Developmental Function of Nursery Rhymes

[YT2095]

Ryhmes and stories have been around since year dot, or at least since we (mankind) have been able to recognisably communicatate vocaly. these ryhmes and story telling were a way to pass down information, either practical or ancestoral lineage, and is STILL employed today amongst certain tribes (not all that distant).

"a tiissue, a tissue, we all fall down" taken from the great plague in England not so long back.

personaly I see no real reason for this format of education anymore in my circle, I think we should spend time teaching Science instead of poetry and rubbish, not only that, but why teach kids Shakespeare in the Olde English tongue? what purpose does it serve other than to make you sound like a total dork when you quote this stuff at dinner parties!?

[Squintz]

I'm sure that everything we learn has a purpose amd i do believe you can never learn to much. I wish i knew everything there is to know it would make life so much easier, then again it would make life much more boring if i had nothing to learn.

 

I agree with YT that more important things should be taught to little people because we retain more knowledge while young, than we do when we get older. The older we get the more wise we become but we really learn the most while we are young.

 

Somone on this forum should make up a catchy nursery rhyme about science or math.

 

Here is my new interpretation of "Jack and Jill"

 

Jack is a man

Jill is a women

 

Jack walked up the hill and jill followed after him.

 

On the way up jack triped and tumbled backwords on his way down he bumbed into jill and she came tumbling down with him.

 

This has some relation ship to physics. What goes up must come down and An object in motion will remain in motion and every action has an equal and oposite reaction.

 

But if this were true then would jill be tumbling after or would jack knock into her and she now be in the lead down the hill with jack tumbling after.

[Squintz]

http://www.boblonsberry.com/writers/VirginiaEZimmer/index.cfm?story=1993

 

Read the above modern day nursery rhymes and you will see why we dont read the modern day rhymes to our children.

[atinymonkey]

YT2095 said in post #26 :

Ryhmes and stories have been around since year dot, or at least since we (mankind) have been able to recognisably communicatate vocaly. these ryhmes and story telling were a way to pass down information, either practical or ancestoral lineage, and is STILL employed today amongst certain tribes (not all that distant).

"a tiissue, a tissue, we all fall down" taken from the great plague in England not so long back.

personaly I see no real reason for this format of education anymore in my circle, I think we should spend time teaching Science instead of poetry and rubbish, not only that, but why teach kids Shakespeare in the Olde English tongue? what purpose does it serve other than to make you sound like a total dork when you quote this stuff at dinner parties!?

 

The point of leaning the intricacies of the English language is not to be able to spout quotes at dinner partys. The premise of teaching English is to increase the eloquence of the students. The person most able to utilize language to express point will be the person who is most able to persuade and dissuade peoples views. You get nowhere in life if you cannot string together a rudimentary sentence, or express your thoughts/ideas in words of less than two syllables. Reading Dantes Inferno simply helps you see differing facets and tools that language can use.

 

If you truly believe literature and language should be ignored, why don't you stop using English and use Esperanto instead?

 

Nursery rhymes and fairy stories are methods employed to pass on valuable information to children (ignoring those on Squintz link, which are just crass derivatives) such as how diseases are communicative if the sufferer is sneezing. One of my favorite phrases is from the tale of the white road 'be bold, be bold, but not so bold or else you life blood may run cold' which I happen to think just about sums up the attitude all parents would like their children to take in life.

 

Just one last point, do you not feel that by eshewing literature that your more or less saying you have no soul? If you can't appreciate beauty in words, poetry, prose or storytelling and wish to be informed only of scientific facts and theorems you would appear to me to be, well, dead inside.

 

As a general point, if people read the whole thread they might notice that the origin of the common nursery rhymes has already been discussed and there are no revelations occurring by reposting in this 'did you know' way.

And I'm willing to discuss the place of literature in society at great and exausting length, just in case anyone is thinking a quick rebuttal will shut me up

[YT2095]

"f you truly believe literature and language should be ignored, why don't you stop using English and use Esperanto instead?"

I happen to speak several languages thank you, and I don`t feel the need to learn an outdated and redundant one, it`s a futile act.

and to sum up your other points in a nutshell, elloqence can be gotten through modern English quite adequately! without recourse to outdated and ill equiped verse, prose nyambic pentameter or any other for of "art" as you call it. if one has to resort to these things in order to "express" themselves, then what chance the future?

[Glider]

I'm with ATM on this. For a start, not everybody wants to be a scientist (although I know a very good scientist who is a poet also). I do believe that some experience of literature allows students to develop a greater insight into the different ways language may be used to make a point. A basic etymological understanding of words provides a greater degree of flexibility in their use. Experience of the range of ways in which language is used helps people distiguish between different registers of speech and literature (e.g. poetry, prose, scientific prose etc.) and to produce them.

 

Whilst I don't expect students to write reports in iambic verse, I get really fed up with marking endless tracts of dull, monotonous prose. It's more frustrating when we're (increasingly) confronted with alleged 'research reports' that consist of random blocks (not paragraphs) of rudimentary and ill constructed sentences, packed with grammatical errors, tautology, inappropriate elision and spelling errors. Students seem increasingly less able to distinguish between words such as their, they're and there. The ultimate has to be (believe or not) the increasing prevalence of SMS text 'shorthand' in these (formal) reports. The the use of numerals as words, 4 example.

 

The principal role of science is to observe (phenomena) and explain (the processes underlying them). By extension, the principal role of a scientist is to observe and explain. Therefore, an inability to use the full power of language, limits their functionality as scientists. It is hard to know how valid, accurate or reliable observations are, or understand conclusions, when increasingly, explanations consist of tracts of badly written, ill expressed and ambiguous colloquial prose.

 

 

 

*sigh*...I feel SO much better now

[Martin]

There's the indirect benefit of memorising the words of a whole song, and learning rhythm, rhyme and melody. Mostly they keep kids from burning things for a short stretch of time.

 

I agree that there is a benefit to getting accustomed to rhythm, rhyme and melody-----when one is little or, if one didnt then, later.

 

can you think of a rhymed metrical verse you like?

 

nursery rhyme is OK or folksong or anything. there are sonnets that can

keep me from burning things for the better part of a morning! hope same true of you

[bloodhound]

The development function [math]d_{f}[/math] is defined as follows.

 

For each [math]n \in N[/math] where N is the set of all Nursery rhymes.

 

then [math]d_{f}(n)=c-d+l[/math]

 

where c is the number of characters. d is the number of death. and l is the number of letters in the poen

[Martin]

The development function [math]d_{f}[/math] is defined as follows.

 

...

 

Multiplication is vexation,

Division is as bad,

The Rule of Three confuses me

and practice drives me mad.

[Martin]

There's the indirect benefit of memorising the words of a whole song' date=' and learning rhythm, rhyme and melody. Mostly they keep kids from burning things for a short stretch of time.[/quote']

 

Good point skye but why don't we replace the material used in the function with things more applicable and useful and such. I mean I think its high time we revise things, the newest rhymes are probably hundreds of years old, and we still haven't gotten around to updating stuff?

 

some "more applicable and useful" rhymes

-------

 

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

--------------------

 

Sólo una cosa no hay. Es el olvido.

Dios, que salva el metal, salva la escoria

Y cifra en Su profética memoria

Las lunas que serán y las que han sido.

Ya todo está. Los miles de reflejos

Que entre los dos crepúsculos del día

Tu rostro fue dejando en los espejos

Y los que irá dejando todavía.

Y todo es una parte del diverso

Cristal de esa memoria, el universo;

No tienen fin sus arduos corredores

Y las puertas se cierran a tu paso;

Sólo del otro lado del ocaso

Verás los Arquetipos y Esplendores.

 

One thing does not exist: Oblivion.

God saves the metal and he saves the dross,

And his prophetic memory guards from loss

The moons to come, and those of evenings gone.

Everything is: the shadows in the glass.

Which, in between the day's two twilights, you

Have scattered by the thousands, or shall strew

Henceforward in the mirrors that you pass.

And everything is part of that diverse

Crystalline memory, the universe:

Whoever though its endless mazes wanders

Hears door on door click shut behind his stride,

And only from the sunset's farther side

Shall view at last the Archetypes and Splendors.

 

Borges, translated by Wilbur

transcription by Letralia:

http://www.letralia.com/58/en02-058.htm

[MishMish]

I knew that many at least of the Mother Goose rhymes had political explanations, though had not known what they all were

 

But am not sure the assumption that nursery rhymes need serve a purpose per se is a good one, especially if looking for some message in them

 

Don't know the correct terms but some form of meter and rhyme helps with memory, as Skye pretty much alluded to, and kids (and adults) tend to like alliteration

 

Would say the form has a use for memory, we like it because that use is programmed into us, and perhaps some rhymes became children's rhymes after the message had lost its significance but the form still appealed

[Martin]

 

...Would say the form has a use for memory' date=' we like it because that use is programmed into us,... but the form still appealed[/quote']

 

so? Out with it MishMish!

what rhymes do you remember or appeal to you?

what is one you know by heart?

 

 

 

here is a nursery rhyme i just remembered. I think it's nice:

 

The hart he loves the high wood,

the hare she loves the hill.

The Knight he loves his bright sword,

the Lady loves her will.

 

 

I like the way "high wood" rhymes with "bright sword"

[MishMish]

Martin, I'm not sure I understand your question

 

It occurred to me there's two questions being answered for meaning though, why they were written and why teach them to kids.

 

And I do not think there being meaning or a lesson can be assumed, someone had mentioned nonsense verse as well

 

Chldren also seem to like paradox or unreal verses, so I think it's more the form itself

[coquina]

Visual, auditory, and kinesthetic or tactile. We learn by seeing, hearing, and touching. Most people are primarily visual learners, with auditory secondary and tactile tertiary.

 

Some people are primarily auditory, we remember best what we hear.

 

I think nursery rhymes are a way of teaching children auditory learning. It is easiest to remember something that rhymes, but it trains us to use our ears to listen, rather than just to hear.

 

IMHO, what needs to be started earlier is teaching children to think. Currently, for the most part, we throw facts at them and expect them to remember them by rote. Very small children can be taught to think if you take the time.

 

I know I am full of anecdotes, and I apologise, but here is an example. My grandson was about four and I was minding him on our boat while my husband and son-in-law worked on the engines. SIL hadn't brought any toys, so I was trying to find something to pique his interest. He saw a nautical chart and asked me what it was - I told him it was sort of like a picture of the area as you would see it if you looked down from a plane. He asked me what the yellow part was, and I told him it was the land. He asked me what the blue part was, and I told him it was the water. He asked me what the black lines were and I told him they were roads. Then I showed him a spot where a black line went from yellow, across some blue, and back to yellow. I asked him what it was. He looked at it for several minutes, and thought really hard, then looked up at me with his eyes sparkling and said, "It's a bridge, Grandma!" The classic "Aha" moment.

 

Nursery rhymes are simply ways to teach children to remember what they hear and repeat it. They are sometimes called "nonsense rhymes". The Dr. Suess books are a classic example.

 

How many of you learned your "abc's" from "the alphabet song"

How many of you learned your numbers from "The ant's go marching".

[MishMish]

I don't think you'll get an argument about the value/need for better critical thinking skills. But I would not take quite such a cynical approach to nursery rhymes.

 

Ability to recall factual information and ability to analyze it critically are both required, and while I never had any formal critical thinking type training and feel the lack can also guarantee having relatively competent analytical skills and poor/unreliable/context dependent (take your pick) recall for factual information is most frustrating

 

And back to nursery rhymes themselves, I agree with the basic use, but think has also been diverted for the pleasure effect as well, sort of like how some people salt their food because they like the taste of salt though get more than enough in a typical US type diet. The taste for salt (which I don't share) serves a function, but its application is not always functional

 

[edited as had left out a step in my thoughts]

[Martin]

...

 

How many of you learned your "abc's" from "the alphabet song"

How many of you learned your numbers from "The ant's go marching".

 

the nautical chart anecdote is outstanding

everybody should have such grammas and such an insight

 

alphabet song I know

"ant song" I dont know

if not too much trouble please write down a few of the words to give the idea

[pi_of_9]

How about this:

 

Flappity, Floppity, Flip!

The Mouse on the Mobius Strip

The Strip revolved,

The Mouse dissolved

In a chronodimensional skip

[pi_of_9]

Poem by Frederick Winsor....I forgot to give credit where credit was due.