No one is going to disagree that reading to children is essential and important, not to mention fun.
Reading to your children is:
- a strong component of early academic success
- the gateway to employment in the electronic age (using a computer and the internet)
- an open door to any information they may want to discover
- an opportunity to step back in time, travel to any place or visit any person in history.
But why do children need to read fantasy stories?
"Fantasy is the power to create new things from existing things," says Thomas Gruber, author of "How much fantasy does the future need?" It's odd then, that a child with an "over-active" imagination is often perceived as a child who needs to be "brought back down to earth" - to reality. The belief is they are trying to avoid real life, escaping instead to a fantasy world.
Childhood is a special time, a time when anything is possible. To a child, there really might be a man in the moon or a monster under the bed; dragons can take them on a fun-filled ride and one day a friendly bear might be able to help them out of a predicament. Reading fantasy stories allows a child's imagination to stretch and roam without the usual rules and norms, giving them the opportunity to play-act the skills they will need when they become adult thinkers. They must be able to see the future as full of possibility because as adults they will be required to come up with solutions to life's problems, questions and opportunities.
Fantasy should not be seen as the opposite of reality but as an extension of reality. It is fuelled by the imagination. To be able to think your way out of a fixed problem you often need to think outside the box. This means you have to be able to imagine alternatives to the reality of the problem you are facing. Children need their imagination to help them come to terms with and find their way in the world they are born into. Through stories they have a chance to discover who they are, what they believe in, and establish the possibilities of what they want in their future.
As they grow up their free-to-imagine-anything-you-want ways will get hemmed in by rational thinking, tempered by reality and experience but their minds will remember a time when all things were possible. It's those lingering memories that allow us as adults to continue to imagine a world with no hunger, war, pollution or disease.
Fantasy stories not only allow us to imagine other worlds, they let us create those worlds. Every piece of electronic equipment that surrounds me at this moment, the computer I am typing this article on, the DVD recorder that is taping my favourite show, the cell phone, ITouch, laser printer, etc. would have been as "fantastic" and unbelievable to people 50 years ago as Harry Potter or Transformers seem today.
Children are inheriting a world dominated by our advances as well as our problems - problems that we currently don't have solutions for. Children today have to look at the reality of these problems and be able to create new things from the already existing ones - which is the basic principle of fantasy.
I think fantasy is the perfect genre for teaching and entertaining children.
As Mr. Gruber so succinctly states, "If fantasy means an increase in knowledge, if it is the power for adapting traditions to modern standards with an aim to creating new things, then we should foster children's fantasy."
It becomes clear that our future success lies in the hands of our imaginative children.
Resources
International Central Institute for Youth- and Educational Televizion, IZI
Special english Issue No. 16/2003/1: "Childrens' Fantasies and Television" by: Thomas Gruber
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