Learning Informally Through Story, Song, and Children’s Shadow Theater

Abstract

This chapter examines Greek folk tales and songs taught in informal learning settings. One will see in this chapter that many of the first folk tales that children learned were Aesop’s fables. These creative stories, originally written by the prolific ancient Greek fabler, Aesop, and later adapted for a modern Greek audience, brought to life the natural and physical environment while at the same time engaged young learners to solve a moral or ethical dilemma. Children’s shadow theater was also popular for much of nineteenth and early twentieth century Greece. The most notorious children’s theater of the time was the so-called Karagiozis shadow puppet shows. The Karagiozis puppet shows traveled and performed in almost every town and city in Greece, entertaining generations of Greek children. Karagiozis, the protagonist of the theater shows, a poor, swarthy, disheveled humpback Greek, electrified children audiences for over a century through his comical and well-orchestrated antics.