This weekend, reading the newspaper on the Internet, I found a news that really shocks me. The headline was “Almudena Cid narra su vivencia y trayectoria deportiva en dos cuentos infantiles (Almudena Cid tells about her life experience and her sport career in two stories for children)”.
The first thing I thought when I saw the headline was “I can’t believe that a gymnast like her tells her experiences about sport in two books. And even, if those books are for children”. So, I start to read the article and I see that she created a main character named “Olympia”, as a reference to the Olympic Games, so children, only reading the name of the character can discover what is her goal: reach the Olympic Games.
Using Olympia, Almudena told her story and how she became the best Spanish gymnast (she reached the finals of four Olympic Games: Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008) and gives tips about how to decorate the maillots, the make-up and the hair styles.
How we can use that books in our future classes?
That article made me think about how we can show our future students about healthy habits and promote sports in class. This kind of books are awesome for reach this objective because we have a story, specially adapted for children, with pictures, so they we can be focused only in the pictures if our students don’t have the reading skills learnt.
Also, that stories talks about other things rather than the main story. It’s like a “cross-curricular” book, because we have literature in the story and arts and crafts in the tips Almudena gives about her maillots.
One disadvantage and a great solution for that
One disadvantage of those books is that can be only focused on girls, because it can be a little bit strange (I don’t say impossible) to see a boy decorating a maillot or thinking about making-up, but we can adapt it to them!
For example, changing the name of the main character and giving our students the chance to create their own story about a gymnast. For example, while I was writing that I thought about a character named “Athos” (Yes, like the Musketeer, but can be a reference to Athens) who wants to be at the final of the swimming competition of the Olympic Games of Tokyo 2020, so he starts practising for it and reach, in 2015, the Spanish national championship, so his dream begins there. Can you imagine of creating a story like this at class?
A conclusion and a thought
Just to conclude, also, we can think about having in our class a meeting with the author of the book, Almudena Cid, and our students can talk to her and ask her about how she reached those four finals and how she prepared for that. Or, we can invite Gervasio Deferr, and ask him the same questions. These are just dreams that can be unreal in a real class, but if we didn’t dream about improving our classes, who will do it for us?.
Link to the news, if you want to read the whole article (in Spanish): http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/2289589/0/almudena-cid-narra-vivencia/trayectoria-deportiva-dos/cuentos-infantiles/
Hello Jaime! I could not have imagined an initiative like that before reading it. It is wonderful to see how a recognised gymnast, who probably is one of the most admired women because of her achievements, has shared with little boys and girls her experiences all along her life. I have not already read her book, but I am sure see will give a lot of motivation for children.
I want to suggest something. When I read your post and reflected about it and idea came to my mind. You talk about creating books related with very recognised people. I love this idea. But what about creating their owned stories? What I want to say is that children can have the book of Almudena Cid as a model in order to imagine their own achievements when they grow up. For example, a child who loves playing football probably will want to play in very important teams. By this way we are encouraging our students to imagine, to create, and to read their classroom’s books.
Finally, regarding what you said about authors visiting the school, why not inviting them once we have carried out the previous activity? Children could feel very proud of their work if a person that they admired read their own stories, don’t you think so?
Hi Jaime!
I love the idea that Almudena has!
As you say, it is a great idea to show the lives of people who can be real (not princesses locked in a high tower) as characters in a story or short story. Today, you’ve seen at the seminar of the subject, even yourself can become a main character in any story you want to invent! You just need to select certain infromacion to give life and form the character,a history and a little fairy dust …. … oh no that’s in Peter Pan! (Only joking!)
I think it’s a great idea and as you indicate is a good way to teach our children good habits, whether for sport, food, values, etc; not always the protagonist should has to fight a dragon!
It may be more realistic, if the character becomes more real and close to them in order to help our students to foster these ideas!
And answering Susana, I totally agree with your idea … we’ll see next Tuesday!
Finally I think like her, I think it would be more motivating for students to show the author themselves some of their work … do not you think so?