WEEK 36 - Ainhoa Merino

Speaking about myths...

What are myths? Are myths true? Why do we have myths?

A myth is a story, and it's meaning or purpose is not contingent of being true or false. Myths make sense even if their origin is lost. Myths can be transmited orally, through text or other forms of material artefacts, or through movies etc.

BUT (necessary pause), the BIG question is, are myths necessary in education?

Myths have an incalculable historical and etiological value in our society. Not only because of its literary interest, but also because of how such ancient stories have been adapted and evolved to reach us in different ways: books, series, movies, art... Sometimes, they have the same meaning as they used to have in their origin, and many times, at the same time that society evolves, the history or the perspective from which the myth is understood in particular, evolves at the same time, changing therefore, its meaning.

That is why thanks to these ancient stories we can learn lot of values. Many of these values are essential to educate children in early childhood education. It is therefore necessary that children become familiar with these stories, that they empathize and feel the characters as real, and that they reflect on their thoughts, feelings and emotions.

In conclusion, I would like to say that it is possible to transmit some basic values to children in early childhood education and do it through the myth and fairytales, and in this way, children will gradually discover some basics of the world around them.

Besides this, I had a doubt during the trip, when our group and I decided to tell our fairytale in two languages: Was it a great idea? or on the contrary, was it a terrible one?

This past year, at my home university, I have been lucky enough to talk a lot about the interculturality of our society today and how to deal with it. So I would like to talk about it.

In the future we must be LAP teachers, that is, Linguistically and culturally Appropriate Teachers. And how are we going to do this if we don't give equal importance to the various languages and cultures we have in our classrooms? By this I don't mean that we have to tell all the stories in all the languages present in our classroom, since that would be impossible; but, I think it can be a great idea to do it from time to time and changing the language so that the children understand and realize the reality around them: there are a thousand languages and a thousand cultures around them, and theirs is not the absolute truth. Today we need LAP to promote language inclusion, acceptance and growth; to open the classroom to all languages; to build partnerships with families and work as a community; to promote multilingualism and multy-literacy; to build links between home and classroom… (Chumak-Horbatsch, 2012). As a result, we will be able to create an inclusive and safe environment for all, and to ensure the well-being and healthy development of all children.