Reflection on the Boys and Girls Club

The final project for my FYS class was doing a service learning project with the Boy and Girls club of Westminster.  I enjoyed doing this service learning project. It wasn’t like a lot of other service learning projects were people have to go clean the town or plant bushes in parks to help keep air clean. This was different. I got to work with young children and teach them about fairytales, which I enjoyed. I learned a lot and had to adapt to situations on the spot which was sometimes challenging.

Before each visit we had to make a lesson plan and get it approved and I think that this part worked very well. This was a way to keep me thinking and on task and organized. If I wasn’t forced to make a lesson plan and actually plan out what I was going to do for an hour with the children I probably wouldn’t have thought too much about what I was going to do until Friday the day I went. Now, after going to the club and teaching the children, I know why it was important to have a plan and I’m thankful we had to make them. I think working with the Boy and Girls club was a very creative and fun way to do a finial and I think that it was efficient.

            Each time I went to the boys and girls club I learned something different. The first time my group went to the boys and girls club it didn’t really go as planned. Mary and Daniel warned us that the kids were going to have a very short attention span and they weren’t going to always pay attention but I didn’t think that it was going to be that bad.  I was wrong. The first day my group read “Snow White” and we were going to talk about symbolism used in the story. We got a picture book to read to the kids because we thought that the picture would help keep the kids entertained and more interested in the story rather than just reading from the book we use in class. We also made little things for the kids to say whenever they head the Evil witches name and Snow White like booo and yaayy. We also brought apples and caramel for the kids for after the reading because all kids love snacks.     

            The sounds that the kids would make when they heard a name really worked and helped them pay attention but a lot of the time they would scream and be way too loud and distract other groups. The kids also all wanted to read from the book, which was something that I wasn’t expecting them to want to do. The kids kept running up to the book and trying to read and that was a little disruptive. Whenever we would say that they had a treat at the end they seemed to settle down so we said that a lot. From the first visit I learned that the kids really needed more things to do than just sitting and listening to us read to them. I also learned that bribing the kids with candy or a treat at the end was a good way to keep them focuses and on task.

            The second visit went a little more smoothly. The second visit we read Cinderella and had the kids act out the story. This worked very well because the kids were interacting well with one another and loved the story “Cinderella”.  The next week we did “Hansel and Gretel” and it went pretty well also. The last week was by far the best week of all though. We made props and had the kids make up their own ending to “The Golden Key”. The kids were very well behaved and had fun.

            If I could go back I would, from the beginning, have activities that keep the kids interacted. I wouldn’t read to the kids more than five minutes at a time because their attention span isn’t that great and they zone off and talk amongst themselves. I learned that the kids love to draw so I would recommend to any other people that want to do this project to try to do drawing activities. 

            Throughout the Boys and Girls Club project I think that my team worked very well together. My group consisted of Me, Juliana Ottomano, and Mary Fabiszak. Even though Mary was not in class often she did make it to the boys and girls club every Friday and helped while we were there. If I could go back I think I would try to help Juliana more with making the crafts and snacks for the kids. Juliana is an art major she enjoyed doing all of the art and crafty stuff and I did help her but she had all the supplies and she liked doing it. Also sense she could go home easily she made some of the snacks at her house or had her mom make them, but I feel bad because she did all of that so if I could go back I would try to find more time to help her with those aspects.

            Overall I think that this was way better than a final exam. It gave us real life situations that we have to learn to adapt to. When going to the Boys and Girls Club the kids didn’t always act perfect sometimes they misbehaved and didn’t listen. Us as the teachers couldn’t just give up and walk away when we became frustrated with the kids, we had to stay and work through the problems we were facing and had to change certain things in out lesson plan to gain the kids attention and control over the group. A final exam doesn’t have this quality to it. For a final students just study material they have learned over the semester and hope they remember it; if they don’t they don’t get a good grade and if they remember it they will get a good grade.  It doesn’t have the creativity part or the quick thinking to unexpected events like this project did. This project also had a reflection, description and video part to it, so it included writing and analyzing just like a final exam would. Overall I think that as a student I got more out of this type of finial than a cumulative finial written on paper. 

I have learned a lot this semester in my Grimm to Disney class. I have always loved fairy tales ever since I was a child and finding out where they came from was very interesting. I learned a lot about the Grimm brothers for one. Growing up I had heard of them but I never knew much about them. I didn’t know that they wrote so many fairy tales or anything about their life story. It was very interesting finding out about how tough of a childhood they had and how they grew up.  I knew that Disney had based their fairy tales off of older fairy tales that were already written but I didn’t know that they changed them a lot. Throughout this class we read the original fairy tales by the Grimm Brothers and compared them to the Disney versions. This was one of the most interesting parts of the class for me. I know every fairy tale by heart because I watched them all the time when I was little and I still watch them today. When I read the Grimm versions I was surprised to see how different they were from the Disney versions. For example Cinderella was very very different than the Grimm version. There was no pumpkin or horse and carriage like the Disney version. In the end of the Grimm version the two evil stepsisters get their eyes plucked out by birds on the way to Cinderella’s wedding. That was very shocking to me because I feel like a Disney movie would never have that in it.

                Another thing I liked this semester in this class was looking at the hidden meaning behind fairy tales. This was fascinating to me. I had never heard of Bruno Bettelheim or any of the other people we studied this semester. It was fascinating to see different theories on the symbolism and meaning behind fairy tales. My favorite was the psychoanalytic view of fairy tales and how they represent woman growing up sexually and the oedipal conflict. Bruno Bettelheim thinks that “Snow White” is about a girl overcoming the oedipal conflict and struggling with becoming sexually mature before she is mentally ready. This was so weird and foreign to me when I first took this class because I never in a million years would have thought that that is what a fairy tale was about.

                After this semester I learned a lot about fairy tales and I found it very interesting. I learned things I never knew and never even thought of about fairy tales.  I would recommend this class to everyone! 

Rapunzel

http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/Rapunzel_61977

This is a cartoon called Rapunzel by Ian Baker. This cartoon is meant to be funny. This is because in this cartoon Rapunzel is at the top of her tower but she doesn't have any hair. The prince is at the bottom and he is saying that the alopecia specialist is here. An alopecia specialist is someone to studies the loss of hair. This is amusing to the viewer because Rapunzel is known for having long, luscious, gold hair. In Disney and in the Grimm version Rapunzels hair is the only way to make it to the top of the tower. Without her hair the prince can not get to her and therefore the whole story is off and can't be told. So the cartoonist makes it ironic that Rapunzel doesn't have the one thing that she is known for, her hair. 

Blue Beard

The three stories that we had to read this week were Blue Beard, The Robber Bridegroom, and The Fitchers Bird. All three are similar and unique because they all start out with marriage. In other fairy tales they almost all end with marriage and happiness. This is because in other stories it is portrayed that marriage is a gift to woman and that is how they truly find happiness. In these stories it is the opposite. Not all women were excited for marriage; some view it as the end of their life and their independence.  These three stories confirm woman’s fear.  They get into a relationship with a scary man who is a killer.

 

                Blue Beard and Fitchers Bird are more closely related to each other than with The Robber Bridegroom. In both Blue Beard and Fitchers Bird the women are tempted by their husbands to not go into a room and in both stories the women disobey their husband and go into the room. This is where they find the misdeeds of their husbands.  The husbands can tell that their wives have disobeyed them though because of the blood on the key/egg. The husband’s view this as punishment by death and try to kill their wives. This can relate back to the sexual fantasy’s women used to have when their husbands went away to war. Man men would have their wives but in chastity belt. This was to help prevent their wives from having sex with other men while they were gone.

                In all three of these stories the women are active and are saved. The women are all smart and use their wits to help get them out of their situations. In Blue Beard the woman asks for more time to pray so her brothers can get there in time to save her, in Fitchers Bird she dresses up as a bird and tells her husband to take gold back to her parents but it is really her sisters, and in The Robber Bridegroom the woman works with the old lady that lives in the house and then tell the story about her husband killing another girl at dinner. In other stories these traits aren’t always seen, the women are more passive.

 

                I liked these fairy tales. I think that they were very interesting and different. I think that they were all very creative and different from other fairy tales that I have ever read.  I liked that the womenre creative and got out of their relationships. It was a nice switch up.

The Frog King

The Frog King or Iron Heinrich is about a young princess, who is so beautiful that the sun itself is jealous of her. She drops her favorite golden ball down a well and the only way she can get it back is through a frog. She makes a promise to the frog that if he gets her golden ball he can be her companion and playmate, but she attempts to go against her promise and doesn't want him to be her companion.  The father of the girl says that she must honor her promise but she doesn’t. She throws the frog against her wall and he turn into a prince. Once she realized he is a prince she The Frog King or Iron Heinrich is about a young princess, who is so beautiful that the sun itself is jealous of her. She drops her favorite golden ball down a well and the only way she can get it back is through a frog. She makes a promise to the frog that if he gets her golden ball he can be her companion and playmate, but she attempts to go against her promise and doesn’t want him to be her companion.  The father of the girl says that she must honor her promise but she doesn’t. She throws the frog against her wall and he turn into a prince. Once she realized he is a prince she obeys her promise and marries the prince who was put under a spell by a witch.

                Cupid and Psych is a story of another beautiful princess, who also has so much beauty that people are jealous of her. In this story instead of the prince being jealous of her the goddess Venus is jealous of her. She sends her son Cupid to make her fall in love with a monster and make her life miserable. Instead cupid makes Psych destined to fall in love with himself. Psych never marries and goes to live with what everyone thinks is a monster. When she gets there her husband gives her everything she wants and she is very happy, the only condition is she can’t see him. She visits with her sisters and they convince her that she need to see her husband she see if he is a monster and if he is she must kill him. When she sneaks in to see her husband she finds that he is beautiful but she accidentally wakes him up and he leaves her. Psych then goes to Venus and Venus makes her does chores that are seemingly impossible. Each times she gets help from the gods though and she does them. The last task though Psych looks into a box that she wasn’t supposed to look in and falls asleep.  Cupid comes and saves her and they become husband and wife forever.  

These two stories both deal with a princess who was the youngest and the most beautiful girl ever. They also both deal with loving a “beast” though. In both stores the princess wouldn’t accept love from a “monster” or frog. Psych was going to kill Cupid if he wasn’t cupid even though he was very nice to her and the princess in The Frog King threw the frog against the wall to kill him. It is showing how a beautiful girl needs someone pretty, and that monsters aren’t good enough for them. In the end of each story they find their prince or Cupid and get married and love each other dearly, only knowing that they are both handsome. obeys her promise and marries the prince who was put under a spell by a witch.

                Cupid and Psych is a story of another beautiful princess, who also has so much beauty that people are jealous of her. In this story instead of the prince being jealous of her the goddess Venus is jealous of her. She sends her son Cupid to make her fall in love with a monster and make her life miserable. Instead cupid makes Psych destined to fall in love with himself. Psych never marries and goes to live with what everyone thinks is a monster. When she gets there her husband gives her everything she wants and she is very happy, the only condition is she can’t see him. She visits with her sisters and they convince her that she need to see her husband she see if he is a monster and if he is she must kill him. When she sneaks in to see her husband she finds that he is beautiful but she accidentally wakes him up and he leaves her. Psych then goes to Venus and Venus makes her does chores that are seemingly impossible. Each times she gets help from the gods though and she does them. The last task though Psych looks into a box that she wasn’t supposed to look in and falls asleep.  Cupid comes and saves her and they become husband and wife forever.  

These two stories both deal with a princess who was the youngest and the most beautiful girl ever. They also both deal with loving a “beast” though. In both stores the princess wouldn’t accept love from a “monster” or frog. Psych was going to kill Cupid if he wasn’t cupid even though he was very nice to her and the princess in The Frog King threw the frog against the wall to kill him. It is showing how a beautiful girl needs someone pretty, and that monsters aren’t good enough for them. In the end of each story they find their prince or Cupid and get married and love each other dearly, only knowing that they are both handsome.

Little Red Riding Hood

Little red riding hood by John Darkow

This cartoon is playing off of the little red riding hood fairy tale. I think that it is a cleaver cartoon. It shows the wolf holding a gun that is smoking and little red riding hood dead on the ground. The police officers say that “he claims she was skipping around in a threatening way carrying a suspicious package and wearing a hoodie”. This is amusing somewhat to the viewer because everyone knows the tale of little red riding hood, and she is portrayed as an innocent little girl. Little red riding hood is delivering food to her sick grandmother and is very young. The wolf eats her grandmother and tried to eat the little girl as well but in the end the little girl out smarts the wolf and defeats him. In this cartoon little red riding hood is said to be intimidating and the wolf is implying he felt threatened by her and that’s why he killed her. That is absurd. Little red riding hood is an innocent little girl. The wolf is saying that the most innocent girl looks suspicious for doing normal things, like skipping and wearing a hoodie. This is a political cartoon because it is showing how someone is claiming little red riding hood is dangerous on nonsense accusations. Because someone is wearing a hoodie it doesn’t make them a gangster or dangerous… hoodies are worne by many people and just because she was carrying a “package” it doesn’t make her dangerous either. I liked this cartoon and I think that it was very clever.

http://theweek.com/section/cartoon/52/226292/social-issues

Anne Sexton v. Grimm Brothers

The Grimm version of Snow White and Anne Sextons version of Snow White have some similarities and differences. In both the plot of the story is essentially the same, the evil queen tries to have Snow White killed, Snow White survives, she lives with dwarfs, falls asleep, and is awakened by a prince. Anne Sexton’s version is very blunt and direct with her interpretation of Snow White, as where the Grimm brothers weren't as direct and left things more for interpretation.

                Right from the begging Anne Sexton refers to Snow White as a virgin, and unsoiled. Anne Sexton from the beginning is saying that Snow White is pure because she is a virgin. In the Grimm version the reader has to interpret that on their own. Anne Sexton also says that the stepmother is “eaten by age”. She then describes the stepmother as having brown spots on her hands and whisker on her lip. She is making the stepmother sound like an old woman and adds some amusement in it as well by making the stepmother animal like. There is no guessing as to why the stepmother is jealous of Snow White.. it’s because Snow White is prettier than she is and she doesn't like that so she wants Snow White dead. Anne Sexton also refers to Snow White as a “dumb bunny”. Once again this shows how blunt Anne Sexton is. Everyone who reads the take thinks that is dumb that Snow White falls for the evil queens tricks three times but Anne Sexton clearly writes it in her poem and makes it amusing for the reader.

Anne Sexton also adds pop culture into her poem… that was the big thing when she wrote this. Anne Sexton writes things like “she was full of life like soda pop” and “red-hot roller skates”. Descriptions like this were simply the norm when she wrote this poem so it made sense for her to write them. The Grimm version does not have any hints of pop culture in it whatsoever. The pop culture part of the story is part of the zeitgeist in Anne Sextons version.

The key difference I would say between the two versions is the ending of Snow White. In the Grimm version the evil stepmother died and Snow White and the prince lived happily ever after. Anne Sexton however ends her poem with Snow White “referring to her mirror as women do”. This ending is different because Anne Sexton is saying that Snow White is going to be just like her stepmother. Meaning she is going to get jealous when she ages and try to have her daughter killed so she stays the prettiest girl. Grimm would never have that ending because that’s now how typical fairy tales end, the princess stays fair and good and lives happily with the prince.

I liked reading Anne Sextons version of Snow White. I thought it was very amusing and interesting to see how she interpreted Snow White. I thought it was funny how blunt she was and I liked her twist at the end, it was different. It gave me a different view on Snow White and I think other people should read her version too.