Changing The Educational Practices: Storycrafting In Day Care Centers

Storyride is a project implemented and studied during 1995-1997 in Finland and other Nordic countries. The aim of the project was to change the early childhood education practices, namely, improve children’s possibilities for participation of the planning and implementation of the practices. The intervention was based on a method called storycrafting. In storycrafting, the adult focuses listening to the child’s thoughts: the adult asks the child to tell a story, and writes it down without changing anything. When the story is finished, the adult reads it for the child. The follow up study shows how the project changed the education practices from evaluating children to a participatory educational culture, where children and adults both have active roles. Children thoughts are listened and valued as basis for planning, and children are seen as producers of knowledge. The method of listening and writing down the clients thoughts has been applied to other institutions, e.g. schools, libraries, health care clinics, hospitals. The project has gained interest among media, e.g. over 100 articles published. European Union rewarded the project as a model project. The exchange of stories between children is spreading outside the Nordic countries.