The Three Little Pigs

Our summer vacation is quickly becoming a shimmering memory as we find ourselves already in the fourth week of school. I am still in the trenches as a teacher, my first professional love, but am also spending much of my time consolidating the sources found during the past 30 years at Birchwood School on this topic of literature that builds character. So the blog begins anew with fresh purpose: as a legacy for our alumni, their children, and friends. Sharing stories here is in the spirit of the literary heritage of tales passed down from generation to generation for the instruction of children.

I began this year with my eighth graders telling them the story of The Three Little Pigs. That's right, they are not too old for this nursery tale! They followed me with bemused looks as I told the tale using all the appropriate voices. "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
"Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin."
"Then I'll huff! whooooooooooo! and I'll puff! whooooooooooooooo! and I'll blowwwww your house in!" And down fall in succession the houses of the first two little pigs who had built their houses of straw (first piggy) and sticks (second little piggy). But when the wolf does the same routine with the third little piggy, he fails. Why? Because he built his house out of bricks. It took longer. It was harder work. But he used the right materials and his house stayed put.

The lesson in this fable was easy for these students to see. I was talking about starting the year with the right materials and the right mind set. A second application was that of the carpenter: Imagine him showing up to work without a hammer? without nails? He'd tell his customer,  "Sorry, Ma'am, I hope to put your cabinet together today. Shucks, I just forgot my hammer, but I'll see what I can do." What a joke. Eighth graders can see right away the need for sharpened pencils, paper on hand etc. But it requires repeated talks shared by many of us through varieties of stories, biographies, and personal or family anecdotes to infuse children when it comes to having the right motivations and attitudes.

One can't help but wonder how much was behind the original telling of the traditional tales. The origins of these tales are hard to trace, but how they have endured is easier to see. The message is universal, as in the case of this tale about the three pigs:  Build your life with solid materials! It may take longer to make, find, and build with bricks but if you take the shortcut and build quickly with straw or sticks your foundation cannot hold you through all manner of wolves and storms that come your way. (Parents and teachers have their own embellishments. The "straw" can be the ideas in your head of what you think you can do without much work. The "sticks" are the ways we do things half-way. etc.) No doubt this tale reflects the instruction and hopes that every parent or teacher has for their child. It also calls to mind the parable of the man who built his house upon the sand or the sower who did not sow upon good soil. Thus, the wisdom of the ages is in the simplest of tales.

When folklorist Joseph Jacobs collected the English tales (as Perrault had done for the French and the Grimm brothers for the German) he had this to say, "This book," he wrote of English Fairy Tales, "is meant to be read aloud, and not merely taken in by the eye." (ed. Maria Tatar. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales.) Make the drama come alive! (And, with young children there is no need to tack on a lesson. Just tell the tale; lessons seep in over time all on their own.) The origins are hard to trace and the tale spans cultures. An interesting history is assembled in the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Little_Pigs

I grew up on the Disney version and the lessons play back as a movie in my mind to this day. But it is my mother's voice that I hear and strive to copy when I squeak to my eighth graders: "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!"