks, has expanded an article I saw initially on Storytell (email list for storytellers).  I said I planned to share it with fellow performers for Michigan Arts Access which brings the arts to people of all ages with disabilities as I knew we would soon be gathering to prepare for returning to classrooms that were affected by the pandemic.  Even beyond that I see a far wider need and asked him if he would let me reprint it here.  We also talked about how it related to an earlier blog article, from April Fools Day! of this year, that he wrote and it seemed to contradict it a bit.  The result has graciously been given for me to show here.  Simon even says it's a ten minute read.  They will be well spent!

June 23, 2022

The State of Mind

News, Stories, Schools

This is a ten minute read about what I am seeing going back in-person, into schools and other community events.

Back in April 2022, as you may or may not have read, I had what I felt was my first real gig back in-person for a long time. It was certainly the first time since March 2020 where I was not 20 feet from the first row. It was certainly the first time since March 2020 where most folks were maskless and I was not wearing a mask, or a face shield. It was the first time I had had three large presentations to different groups of kids since the pandemic began. There was this wonderful, euphoric feeling of togetherness. It felt like a normal presentation – well three! The kids had been prepped on behaviour, there was some silliness, as it was the first event at the school with “an outsider” since March 2020, and it all felt wonderful and thrilling!

Since then, I have done a number of other first events as a visiting guest. Some have gone really well, others have been a little challenging. I am writing this because there are some folks, some performers out there who have not physically visited, in-person, a venue since March 2020, and things, I believe, have changed since then.

The amount of time people have been actively engaged in technology since the pandemic began – screen time, the amount of time people have been distracted by virtual meetings and calls, children who need help, and not being able to go outside and play to a large degree, has been huge, and at the end of the day many of us just vegged in front of a box or device. This has had a severe effect on not just kids, but everyone. I think we need to participate in a lot less digital engagement. AND I THINK WE NEED TO ADDRESS THIS WITH PARENTS AND CARE GIVERS WHEN WE HAVE ACCESS TO THEM! We need to take time out for ourselves as humans, to disengage from digital content and seriously get back to analogue.

I am not a Luddite! I am NOT calling for people to throw out their devices, or run into schools and businesses and destroy computers and the like! I am suggesting that we step away from them for a while, go on a digital vacation, to some degree! Put devices in a time-out box!

I have been in schools on and off since the pandemic began, and since the beginning of 2022, have been regularly back in, in-person and I am seeing a difference in child behavior. This is at the elementary level, and middle school level. I am also seeing this with my own high school aged daughter and her friends - she is 17 and will start her final year of high school at the end of the summer. When I originally posted this as a letter to listservs I am on, I have heard back from others, including Milbre Burch who said: “I’ve seen what you describe from first graders to Masters students.”

I have presented Gilgamesh to sixth graders at a local school many times prior to 2019. The kids were spellbound by the story (and hopefully the telling). I presented it (at the same school) virtually, via streaming media during COVID. Because it was streamed, I have no real idea of how students were engaged those two years.

This April of 2022, I took Gilgamesh back to the school, in-person, in front of 6th graders. Same school with the same teachers, although in a different space. The reception was totally different. Lack of focus, getting up, whispering to friends next to each other were all happening which never happened in 2019 and the years prior to that. I had worked on Gilgamesh, probably more this year than in the past, and put a lot more work into being as engaging as possible, both with physicality and with word choices. And dramatic action! What I found was that the 'same' 6th grade students were behaving like 4th graders.

This is not my only experience this year. I have been into a number of schools, and performed at community events and found, to more or less a similar extent, children, students especially in elementary and middle school, have little attention span at all. I put a lot of this down to being remote for two years; having parents working from home, trying to work and engage the kids, and help them where possible. I imagine there was a lot of  - go play on your device, go watch a movie. Being stuck indoors for much of the first year, there was little play, little reading, just a lot of screen time. Habit forming, addictive screen time.

 By doing what we do, analogue storytelling in front of warm bodies, we need to start with shorter stories, build up to longer ones, get the span of attention longer, larger, more resilient. The attention muscle has atrophied! It needs retraining. I believe we need to tell folks to read to their kids more often. Start with short stories, get into longer ones, combine stories. Heck, read them anything they will listen to. Discuss things with them. Get magazines like the Smithsonian or National Geographic and find articles to engage the kids, Mountain Bike Action magazine - anything! I think we need to be like that - try on multiple different fronts to engage young people, and retrain adults, quite possibly, based on a recent experience!

 As storytellers, I feel this year, we need to be far more "accepting", maybe tolerant, way more patient with young people. It's Not Their Fault. We will, in my experience thus far, need to take more deep breaths, show patience, and try to work to gather them into the stories we tell, like a blanket on a cold day. From what I have seen this might be tough, and also not needed everywhere. We do need to be the fireplace where young people can gaze and lose themselves to their imaginations (which are being stripped from them by technology). They need to learn (for the little ones) or relearn (for the older ones) that the imagination is a wonderful (and much needed) tool and place. We need parents to realize that reading to kids, telling them stories, is so, so important right now. The tv and devices need to be Put Away. A return to analogue. And when we face children, young people this summer at libraries and camps, etc., we need to give them space and be tolerant of their behaviour, and guide them back gently.

Karen Chace on a 12-week class she led this year (and has led in the past many times): “Was every student difficult? No, but the vast majority had trouble listening, attending to their work, many were even disruptive during the interactive games, and practice time outside of class was fairly non-existent.”

And I have also experienced some wonderful interactions with students. In fact, last week I did three presentations at a large school (5 – 6 year-olds, 7 – 8 year-olds, and the last group 9–10 year-olds). The smallest group I had had around 65 kids in it, the others much larger. With each group I set expectations. The first two groups were amazing – wonderful, we had a lot of fun. The 4th and 5th graders (9 - 10 year-olds) were challenged in their ability to concentrate or sit still, or even listen. At one point in a story Goldilocks ran into the bedroom, landed on a really hard bed and cried out: “Crud! That really hurt!” Some of the kids, I think mis-hearing my British voice, told me I couldn’t use that word. So I said, Goldilocks ran into the room, and landed on the really hard bed crying out: “Bother!” Again, the kids called out, “You can’t say that!” So, I did the same thing again and again substituting the ‘bad’ word until I was using words like ‘shoe,’ ‘saucepans,’ and ‘fish hook’ until we agreed on: ‘Oh, oops-ee-daisy!’ and moved on. This took up about four minutes of the story as the kids cried out and then settled down before starting over again. This I would expect from 2nd graders, not from too-cool-for-cucumbers 4th and 5th grade students. And it was fine. I tried other things in another story when one of the characters was granted a wish. I asked the kids (by raising their hands) what they might wish for. I used every trick in the book to engage on a more personal level and used some tricks that came to me, spur of the moment! They settled in, but it took time.

Like Karen, I had to have a serious talk with one of the kids (Karen had three and she eventually called the parents during her 12-week program). I rarely do this, and hate having to do this, but sometimes it is needed. Again, I don’t believe it’s the fault of the child.

 This brings me to another point! At another gig with very little, delightful pre-school kids with wonderful parents and staff, I had some issues. It was a special event and held outdoors. It was hot and sunny, and I was placed in a pavilion, and invited kids and parents into the shade with me throughout my set. Some of the kids later joined me, but it got a little wild. Some kids walked about the space, some came and sat next to my feet, and one little girl for a while stood between my feet and rested her elbows on my knees and rested her chin in her hands as I told a story. Engaging the other children, and the parents continued, and after the story some of the kids went back to their parents. Some kids were whispered to, others were not. Those who were not whispered to came back and goofed about a bit on the pavilion platform.

 When I finished and was packing up, a mother came over with her daughter. I thought we were going to have a nice little chat about stories, and by the look on the girl’s face, she though the same thing, but the mother then told her daughter to apologize to me for mis-behaving. This was a parent who had said nothing to their child during the performance, in fact I wasn’t sure if she was the mother until that moment. The look in the girl’s eyes changed and I thought she was going to cry. I felt pretty annoyed myself. The parent had done nothing to educate her daughter, and her girl was just being a little preschooler – being who she was supposed to be. I felt the parent was the one who should have been apologizing. I said pretty much, just that – the girl was being a little kid, that’s all. No harm done. And that kids need good role models, they need guidance as to how to behave, especially when it might be their first sort of experience like this. I gave lots of smiles to both of them and hope the point was made.

 Parents might need reminding that we, the performers, are not their children’s care providers. That care providers need to keep a check on their wee ones, that their wee ones might not know how to behave, but they, as parents, should be able to remember! I try to make light of a lot of this sort of thing and chalk it up to experience, and learn from it. We might have to tell parents that more than ever their children need active attention from them.

The kids have been through a lot, and I am sure many of these children have not escaped seeing or hearing about the horrific news about shootings. They are daily. Some are worse than others. There is so much division in the country, I am sure children feel that anxiety coming off parents and other adults around them. Kids sense a lot. We have to cut slack, as I said, breathe deeper, be more forgiving and supportive.

Again, from Karen Chace: “The principal was very aware of the problems and agreed the vast majority of students at the school were affected by the lack of social contact during the pandemic.” They are craving for contact, for attention. And it’s not all bad out there, as I said. We just need to be aware of the audience’s needs, and limitations. It is a changed world. As Fran Stallings wrote about her first time out in-person with children (K-2): “…they were great. Nobody moved, except with my gestures. Whew!! Teachers were dumbfounded. I credited the stories (with active participation tapping off excess energy). I’m glad we all survived together! Summer reading programs, with a wide range of ages and distractions, are a different challenge!”

And I Know we will rise to it. Milbre Burch again: “There’s a lot of work ahead, not all of it the kind you get paid for. Let’s all hold hands and jump!” Welcome to the new times ahead. Have fun out there and Love Your Audience.

Peace,

Simon

Odds Bodkin, Karen Pillsworth, and myself in the before time!

Jacobs - The Hobyahs - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I've a large repertoire of scary stories because I enjoy them and have had years to tell them, but today's story has always been too creepy for me to tell.  I consider Papa Joe Gaudet both a friend and mentor, so I wasn't surprised to see a video where he did a great storytelling, but it was this story.  Still definitely creepy and I'll show it after the story in print.  I'll also include its Australian connection even though Joseph Jacobs put it in his anthology, More English Fairy Tales.  I then will give a variety of responses and ways of handling it.  The story has had many people adapt it and I'll discuss that, too, but first ... The Hobyahs.

Here's Papa Joe's telling with fellow storyteller, Simon Brooks, playing on the bodhran.

Simon also did a second version of the story where there is only the audio and a picture of the two of them.  On that second video Simon says:

This is a recording for ADULTS. This is NOT something you would play to young children. Papa Joe Gaudet wanted to record a story with drums, and asked me to work with him on the old tale called The Hobyahs. Papa Joe did the lion's share with the story, with minor suggestions and edits from myself. I play a Alfonso daBlonde bodhran, and join in with my voice in places. We recorded it on a handheld Zoom voice recorder in my front room, and frightened my dog Moe in the telling. Enjoy it - if you can!

Jacobs grew up in Australia and posted the story first in the Journal of American Folklore, citing as his source a Mr. S.V. Proudfit of Perth.  The muddying of things start because Jacobs omits whether that was Perth, Scotland or Perth, Australia.  There's additional reason to think it's Australia from colonial days because Aussie storytellers point to a version found in the Victorian Readers, a series of school readers produced between 1927 and 1930 for school children in the state of Victoria and used (with revisions) until the 1950s.

Two Aussie storytelling friends who are also writers, Ellen Frances Burdett and June Barnes-Rowley, long ago began to make me wonder about how the story could appear in a school reader.  (I learned in researching this it was the Second Reader and was the curriculum for seven year olds!) Ellen sent me scans of that version of the story.  One page is a bit blurry, but I think it's still clear enough to follow.

I mentioned June Barnes-Rowley, who nowadays is a novelist in addition to her storytelling, but I remember her founding Swag of Yarns (I bought many issues of it years ago), Australia's National Storytelling Magazine.  In the spring of 1999, June published an Australian version, explaining the dog is named Dingo, but it barks while actual dingoes howl.  Here's June telling her version of The Hobyahs and it's definitely set in Australia.

If you notice, the Victorian Reader and June's version leave out the little girl and also has the dog put back together.  This interests me because of what I read in Michelle De Stefani, Ph.D.'s paper on "Taming the Hobyahs" (written for Monash University, in Victoria's major city of Melbourne).  She mentions its roots include a cautionary element in colonial tales of errant children or lost babes in the bush:

children who become, through the process of storytelling, didactic exemplars of the danger and precariousnessof growing up and living in the wilds of a ‘savage’ island outpost. Among the host ofmythical creatures the child could encounter within the hostile landscape of theAustralian bush, none could be more terrifying than a horde of Hobyahs. To appreciatethe true terror of Hobyahs – as well as their close ties to Australian childhood and to fairy-tale traditions – one must acknowledge their history in print as well as their adaptations and re-visions in the twentieth century.

There's more in her paper, which progresses all the way through to an Australian film, Celia, which could be called a modern version of the story.  Her paper's quite interesting, tracking the tale from its "ori-genesis", but it doesn't take us to the telling or revision of this story.

Here in the U.S. Marilyn Kinsella posted the way she tells the story.  She makes them sound slightly humorous looking, but she reminds us:

Now, there are two things you need to know about the Hobyahs. Thing number one: Hobyahs hate the light. Thing number two: Hobyahs can't stand dogs! You remember that.

After that she involves the audience, getting them to join in on the Hobyah's chant.  She does include the little girl, but doesn't get the dog put back together, using essentially the version Jacobs wrote.  At the end she concludes with something all versions seem to point out "That's why to this day, you never see nor hear about those Hobyahs...unless, of course, you listen to this story."

Thinking about whether or not the girl is in the story -- she's omitted from the Victorian Reader -- is important.  Omitting her lets young listeners avoid identifying with the old woman and the old man.

I began looking on the internet to find even more and found Barbara Ruth Brown Paciotti's blog, where she says she first heard the story when she was "very, very young" from her grandmother and used to beg to hear it repeatedly.  As an adult she compared her version and how it differed from what was surely Jacobs.  The dog's tail makes a "wiggle-waggle" whenever it's mentioned; the feet similarly "pitter-patter", and Turpie "bark, bark, barks."  There's no little girl and the old man puts the dog back together.  It's interesting how her gentle version has the dog merely chasing the Hobyahs away, concluding "but the Hobyahs were too afraid of little dog Turpie and they never came out of the forest again, so the little old man and the little old woman and little dog Turpie lived happily ever after."

Another version, in Public Domain, is very similar to the Victorian Reader, from Fanny E. Coe's The Book of Stories for the Storyteller the tale is re-told by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, who certainly knew how to tell to young audiences.  It contains the note that "This story is suitable for children age 6 to 8 approx."  No girl, Turpie is put back together by the old man to rescue the old woman, and concludes "And that is why there are not any Hobyahs now."

Leila Berg has a book called Little Dog Turpie with humorous illustrations by George Him.  A blog called What's the Story, Morning Glory, with permission from the author and artist, shows those copyrighted illustrations and Berg says, "It was George's idea to make Dog Turpie into a toy-type figure, so that his different pieces didn't have to be brutally chopped off, but were just taken apart." Again it also omits the girl and concludes with "And that's why there are no Hobyahs today, not one."

Several wrote about how hearing the story as a child "seriously creeped them out", giving years of nightmares. 

• Back in Australia, Inga Clendinnen writes in The Age newspaper her own looking again at that Victorian Reader doubting the Gemanic roots someone told her the story had and putting down the way the Old Man "remained cosily hidden while the house-pulling-down and the kidnapping were going on, repented his earlier actions and reassembled the little dog, having frugally kept the bits", and how the Old Woman and the dog return to him.  Her most important doubt, however, is "But we didn't and we don't believe it. There were too many hobyahs. How could one little dog possibly eat them all up? At best he might have bitten one or two and then made a run for it. So they must be still out there in the bush."  She goes on to say "You don't believe me? Try whispering "Hobyahs!" to anyone over 40 when you're out in the bush, when the dusk comes creeping from the gullies, between the grey gums. Then watch them run."
• Engrams in the Cloud says "When I was very young my mother would read stories to us, some of which caused me and my younger brother to have nightmares. The story of the Hobyahs was one such story." (Lois: The dog is put back together and there's no little girl.)
• Eliza Leigh warns, before giving the Jacobs version from The Junior Classics set,
  

  Seriously. This gave me the heebie jeebies for years.
  **WARNING** Visciousness to poor dog Turpie and mean-a** farmer within. Actually, it never says he’s a farmer, I’m just assuming, it just says old man. Wonder where they got a little girl. . . 

A mixture of positive and negative reactions I enjoyed came from a children's librarian, Eva M., tells in her Book Addiction blog about an aggravating neighbor dog named Teddy who reminded her enough of Turpie that she confessed:

  "That little dog Teddy barks so that I can neither sleep nor slumber, and if I live 'til morning, I'm going to cut off little dog Teddy's head."

This despite the fact that 1. I consider myself an animal fan, being the proud companion of a passel of hens and a tangle of rats and one scrofulous hamster 2. it's not Teddy but his human who deserves my ire and 3. little dog Turpie remains a shining example of selfless, courageous heroism to me.

She goes on, however to tell of how she "once saved Teddy's life sort of/maybe" (LoiS: read it!) and, when her husband asked why she saved him, she replied:

"Well, think what might get us if it weren't for Teddy, " I answer. "The Hobyahs might be out there right now, waiting to tear down our hemp stalks."

But I still can't help sympathizing with the old man, just the tiniest little bit.

After Eva's own post there are some comments including an Australian who remembers back to 1947 and how it made an impression on a 7 year old.  (Lois: bold type and underlining is mine.) and this final comment from a Czech storyteller and her own reaction to telling it.

 I watched the movie Celia long, long ago and recently I thought about a story to "make mood" before summer camp night game, so I tried to find anything about that children's story. Searching was little hard, because I haven't remember neither the name of the movie, neither the name of the story, just bits, so I searched for hobiahs, hobias, hobiars etc. before I somehow found it.
I read some versions, most of them (as you say) bowdlerized (I had to find out what that term means) and found the original one absolutely fit to the purpose.
Some children were so scared, but they all enjoed the story and made me read it once more! And they don't even know english well, the story is not translated into Czech. Nice to see thirteen years old macho, who during the day have only contemption for everything, eyes full of primal fear of creep creep creeping in the night!
I tried to find something more about how the hobyahs look like before I found out that everyone has his/her own hobyahs, that imagination makes them so creepy...
While searching for it, I found this page and it makes me really happy, your story is so heart-warming :) Yeah, everyone has some Teddy the dog, that one wants to be silent and is willing to "cut his head off", but when tough time comes, is nice that your humanity prevails.
You made my day better, thank you!
Z. Švajda, Czech Republic.

O.k., if you're considering telling it, I found June Rowley has a blog, Oral Storytelling, and she gives this:

Note to storytellers: Don’t make the mistake of portraying the hobyahs as loud and fierce during the refrain; Hobyah. Hobyah. Hobyah. Pull down the hut, eat up the little old man, and carry off the little old woman.
The hobyahs are planning an ambush and their intended victims are sleeping. Sombre and sinister (or ‘sepulchral monotone’ as S. V. Proudfit puts it) is appropriate here rather than loud and fierce.
The moment for the hobyahs to be loud and fierce is when they are trying to intimidate the woman in the bag – at this point they are in a heightened state, excited about the victory of capture and anticipating the meal ahead.

Point taken.  You will notice it followed both in her own video and that by Papa Joe.

So where does this leave me?  Hmmm.  Maybe it's worth looking at one more version.  Robert San Soucie, who is no stranger to spooky storytelling having produced many anthologies of such stories, dared to do a picture book version.  I must admit I loved his additional poetic comments that appear on clouds facing the main part of the story.  He definitely has the little girl.  What I found most interesting was my reaction to the Old Man and Old Woman, who raise the orphan girl, have five dogs.  One by one each dog, Turpie, Topie, Tippy, Tarry, and Teeny, are beaten and chased off into the woods for sounding the alarm.  The elderly couple are eaten for their failure to listen to their dogs, while the girl is carried off and cries in the bag.  It makes perfect sense the dogs, who were chased into the same woods, hear and rescue her.  (Lois: Wonder what the Australian newspaper writer would think of five dogs finishing off all the Hobyahs?)  The happy ending with the little girl and the dogs is appropriate to the picture book audience level.

O.k. I find myself, as always, thinking about my audience.  San Soucie has revealed to me how I personally am very uncomfortable with dismembering the dog.  One version made a point of saying it uses magic to put the dog together because it was available then.  Doesn't matter to me.  Unless I want to really be creepy, the idea of multiple dogs works for me and I also believe the distance in the story by eliminating a child works against the very thing storytelling does best -- identify with the main character and form a picture in your mind (movies miss that by substituting a picture).  When would I want to be "really creepy" and give the Jacobs version?  That comment from the Czech Republic says there are indeed audiences needing it, those adolescent listeners with a "Can't scare me!" attitude deserve the story to have "primal fear of creep creep creeping in the night!"

Today's posting of multiple versions and reactions and considering how it might be told has gone on long enough.  I'm omitting the usual "fine print" listing other places to find stories.  It usually is attached to my Keeping the Public in Public Domain segments.  If you want to find more, I heartily recommend my colleagues listed there.