Numbers Petition
Teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
Fran Stallings, a storyteller based in Oklahoma, works on a weekly basis with a local 2nd grade class (7- to 8-year-old children). Their classteacher, Mr C, uses the story she tells as the basis for an amazing amount of his teaching, in particular in the STEM subjects.
Fran has posted some details of this work on the Storytell listserv. She has generously given permission for me to publish some of them here – until such time as she creates pages on her own website.
Below are some of them.
Number Petition
(Japan, pp. 48-61 in How to Fool a Cat)
When drought-stricken farmers couldn’t pay their land tax, they wanted to take a petition to the governor to beg relief. But none of them could read or write! Their village headman was pressed into trying, although he only knew the numerals from 1 to 10. He wrote; they signed with thumbprints.
When they presented this to the governor, the headman “read” it using puns on the names of the numerals to make their case. The bemused governor replied by writing the numerals from 10 to 1, “reading” puns that forgave that year’s tax.
I started with a brief discussion of puns [homophones], vis to-two-too.
As the headman wrote, I put the traditional numerals on the whiteboard. Students excitedly guessed that these were numbers. I wrote the corresponding hindu-arabic numbers next to them, and we spelled out their English names (no way was I going to be able to explain the Japanese puns!!)
Then as the headman “read” his petition, I wrote the associated puns, vis “WONderful kindly Governor, we come TO beg your help.” I did the same with the governor’s reply, vis “I am not a TENderhearted governor, but–.”
Mr C had exposed the students to Roman numerals earlier in the year, so they were not dumbfounded by a non-decimal scheme. I showed how to combine numerals to write teens and multiples of ten (with another story)
We also played with number puns for Valentine’s Day, vis “You are 1derful, I love you 2 much, I fell 4 you.”
(A student told us that 6 is scared because 7 8 9.)
Mr C says that they are busy making Punny Valentines for tomorrow.
Below are some more of Fran’s posts
They are in no particular order, but serve to show what is possible.
Visit Fran’s website
to find more about her wide range of work.
In particular, explore the Earth Teller Tales, where she shares many articles about teaching natural science through storytelling.
Fran’s article The Web of Silence: Storytelling’s Power to Hypnotize is a deep exploration of many aspects of the storytelling experience, including the storytelling trance. It also offers great insight into the whole art itself.
Fran can be contacted here.
Further resources relating to storytelling in schools
- Science teaching: Hawthorn Press
- Generally using storytelling in schools: Storytelling schools
Go here for a list of all tales included on this site
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Permission to tell outlines my views on copyright
For those who are teachers: Telling stories in the classroom: basing language teaching on storytelling