A time of listening and learning: Granny Janny tells “The Story of Finn McCool” in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.[/caption]

A storyteller can weave words so that the story and characters come alive in your mind without much effort on your part. A storyteller’s tone of voice, hand movements, and facial expressions allow your imagination to flourish. It is a gift, to share a narrative and connect with others through storytelling.

Jan Tafoya is a storyteller. Her listeners know her as Granny Janny, and she has been telling stories at Nederland Elementary School (NES) for eight years, although her eager audience missed her during the Covid years.

When she was studying for her master’s degree, NES fourth grade teacher Rebecca Vosteen encountered Granny Janny. Understanding how much storytelling matters, Miss Rebecca, as she is known to her students, invited Granny Janny to her classroom.

Storytelling has become a special time in Miss Rebecca’s classroom. Miss Rebecca said “Watching, listening, reading, and emotionally engaging stories activates more parts of the brain than when the brain is processing facts. An activated brain is an engaged mind.”

The students and Granny Janny sing “Make New Friends.”[/caption]

Granny Janny has not been a storyteller all her life. She is a musician – currently playing in three different music groups – and she has been a music educator. She lived in Eldora for years, and then moved down the hill, where she had a chance encounter with a member of the storytelling group Spellbinders.

Spellbinders is an organization that trains volunteer storytellers using their own Spellbinder training materials and best practices. They share the art and practice of storytelling. The Spellbinders’ vision of oral storytelling includes “sharing the wisdom, values, humor and sense of community embodied in stories coming from many cultures throughout time.”

They also believe that oral storytelling is different from reading a book aloud. This kind of storytelling, they believe, “builds connections between generations, eye to eye and heart to heart.”

Granny Janny said that the verbal skills and linguistic benefits for kids are some of the greatest values of storytelling. Miss Rebecca added that this experience improves speaking and listening skills while also stimulating imagination.

For 10 years Granny Janny has been going into elementary school classrooms sharing her stories. Currently she visits schools in Firestone, Boulder, Longmont, and Nederland.

As a musician, she could work only on her music. Instead, she travels to these schools, meets new groups of kids each year, shares music, memorizes stories and tales, engages in interactions with the students…and she loves it.

Granny Janny says that she loves seeing the faces of the kids as she tells the stories – a smile, an inquisitive look, a sign of introspection. She loves the conversations and interactions with the kids. After having been an educator, she feels that this is a “wonderful opportunity to be with kids again,” said Granny Janny.

Her favorite story to tell is “Jack and the Beanstalk,” because she especially likes trickster stories and folktales. She also likes to find stories where the hero is female. The kids are always engaged, and she is always delighted when they come up with other solutions to a riddle or a different ending to a story.

When I visited Granny Janny’s story time in Miss Rebecca’s fourth grade class one day at the end of March, the spiel began with music. Granny Janny played the autoharp and sang “Cockles and Mussels,” and then told “The Story of Finn McCool.” She then shared the story of the “Search for the Magic Lake,” and one about why a rabbit has long ears and a short tail. The students listened carefully and loved the twists and turns of the plots.

Each time Granny Janny comes she ends her time with the kids singing “Make New Friends” with them. They show their gratitude with applause and wish each other well until next time.

How fortunate it is that NES fourth graders have Granny Janny coming to them every month to spark their imagination, fostering awareness of integrity and cooperation through the stories she tells. How wonderful for Granny Janny to have the students to share stories with.

Traditionally, storytelling is a role for the elders in a society. Spellbinders is an organization that works to bring the art of storytelling to communities and to bridge a gap between generations. Both the teller and listeners benefit from the connection.

The kids find that their memory and reading comprehension is improved, and both kids and storytellers achieve some wisdom. Yes, adults can learn from kids, too.

Oral storytelling is a beautiful way to communicate our emotions, legends, beliefs, society, and our selves. We seek connection; storytelling nurtures connection.

To find out more information about Spellbinders go to https:// spellbinders.org/.