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INTRODUCTION
Tales are as outdated as language, as outdated because the earliest societies. A couple of of the earliest tales even survive: these informed in pictorial kind on partitions of collapse Lascaux, in France or within the Mpongweni Mountains in Lesotho. And others have come right down to us on the earth’s myths and folklore to which we now have entry on the printed age. Storytelling is older than printing, older than writing, and the primary tales to be set down on paper, papyrus or parchment weren’t the work of these authors however data of the oral traditions of previous centuries. In Sierra Leone as it’s in most African international locations storytelling is an integral a part of the nation’s life though oral traditions have very largely yielded to the written phrase.
We study as we reside whereas we’re kids, younger folks and adults. Studying will not be confined to the classroom alone: it may well happen wherever. Ethical values and social norms, beliefs and codes need to be transmitted from technology to the subsequent, whether or not modified or not. Casual studying settings are related and is likely to be dominant even as we speak when extra formalized and particular establishments have partly taken over.
Whereas Sierra Leoneans guard themselves in opposition to their previous each educationists and librarians see loads in storytelling that may very well be used as basis to orient and develop the younger within the faculty system. There are various indications that an immense richness of conventional pedagogy in respect to the ideas, contents, strategies and institutional preparations existed and nonetheless exist in Sierra Leone. Story tellers, their tales and songs, proverbs and riddles are nonetheless necessary property and topics for indigenous studying and training. Oral traditions don’t solely go the mores and requirements of a society. They got down to clarify the world and behavior of the folks in it. Oral traditions supply accounts of how the world started and these creation myths are half additionally of the Holy Books of all of the world’s long-established religions akin to Christianity and Islam. Additionally defined in allegorical phrases is all human behaviour by which good doesn’t at all times overcome evil.
Tales which don’t rely upon literature in flip don’t rely upon literacy. They’ll attain all the neighborhood and their interactive high quality is itself energy, for it facilitates the capabilities of tales in social instruction, what Leeson (1985) referred to as “passing on the nation’s shared knowledge and values to the subsequent technology.” Sadly there’s a lacking hyperlink in Sierra Leone as faculty going kids are effectively acquainted with the tales of Nice Britain, the US of America, Canada and Italy to quote a number of examples however know little or no about their conventional tales.
STORYTELLING IN SIERRA LEONE
Sierra Leone includes sixteen (16) ethnic teams. The most important of those is the Mende discovered within the Southern and Japanese Provinces. Subsequent to them in quantity is the Temne within the North. The third largest group is the Limba, additionally within the Northern Province, adopted by the Kono within the Japanese Province. There’s additionally the Koranko within the North in addition to the Yalunka, Loko, Soso, Madingo and Fula. On the coast, North and South are the Bullom and Sherbro adopted by the a lot smaller teams of Krim, Vai and Gola, with the Kissi additional inland within the Japanese Province. The Western Space, together with Freetown, is extra combined in inhabitants, however is mainly the house of the Creole group. In all these ethnic teams storytelling is widespread as a part of their tradition.
Ogutu and Roscoe (1974) had this to say about storytelling in Africa: “The continent has its personal fiction traditions; it has the custom of storytelling, narrated orally… the medium via which Africa down the centuries has bared its soul, taught its folks and entertained itself” (pp. 43-44).
Conventional tales in Sierra Leone are perceived as embodiment of the beliefs, customs, rituals and constructions of society that have to be maintained. Tales function inside society to insure conformity to the accepted cultural norms of continuity from technology to technology via their position in training and the extent to which they mirror tradition. Most conventional storytellers declare to derive their artwork via desires, spirits, and apprenticeship to skilled storytellers; others declare to amass the artwork straight from God whereas some say they paid to amass it. Storytellers possess the next options:
• Fluency within the native language and mastery of a variety of vocabulary for all ranges of audiences;
• Creativity and skill to determine rapport with their audiences;
• Information of their audiences and their wants;
• Familiarity with and skill to check with their tradition and atmosphere to enliven their tales and make them enchantment to their viewers;
• Good reminiscence of correct retention and narration of a big corpus of fabric; and
• Candour.
The contents of conventional tales may be grouped into:
• Myths-stories tinted with faith, superstition and conventional beliefs particularly concerning the origins of mankind and phenomena;
• Legends-stories about historic occasions and memorable folks akin to battle heroes, excellent medication males and migration;
• Fiction-imaginary tales categorized into allegory, fables, fantasy and parables.
These may be additional categorised by social perform or establishment particularly:
• Political stories-stories about management and the connection between leaders and their topics;
• Tribe stories-these reveal the constructions, households and communities i.e. marriage and genealogies;
• Faith and deities-stories about creation and phenomena akin to demise and rain;
• Ethical virtues-stories meant to deride such vices as pleasure, greed, thievery, homicide, dishonesty, foolishness and lack of perception;
• Economics-stories that take care of work, borrowing and lending, industriousness and laziness.
Characters in typical conventional Sierra Leonean tales vary from folks to animals, stones, bushes, crops, deities, spirits and birds. These characters are symbolic: Bra rabbit- trickery; tortoise-wisdom; elephant-nobility; vulture-patience; lion-bravery and power; sparrow, parrot and crow-intelligence; dove-good fortune; spider-cunning. Tales are informed purely for night entertainments. Generally storytelling classes may very well be any time of the day with audiences in non-public verandahs, ‘court docket barries’ or different public locations. Nevertheless, the standard setting the place twenty to forty folks sit collectively round a kerosene lamp or hearth at evening after a day’s work is completed and meals has been cooked and eaten. Storytellers are additionally invited to cultural social capabilities akin to weddings, burials, secret society celebrations and crowning ceremonies. Tobacco is usually supplied for with out smoking storytelling concepts won’t movement.
Tales associate with songs; a track begins off a narrative; an necessary line in a narrative makes up a brand new story; a proverb ends a narrative; a track in the midst of a narrative is used to get up listeners or to arrange for the approaching climax. Fairly often songs do invite participation, and listeners develop into energetic supporters of a refrain, clapping their fingers, reaching to lies and jokes of the story teller, who in flip solutions the feedback usually with one other story. Songs are backed by the beating of conventional musical devices like ‘kaylain’, ‘sira’ ‘seigureh’ and ‘sangba’ (native drum) so as to add rhythm. Story telling viewers is often energetic. It catalyses the narratives by spontaneous exclamations, inquiries to the narrator, echoing of the narrator’s voice, and becoming a member of within the singing of choruses. For all these to happen self-discipline is maintained. The viewers is made to chuckle and exclaim however with out jeopardizing the continuation of the narration.
SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF TRADITIONAL STORIES
Foremost is socialization. The telling and listening of tales is a social exercise that brings folks collectively to share in creative and inventive affair. The event is supposed to entertain so that folks may neglect the drudgery of every day life. Persons are transplanted to a world of make-belief. Because the narration goes via the nuances of recreating the fictional world the viewers is carried alongside like passengers on a flight. The enjoyment derived is facilitated by the social group of the viewers. The ambiance is mostly casual with no coercion or harassment; everyone seems to be on equal footing no matter gender and age.
Members have an opportunity to relate and pay attention. The scenario underscores the worth of social cooperation. The self-discipline inherent within the narration is inevitably remodeled to spheres of life. Members study to respect others, respect private variations in talents and temperament and be capable to relate in a standard exercise.
Psychological stimulation is derived from storytelling. Tales are informed and acquired via the ear. The demand they place on the narrator is to recollect the story and inform it for a potential retelling in future. That is good coaching for the reminiscence. One needs to be attentive to get the necessities of a narrative and assimilate it into repertoire. Thus the thoughts have to be very energetic to accommodate the brand new information or varieties of what’s already identified. In addition to coaching of reminiscence the narratives sharpen vital appreciation. One has to inquest the message of the narrative and evaluates the occasions associated.
Tales are usually not simply informed for their very own sake however have necessary items of social instruction to impart. The allegories of occasions and characters mirror on human life and are a supply of studying. Within the characters of tales the viewers will see laziness, sages, cowards, agitators and the smug to quote however a number of examples. Tales give hints as to find out how to react to them. The narratives give pointers on what’s cherishable. In different phrases they search to vary life.
Tales are cultural data. The tradition of a folks is the totality of their methods of life which embrace faith, beliefs, customs, practices, music, literature, attitudes, and philosophy. By being didactic tales current to folks the philosophical essence of the society. The contents of oral traditions epitomize the foundations of that group. The tales of faith, creation and supernatural give the non secular foundations of that group. Biographies and historic tales current the mundane landmarks in what’s the society as we speak. By the standard heroes, folks respect what the society admires.
INCLUSION OF TRADITIONAL STORIES IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM
Tales are wealthy in custom and a beneficial heritage that are the nation’s supply of oral literature. Storytelling is like historical past: it reveals the previous, educates the current and throws lights on the longer term. Tales contact the soul of society and jolt them into an consciousness of their situation. In Sierra Leone nevertheless these treasures of oral custom are in peril of being disdained, forgotten and buried. By selling the gathering and publication of those oral sources of data faculty librarians won’t solely contribute to a worthwhile revival of curiosity in a hitherto uncared for area however will make sure that posterity will derive most advantages from such an endeavour.
Sierra Leone is, in political parlance, a comparatively new state following a decade-long civil battle (1991-2001). Recording tales and together with these within the faculty curriculum may discover options to the nation’s issues of non-integration. Simply because the nation’s Nationwide Dance Troupe over time advanced right into a household nationwide ensemble so will recording conventional tales current a much less heterogeneous origin and assume a really nationwide and homogenous character.
Conventional tales educate ethical classes widespread to all of the ethnic teams in Sierra Leone. Sir Winston Wilson as soon as noticed that the additional again we glance into the previous, the extra into the longer term we will see. Recording conventional tales may assist Sierra Leoneans to look again to their previous with a view to seeing into their future. In addition to, faculties alongside public libraries are the most well-liked locations to inform tales to kids. The kind of viewers determines the type of story to be informed. As an illustration kids from ages three to 5 take pleasure in tales about animals and about kids themselves. Whereas school-age kids go in for lengthy tales. Junior Excessive Faculty pupils like myths and epics. They’re fascinated by heroes and luxuriate in journey and romance.
The appropriate to learn one’s personal world is a necessary a part of the proper to study. Tales and songs are the media via which Sierra Leoneans have been to go to their kids the traditions, customs, tradition and oral historical past of their society. Indigenous literature nevertheless is important to forestall the literate individual from changing into alienated from his personal tradition and custom. It strengthens the appreciation of 1’s personal cultural values and cultural id in a quickly altering atmosphere. In Sierra Leone the place for a very long time training has been based mostly on books that relate to different cultures this is essential. Like all over the place else on the earth the notice of individuals’s cultural heritage can be a prerequisite for the continuity, cohesion and progress of their society. Over and above all of the wealthy oral traditions of Sierra Leoneans with their totally different languages can simply get misplaced with the propagation of recent technique of communication, if not preserved.
ROLE OF LIBRARIES
Libraries are the gatekeepers to the world of data and information. Kinnell (1992) opined that Good libraries empower. Utilizing their sources can unfetter our creativeness, disclose hitherto unrealized worlds; promote information; induce pleasure; make us chuckle; insights; problem our misconceptions; assuage fears; prick our conscience; affect our sensibilities; and supply skilled refreshment. “What we study from good books and different sources develop into a part of us”(p.5).
Libraries are the impartial grounds on which the person baby might develop via impartial and unhindered discovery. They’re locations to study and follow info expertise. Libraries present sources of data for younger folks, enabling them to find and use the facility of entry that info expertise can convey within the society of as we speak and that of tomorrow. Amonoo and Azubuike (2003) opined that libraries are catalysts for human progress as they help the event and transmission of information and tradition, and foster civic consciousness in assist of democracy. Libraries protect and promote cultural heritage and variety, and foster mutual understanding and respect for cultures and peoples. For Johnson (2013) “good faculty and faculty libraries can improve the tutorial expertise, encourage studying and fostering the vital pondering that college students would require to outlive and prosper in an more and more advanced society”(p.295).
A bonus that libraries take pleasure in is that they’re centrally positioned inside communities. As such they’re effectively positioned to satisfy a job as cultural facilities. They’re pure locations for the promotion of literature together with poetry, drama, prose and storytelling. In addition they supply venue for visible arts and music. As well as they’re cultural facilities within the true sense of the phrase, highlighting native tradition and in a position to spotlight the tradition of kids representing the assorted teams inside the neighborhood.
Le Roux (2005) averred that the college library is nothing lower than the conscience of the curriculum. Faculties libraries present related and up-to-date supplies and companies for educating employees and pupils to assist the curriculum. Implicitly the gathering so developed must be one which displays not solely the identified wants of customers but additionally anticipated wants of potential academics and pupils. By presenting their customers with a consultant assortment of kids’s literature libraries may stimulate academics and pupils alike to develop imaginative use of storytelling supplies that may very well be handed on to pupils in subsequent years.
Provision and promotion of companies presupposes a information and understanding of the world inside which kids reside on a world, nationwide and foundation. Youngsters can derive from libraries enjoyment of story expertise, of language, and of related artwork. The sources of the library might foster information of a wider world and an understanding of different folks with regard to conduct, tradition, or conditions (Johnson,2013). Youngsters can achieve self-knowledge via referring to conditions, occasions and characters. Libraries can present for kids’s info wants. Good companies might assist to engender confidence within the acquisition of vocabulary, speech and language. Libraries present alternatives for shared expertise between adults and kids. Central to the philosophy of library provision for younger folks is to assist formal and casual training.
Faculty libraries are communication facilities. They represent an excellent technique of disseminating / information. Their goal is to facilitate entry to the clientele they serve to the instruments of information to help their cultural {and professional} growth (Wehmeyer, 2005). In the end this perform is related to the mental growth of pupils and their attitudes in the direction of conditions of all types, ethical, mental, social, sensible and leisure.
ESSENTIAL TASKS FOR LIBRARIANS
Conventional tales are elements of peoples’ indigenous information techniques and contemplating their social capabilities in society there may be each want for these to be preserved. The actual fact in the primary is that a lot of the artwork of storytelling is owned by adults most of whom are rising outdated and dying. And in Africa for example when an outdated individual dies it’s believed {that a} library is burnt. That is the place faculty librarians ought to are available to play an important position. Conventional storytelling is an inexplicable phenomenon of Sierra Leonean life and is indispensable for future growth. Already steps have been undertaken by some organizations like Companions in Grownup Training (PEA), the Division of Historical past and African Research and the Division of Further-Mural Research (DEMS) at Fourah Bay Faculty to file some conventional tales, songs, proverbs and riddles for future use. Faculty librarians must be a part of these efforts by recording conventional tales utilizing standard info and communication applied sciences akin to telecommunications (cellphones), computer systems, microfiche, and audiovisual applied sciences( e.g. cassette recorders, slides, video tapes, tape recorders and CD-ROMs) to file, repackage and disseminate tales for his or her meant audiences. Given the significance of internet expertise in info gathering and dissemination librarians also can file tales in internet OPACs in order that academics, pupils, and researchers can learn totally different tales in addition to biographies of famend story tellers within the nation (Kochtanek and Mathews, 2002).
Additional faculty librarians must be transcribing and publishing tales into booklets and anthologies to be used in faculties. Such efforts will contribute to the modest inventory of written supplies within the nation accessible for faculties, youths and even adults. Translating conventional tales into a number of languages will contribute to intercultural understanding within the nation. By these efforts the nation’s cultures would develop into the content material of studying and even the shape by taking it from its roots.
As conventional tales and songs live in sure contexts rudiments of those may very well be offered in photos: village life, arts and crafts, landscapes, peoples and journey routes. Central in all these efforts will probably be photos of story tellers and their audiences, dancers and artists. The visible impressions created by photographs will additional strengthen kids’s understanding and curiosity in class. Story telling classes shouldn’t solely be filmed / videoed however librarians ought to compile biographies of storytellers to be used in faculties. Such strides will enrich kids’s information of the assorted ethnic teams within the nation and will go a good distance in decreasing illiteracy.
At school librarians ought to advocate for elevated slots for storytelling on the agenda. They need to additionally foyer for the introduction of conventional storytelling as much as Junior Secondary Faculty degree as elements of Literature. Youngsters must be dropped at the library for particular storytelling classes in order that they may not neglect their tradition. Mother and father and Storytellers must be invited to relate tales in class for the good thing about kids. Such efforts want collaboration with topic academics who higher perceive the wants of pupils and the curriculum. Faculty librarians must also preserve hyperlinks with public libraries and close by faculties of their areas. Youngsters must be taken on go to to public libraries inside their localities the place storytelling classes may very well be held. In all these strikes faculty librarians ought to possess intensive information of storytelling acceptable for the numerous wants and ranges of pupils of their respective faculties. Hyperlinks must also be made with tertiary establishments and organizations engaged in grownup literacy that are already concerned in conventional storytelling actions as a part of their curricula. Lecturers and animators may very well be invited to highschool to speak to kids concerning the significance of conventional storytelling and even inform tales for the good thing about pupils and academics. There are neighborhood radios stations everywhere in the nation and faculties should buy air time to carry discussions on storytelling. If potential storytellers must be invited to such talks to be both interviewed or inform tales. The truth is the nationwide broadcaster, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC) may play a number one position on this route by creating at the least a slot in its weekly applications for storytelling.
The college librarians, to be efficient, want to have the ability to “promote” the artwork of storytelling in the identical means different rivals for kids “promote” their wares. They need to arrange E book Weeks with storytelling classes included within the actions to be carried out in such Weeks. Throughout such classes storytellers and father or mother may very well be invited to inform tales to kids. Academics, mother and father and older pupils must be inspired to put in writing and browse tales to the youthful ones. They need to additionally present video clips or slides/musical variations of famend conventional tales.
CONCLUSION
A effectively used faculty library promotes studying, raises achievement and enhances pupils’ private and social growth. It’s an asset to the college, each by way of bodily sources and the broader sources all through the college it would harness for the good thing about its customers (The Library Affiliation (1998). Invariably, conventional tales have handed from the traditional to current day generations by phrase of mouth. They’ve survived the check of time due to the universality of their messages throughout time and bounds. Thus Sierra Leoneans nonetheless discover conventional tales related and adoptable to their experiences as we speak. As time passes on conventional tales nonetheless need to be handed right down to their descendants. Noticeably this shouldn’t be solely via the oral phrase. Literacy and different elements of recent life are available to help the preservation and additional transmission of conventional tales. And that is the place faculty librarians ought to are available. By compilation of anthologies, recording tales into audio tapes, CD ROMs, and cinema movies and creation of networks to quote however a number of examples, faculty librarians will be capable to create a extra everlasting file of this beneficial asset for future use.
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Source by John A Kargbo