Storyteller visits Norwood
Program helps improve public speaking skills
Tuesday, December 17, 1991 by Bernadine Andrew Oak Ridger staff
43RD YEAR-NO. 285. OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE
Ever have trouble getting your ideas across?
That's a problem some students at Norwood Middle School may have overcome during a program in which they just participated.
The program, Cultural Heroes, is led by a professional storyteller and teaches kids speaking skills the fun way.
About 100 of the school's more than 200 students worked with Debbie Rauch, a traveling storyteller, to learn the art of captivating
public speaking.
By the end of the 10-day program, each student must learn three stories: "The Turnip," taught to them by Rauch, a hero story
from their own families and a "little kid" story or non-terrifying ghost story.
After about a week of practice, the junior storytellers were to entertain students of Norwood Elementary School Tuesday afternoon.
"When you see all those adoring little faces looking up at you, you're not going to be nervous," Rauch told a group of students
Thursday as they were practicing for Tuesday's event. "They're going to think you're the coolest thing since sliced bread."
She said her job is not only to teach the students how to tell stories, but to show them how to be comfortable speaking in
front of their peers.
Even if they use storytelling, they still need these skills," Rauch said. "They're the kind of skills that transfer to just
about anything they need to do."
She said good speaking skills will serve the kids well when they eventually have job interviews, committee chairmanships or
jobs that involve leadership.
So how is it done? The seven factors to remember, Rauch said, are: eye contact, no distracting motions, enthusiasm, talking
speed, preparation, use of gestures and body motions that tie in with the story and use of volume and sound effects.
Rauch said most of the students seemed to really enjoy the program. "For one thing, they get out of their normal schedule,"
she explained. "And most of the kids are extremely enthusiastic." She added that those who aren't so enthusiastic are just
nervous, while the others have forgotten to be shy.
"Get a kid on the playground and you can hear him three blocks away," the storyteller noted, but in class the same exuberant
child's voice gets much quieter because he's anxious.
"That's one of my big goals is to make these kids realize that, `Hey! I really can get up and tell a story and not fall on
my face.' "
The program started off with Rauch performing for the entire school and meeting with teachers and the sixth-, seventh- and
eighth-grade students chosen by school officials to participate. On days 2-9, she works with students by class, one hour a
day for each class, with the students doing all the storytelling. Then the 10th day is the big event at the elementary school.
Because they bring in stories from their own families, the program also helps preserve the oral tradition of Appalachia and
helps kids appreciate Appalachian culture.
A pamphlet on Rauch's work explains, "A hero is not just a sandwich or the latest rock star, movie star or sports star. There
are also those unsung cultural heroes of your family and community who tell and retell the stories from the oral tradition
of 'I remember when ... ' "
Rauch said traditional stories from Appalachian culture are dying out because they're transmitted orally rather than in written
form, and people just don't sit around telling stories the way they used to. She credited author Alex Haley with saying every
time an old person dies, it's like a library has been destroyed.
The program is sponsored by Jubilee Community Arts. Claudia Maxwell, a teacher at the middle school, approached the arts group
about participating in the program. All expenses were paid for by Jubilee Community Arts, which receives funding from the
Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Jubilee Community Arts has been providing the program to schools in northeast Tennessee for about four years, said Nancy Campbell,
school and regional programs director for Jubilee.
Rauch is one of three storytellers used in the program, which has so far been conducted in Sevier, Cocke, Grainger, Union,
Jefferson, Knox and Anderson counties.
When she's not spreading her art through the Cultural Heroes program, Rauch travels the country spinning yarns at festivals,
schools, libraries, "Wherever they'll pay me to go."
She has performed in nine states and in March will add a 10th Ohio thanks to her hair.
Rauch said her braids were spotted at a Louisville, Ky., storytelling festival by a woman who turned out to be a booking agent
for a school district in Ohio. Rauch always keeps her long, reddish-blonde hair divided into at least a dozen braids. Comments
about Rauch's hair led to a conversation, and by the time it was over with she had been asked to perform at 16 schools in
the woman's home state.
She said there are hundreds of professional storytellers in the country, eight to 10 of whom make more than $100,000 a year.
Many others make more than $30,000 a year. She said that within five or six years, she could be among the latter group.
Photo Caption: Traveling storyteller Debbie Rauch relates the tale "Jack and the King's Girl" to students at Norwood Middle
School Thursday. The students performed today at Norwood Elementary School. Staff photo by Bernadine Andrew
