Fairy-tale and role behavior of children

We already know about the possible use of a fairy tale in the course of shaping the role behavior of a child in the game. We turned to one aspect of the fairytale story - the successive interaction of the hero of the fairy tale with other characters, which is very convenient for showing the child a change of role in the game. Now let us consider the patterns of the unfolding of the fairy tale plot as a whole.

In general, our appeal to the fairy tale is not accidental. Many psychologists and teachers pointed to the proximity of fairy tales and games. The Soviet psychologist AV Zaporozhets wrote that the child's activity according to the perception of the fairy tale "is very close to the game in its psychological nature. But if in the game the child really acts in imaginary circumstances, then here both actions and circumstances are imaginary. "

The fairy tale and its refraction in the activities of children, even simple retelling, playing, has a great influence on the cognitive and moral development of the child. The image and brightness of fairy-tale characters, the personification of good and evil in them, contribute to the development of the child's inner assistance, empathy for the heroes, in whom certain moral qualities of a person are embodied.

A group of American researchers specifically tested how the cognitive development of a child affects a joint game with an adult in fairy-tale and ordinary everyday subjects. It turned out that playing fairy tales provides great shifts in the development of children's thinking. Researchers attribute this to the account of greater clarity and structured fairytale plot, compared with subjects on everyday topics.

What are the features of fairytale plots?

It turns out that folk fairy tales, despite their thematic diversity, have a homogeneous structure. A detailed description of the plot scheme of the fairy tale can be found in the book of the Soviet literary critic V. Ya. Propp "Morphology of the Tale" or in the remarkable book by D. Rodari "The Grammar of Fantasy".Here we will simplify it a bit, and then any fairy tale will appear before us as a sequence of the following events or semantic pieces:

1. Fixing the initial shortage( shortage of some object, violation of the ban, as a result of which some character was lost, kidnapped)unfulfilled desire;sending( or self-care) of the hero for the missing object.

2. The meeting of the hero with the donor of the magic means;preliminary test of the hero( on strength, dexterity, kindness, ingenuity, etc.).

3. Getting a magical potion from a donor;overcoming with his help obstacles on the way to the missing object.

4. Meeting the hero with the antagonist( the owner of the missing object);the main test of the hero( struggle with the antagonist).

5. Victory of the hero and getting him the desired object.

6. Return of the hero and receiving them rewards.

If you revive the well-known fairy tales in your memory, you will see that they are built according to this scheme, although there may be minor variations of it - doubling, tripling some semantic blocks( for example, a hero can consistently receive several magical helper tools,as in the tale "The Frog Princess").In some tales, the hero, with the help of a magical means, solves not one but a whole series of tasks( as in the tale "By the Pike's Command").But on the whole this composition is preserved, any fairy tale is a variant of the main scheme.

If you substitute specific characters in this scheme and describe their specific actions, you will get a new fairy tale you invented. Here is how V.Ya. Propp writes about this: "You can create new stories yourself in unlimited quantity, and all these stories will reflect the main scheme, and they themselves may be different from each other. .. If you then distribute the functions of characters from the fairystock or according to one's own taste, then the schemes come to life, they become fairy tales. "

By the way, I must say that the main blocks of the fairy-tale scheme are associated with the main characters of the fairy tale, which usually is no more than 6-7( this is the hero, the sought-for character, the sender, donor, assistant, antagonist).There are traditional types of characters. For example, in a Russian folk tale, the Tsar is a typical sender, Ivan Tsarevich or Ivanushka the Fool - a typical hero, a serpent is a typical antagonist, a Baba Yaga is a giver, the Gray Wolf is a magical assistant. Each semantic block of the tale is associated with the appearance of a new character.

So, the basic scheme of a fairy tale sets a sequence of 6-7 story events. More for the child and yet do not need.

Adult, playing with the child in the notion, can refer to this scheme and be guided by it, offering the child the samples of transformation, changes( at first - insignificant) of each semantic piece of the famous fairy tale. Knowledge of the fairy tale scheme facilitates the role of an adult in such a game. After all, not every adult can easily improvise, invent an interesting story, captivating the child and himself.

Let's give a schematic example of an existing fairy tale and a possible version of its transformation, so that the adult's task becomes clearer.

The Tale "Ivan Tsarevich	Possible variant
and Gray Wolf"	transformation
The king wants to get the firebird	The king lives in a hot country and
and sends Ivan Tsarevich	never saw the New Year's
behind it.	Christmas trees( any other
is hard to reach).
He sends for her the prince
( servant, Emelya, any other
character, in the perception of the child
positively stained).
Ivan Tsarevich greets Gray	The prince goes on the road,
but does not know where to find the Christmas tree.
Wolf, who turns out to be	He meets old man
magical assistant.	for
( babu-yaga, fairy, any
in distressed animal),
helps him and gets the magic tool
( glomerulus,
carpet-plane, boots-speeders,
and compass if the child
already knows thatit is).

Ivan Tsarevich with the help of	The Tsarevich with the help of the magical
Gray Wolf finds the heat-	means gets to the northern
bird.	is the country where Christmas trees are growing. He
defeats the evil wizard,
Ivan Tsarevich mines the firebird,	guarding the most beautiful
defeating the antagonistic kings.	of them( it is not excluded that he,
	as in the canonical tale,
does this in several stages).
Ivan Tsarevich takes the heat-	Tsarevich takes the tree and carts
to the bird and returns home	rotates with her home, where she receives
( the reward is	, the
reward, the extracted bride).	( everything that can attract -
a hundred poods of ice cream, a knapsack to the
school, a real car, etc.).
Further vicissitudes with the	brothers It is possible that the prince by
- multiplication of the semantic	is a new task.
blocks, so they can be neglected by the
.

By the way, we did not come up with this option ourselves, it arose on the basis of our joint game with children.

The changes introduced by adults into the famous fairy tale are a model for the child, activate his imagination, and the plot scheme allows him to direct him to a more rigorous channel, sets the semantic supports, gives the child's fantasy greater logic, coherence.

It is important to note two points. Firstly, in no case can you explain this scheme to a child in advance and require him to come up with a scheme. In this case, the game will turn into a learning task, lose the character of free and optional activity. Mechanical work to fill the circuit - this is not a game. In addition, the moment of waiting for the unknown( what will happen next) is removed, which is one of the most attractive aspects of a joint game in the notion.

It's another matter that the child already knows many fairy tales and he has intuitive ideas about how it happens in a fairy tale, and as the game progresses these representations become clearer.

Secondly, we must bear in mind that, since it is a question of joint inventing, an adult should be guided by the general plot scheme. Even if an adult prepares a specific variant of the transformation of a fairy tale in advance, he can not and should not be realized in a joint activity, because during the development the child will develop the plot in his own way. The fairy tale invented by a friend is always different from the intention of each partner.

Let the reader not be embarrassed that we suggest that he, together with the child, transform the fairy tale. On this score, we give D. Rodari's reasoning from his "Grammar of Fantasy": "Children with respect to fairy tales remain conservatives for a long time. They want the fairy tale to be told the same words as the first time, they are pleased to learn these words, to learn in the original sequence, to feel the excitement again, as in the first meeting with them, in the same order: surprise, fear, reward.

Children need order and calm, the world should not get off the rails too often, to which the child paints it with such difficulty.

Therefore, it is quite possible that at first the game of "misinterpretation" of fairy tales will irritate, excite. To the appearance of the wolf the kid is prepared, the appearance of the unfamiliar character is alarming: it is not known who he is, a friend or a foe.

But there comes a time when Little Red Riding Hood has nothing more to say to him: a child can part with it. As with an old toy, from a long use that has become unusable. Then he agrees that the fairy tale should turn into a parody, partly because the parody authorizes parting, but also because the new angle of interest renews interest in the fairy tale itself.

Repositioned to other rails, the familiar fairy tale makes the child relive it again. Children are now playing not so much with Little Red Riding Hood as they are with themselves;fearlessly allow themselves liberties, risk taking responsibility for all that can happen. ..

In some cases, this game will have a healing effect. It will help the child to get rid of other obsessions: he will teach not to be afraid of the wolf, will present in a less vile light of the devil and in a ridiculous way a witch, will establish a clearer line between the real world, where the known liberties are inadmissible, and the world of fiction. It's bound to happen sooner or later: of course, not before the wolf, the devil and the witch fulfill their traditional mission, but, of course, it's not too late. "

The senior preschooler is already easily accepting the alteration of a familiar fairy tale. But I must say that by changing specific characters, the ways of their actions, he seeks to preserve the moral meaning of the tale. This is well formulated by a 6-year-old boy when we played with children in the "notion" and one of the participants suggested ending the tale with the victory of the evil Koshchei over the eye hero."No," he said, "you can not. In a fairy tale good always win evil. "