What do we do with the morals inside the stories we inherited?

One of the things I’ve been thinking about while planning DramEd’s new autumn term is this:

What do we do with the morals inside the stories we inherited?

This half term, we’re working with The Hare and the Tortoise.

I love traditional tales. Children recognise their patterns, they give us brilliant characters to play with, and they create a shared world very quickly.

But I don’t think that means we have to pass every old message on untouched.

I’m not particularly interested in teaching young children that being fast is somehow bad and being slow is good.

Our Hare is brilliant at being fast.

He can run, jump, spin and will happily demonstrate all of it to anyone who will watch. He is also the sort of character who challenges a butterfly to an arm wrestle, celebrates the win enormously, and then mysteriously finds something else to do when Badger walks past.

Our Tortoise is different.

Calm. Observant. Encouraging. Secure enough to admire what Hare can do without feeling diminished by it.

Across six weeks, the children won’t simply hear the story. They’ll help build it.

They’ll decide what makes the race fair.

They’ll become the race committee.

They’ll notice things Hare misses.

They’ll explore what happens when Hare makes a mistake, what it feels like when somebody else is ahead, and eventually what it means to lose something you genuinely wanted to win.

And Tortoise will still win.

Because I don’t want to take all the edges out of children's stories either.

Winning can feel wonderful.

Losing can hurt.

Different people have different strengths.

And somebody else being brilliant does not make you less brilliant.

That feels like a much more interesting story to explore with children.

And, importantly, we’ll explore it through drama, movement, music, imagination and play, not by sitting three-year-olds down for a lecture about fairness.

That is the bit I love about drama-led learning.