posted on 08 Nov 2016

Michael Rosen at ‘The Fantastic Mr Fiction’ conference

It was something of a coup to get Michael Rosen to be the end keynote speaker at a conference at Cardiff Metropolitan University dedicated to celebrating the centenary of Roald Dahl. Most of the delegates were PGCE students who had spent the rest of the day doing workshops relating to creativity, emotional resilience, film, interpretation and other subjects, all with some loose connection to the theme of the conference.

Rosen wrote a very good book for children all about Roald Dahl a while ago and is clearly a big fan of his writing. His appearance was the highlight of the conference as he is a huge literary celebrity to capture and he was received with due ceremony. I have seen him speak at several other events and he is always relaxed, charming and entertaining in equal measure. As well as being a charismatic speaker he is a prolific writer of a wealth of classic fictional and poetry books for children of all ages, a children's literature academic and a politically active campaigner for free education, saving libraries, child centred education and much more. He writes regularly on such subjects in The Guardian. He also has a background in sociolinguistics and presents the fascinating radio programme ' Word of Mouth'.

His introduction was to emphasise that the students needed to share books with children and that this was the only way to enthuse them with a love of reading and to stimulate curiosity. He reminded them about the importance of libraries and providing a range of exciting books in the classroom as well as time and space to look at them. These are familiar messages for those of us that have a similar passion for books and it makes me feel quite sad that trainee teachers need to be told what seems to be so obvious – but it seems that they do.

He explained that Roald Dahl is a master storyteller but someone has to trigger the initial interest for children, to know the books inside out and to be teachers who can create situations to make his books enticing.

He assumed that a lot of the audience remembered reading or listening to the books when they were children which gave them an advantage. Perhaps they could remember what made them special and why they had enjoyed them? Like me, he is approaching them as an adult reader and his deep affection for the stories is associated with reading them to his own children.

He shared his own childhood affection for the book Emil and the Detectives which his teacher read to his class at the end of every day. He remembered the visceral excitement of waiting for story reading each day and the drama of the teacher  snapping the book shut loudly with the promise of more the next day. Not so long ago the emphasis in teaching was on developing a love of literature rather than just developing literacy, again all the older members of the audience , myself included, were nodding wildly in support. He gave this as an example of how a lively interpretative space with time for open ended discussion was created by the teacher in the classroom. This allowed the children to develop confidence in talking about books, expressing opinions and thereby validating their views about books. He appealed to his audience of potential teachers  to make sure that they do the same because increasingly they are encouraged to focus on narrow questions of retrieval and inference that can be easily measured as proof that the children have understood the meaning of the story. This is not good and is likely to switch children off from enjoying books.

He paid homage to the special skill of Dahl in creating books that could be enjoyed by adults as well. His child protagonists are all fully rounded people who are hopeful despite difficulties and are able to make choices, unlike in the real world where they are increasingly targeted as consumers and encouraged to be individualistic and competitive.

He then reflected on six clues in Dahl’s younger life that helped to shape him into such an effective storyteller. He reminded us that his father had died when he was only three years old and that stories had played a huge role in his life perhaps because of this.

 

1.      The myths, legends and folk tales of Norway orally shared with his mother and sisters represented a psychic reality where he could explore real feelings through the lens of a story

2.      He was bilingual and so knew that there are many ways to say things and this encourages experimentation with words and structures.

3.      His mother was his prime carer and they were very close, but she sent him to boarding school where he experienced the opposite of love and comfort. He plays with these opposites in his stories. His personal experiences helped him to successfully tune in to how children needed these fears expressed within the safe space of a book.

4.      His experience of being a pilot in the war and later his experience in America as a spy both helped to develop qualities of confidence and entitlement, which all authors have to some degree because they need to believe that they deserve to be read.

5.      He honed the skills of being a lone observer throughout his life which helped him to draw such wonderful characters

6.      He was always a rule breaker, for instance he bought a motorbike when he was at boarding school and drove through the village at weekends wearing a disguise. 

He finished by answering a few questions from the audience but the best one was to ask him to read his poem ‘ Bear Grylls’ aloud which he did magnificently. I really do hope that the students think about what he said and resolve to be the kind of teachers who love books and communicate this to their pupils.

 

Karen Argent

November 2016