reflection

Reflection

            I was a little skeptical about what the Boys and Girls Club was and how it would be beneficial to the children in the program or me.  I soon realized that the program not only would help me but also was a very productive in teaching the children.  This therefore was a very beneficial project for the class to participate in and for the community.

            I think this project helped me to learn more than I even expected.  I was able to gain many skills when it comes to working in a group.  For example as a group we had to agree and come up with lessons for the days when we went to Boys and Girls Club.  By doing this I was able to learn the different methods of getting everyone to agree on a single idea.  Also I was able to see exactly how a group of people could make an idea from one person even better.  This happened when we were making our lesson plans and I had presented an idea about what story to start with, “Hansel and Gretel”, and then from that the question would be what could we do with that story.  The first response was drawing.  After that I remember the great idea of making ginger bread houses with the kids so that they can be creative, stay connected with the lesson and can even learn from it.  That is how I realized that this project could definitely help to teach me about how to interact with a group to come up with great ideas together rather than as an individual.  That is the first time I noticed how this project would be able to help me learn.  Also I was able to see how this was going to help when we began teaching the first lesson. I could see that in order for them to really understand what we are trying to teach them we had to know about what we were teaching in very great detail.  This how I realized that in order for people to know to know what your trying to support they need to take in all the information about this topic before hand so that they really demonstrate what they are trying to say.  Therefore, before each lesson I made sure that I would read over the story again and really analyze it so that I had valuable information to share.

            I think this is way better than an original type of final because it does a better job at making sure that when you leave the class you really learned what was supposed to be taught in the class.  For example, when we teach the children we have to actually have knowledge of the stories and know what the meaning behind the stories are.  This grantee that all of the students, in this FYS, have learned the material.  It is guaranteed because the children are expecting to learn something.  Therefore, no one is walking out of the class without taking in some form of knowledge.  Also while this form of a final helps the students in the class it is also doing community service.  While we are benefiting our grades we are able to help the children at Boys and Girls Club learn about the same knowledge that we have gained from the FYS.  

            There were not a lot of problems that I have noticed with this project but there is at least one that I can think of.  I realized that if not all the group members participate it could be very detrimental to the one student that is actively trying to participate in the project.  For example I remember that one day we did not have any group members but myself.  Andrew had football practice and informed me that he would be a little late and Natarsha had informed me that she was stuck in New York due to the bad weather.  Therefore I had to find a way to teach a lesson designed for a group of three but it was just me.  I was lucky and was able to join another group that was short on members.  Another example is that our group was always a person short because it was supposed to be four.  Although these lessons were able to teach about what to do in situations like that and taught us how to adjust when things are not going the way they are supposed to.

 In conclusion I believe that this type of final is a better way to test the knowledge of the students compared to the ideal traditional style.  Also this is very beneficial to the community and can help the children gain more knowledge to spread to others as they grow up.

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My  “From Grimm To Disney” FYS has helped me to better prepared for the college experience.  This class has helped to prepare me to better organize my schedule in order to get all the necessary work completed and to be able to have time with friends as well.  This was taught to me from the gest speakers that had come in to talk to use during our flex hours.   Also the gest speakers were able to teach me about the different online resources that can help the students at McDaniel.  For example we all have learned about the hoover library online resources in order to find sources for a paper.  Finally, the guest speakers were able to help all of us learn about the different building on campus, making it one hundred percent easier to know which building can help with what and where they are located. But most of all I was able to learn how to analyze based on the actual class.  For example the class is designed to analyze the original fairytale text and then the films that Disney has created.  While analyzing the text it helped to make it easier to make connections between the symbols, motifs and to understand the story.   Also the class was designed to teach how to think critically.  This was taught to us through the in depth reviews of the story and the papers we had written.  Lastly the class helped to give each and every one of us a view at what the typical college class workload will be like.

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The story of “Bluebeard” is a very different type of fairytale.  This is due to many violent scenes and descriptive imagery making it not suitable for children.  There are three different versions of this story, “Bluebeard”, “Fitcher’s Bird” and “The Robber Bridegroom”.  These all contain the basic story but have a few differences.

 

“The Robber Bridegroom” is the very different from the other two versions of the story.  This is my favorite version of the story because it is so different from the others while keeping the same basic story elements.  It is different because the girl never actually marries the man and is able to tell her entire family of the man’s murderous ways.  The girl also hides and witnesses the husband murder a girl.

“Bluebeard” and “Fitchers Bird” are very similar to each other.  This is because it has to do with a girl and man in an arranged marriage.  The girl enters a forbidden room where she finds many dead bodies.  These bodies are due to the husband being a murderer.  In both versions the girls are able to save their lives with there wit.

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The Tale “Cupid and Psyche” has many similarities to the Grimm tale, “The Frog King”.  There are also many differences between each story but both have similar themes, that every body has a good and ugly side to them.  This presented through the frog or beast and through the personalities change in the youngest daughter.

Each story consists of three daughters and the youngest daughter is the most beautiful of the three.  The daughter is forced to marry a certain person in whom they cannot see for what they truly are.  For example, in Grimm’s story the frog is looked at as hideous but evidently turns into a prince.  In the Psyche mortal eyes making Psyche believe that cupid is a monster cannot see story cupid.  Psyche realizes that he is fact the opposite.  This demonstrates the theme of everyone having an ugly and a good side.

The Psyche story goes into a lot more detail than the Grimm tale.  The Psyche tale describes the emotions of each character in more detail and has a longer story line than Grimm’s.  I think this is due to the different intended audiences.  Psyche is designed for an older audience with knowledge of the gods presented.  Grimm’s tale is for a younger audience and is simplified so that no knowledge is needed before reading the story.