Helga Kidder's Luckier Than The Stars - Essay Example

? Luckier Than Stars are scared to death. Most particularly of their own innate selves. Afraid, terrified in fact, to bring out what experiences come out at the end of their pen. Yet however, when they breathe in the ready stillness, mysteries await them of a vivacious nature, astonishing truths that compliment England’s queen in their likeness, delights that are unplanned, especially by the school-system. Most people spend so much time skimming the surface that they somehow forget to question serenity, what drives the gentle wave of most assignments. Teachers in a worldwide respect unite by an unstated agreement, in a purified endeavor of the struggle to make students believe in themselves through literature, recognizing the importance but regularly missing the target. They hope that teaching a wide array of literary genre will do the trick, simply willing that students will find for what it is they’re looking. But what a joke! It is not this which tickles the inner pendulum. There is something powerful about language. It battles that fear. Pick a book up that speaks about theory and one effaces that internal environment battle of not being able to use the pen. Here one’s spirit can move forth freely. Whittier’s (n.d., p. 151) The Wife of Manoah To Her Husband portrays a mental breakthrough of the internal critic: “I bowed my face, in awe and fear . . . On the dear child . . . Oh God! I said, THY WILL BE DONE!” Undoubtedly the author attains a conclusion about theory. Because writers of creativity are continually using an attractive mix of an ingenuous dance, a dance between “the rational and intuitive” (Hanlon n.d.) right and left hemispheres of the mind. Whittier’s theory in the poem is of a supreme being’s dominance. Humans have all kinds of theories, all of them spiked with a bit of creativity’s work. There is one for washing, “I’ve never washed my shadow out . . . And stuck it in the washtub . . . I put it in soap and bleach and stuff. . . ” (Silverstein 1974, p. 113). All of writing merely serves as a process of transmission. In a similar way that neurotransmitters in the human mind play across the lines of a back and forth running practice, the conscious mind constantly seeks out old connections, so as to spawn new ones to grow. Metaphorically, the mind builds an incredible structure, more powerful and awe-inspiring than architects could ever dream of designing. Schema theory marks the ways in which schools struggle to accommodate this unique oddity of the human mind. Yet the concept maps, the chalkboard discussions in which all students bring together their personal emotions and background knowledge about a particular subject matter, has a greater purpose at work than simply informational storage. The absence of this purpose generates most educational detriment. Rosenblatt verifies: “The text has the potential to evoke meaning but has no meaning itself; meaning is not a characteristic of texts” (cited in the University of California n.d.). A relationship is at work between the material and the reader. A reader needs to breathe, needs to believe. Schema theory represents units of connection in the way the mind works, but those who truly understand it know that it is a more an expression of self, like adding wildflowers to a growing vase: ~ ’Magine ’Dat ~ I used to call my uncle ‘Jet,’ For he was Jeff, my aunt said. The door to his room ‘locked,’ Inviting me to ‘bang,’ ‘bang,’ it. Walking up on Sesame Street. Ernie was telling me stories, But I confused them with reality. This pretty orange person knew Cookie Monster caused cookie crumbles, Since his blue form was related, As I saw him with those yummies. So I saw myself with my nickname. For Jet called me ‘Cookie.’ Growing up didn’t seem difficult, Even though adults told woes, Because life was so exciting. ’Magine ’dat, said I with candor, So many wonderful things I Couldn’t stop my puzzlement, From questioning my mom’s judgment. Mommy and Daddy had strange thoughts, About the world we lived in. For starters Daddy didn’t see straight. He saw our lord, for instance, Who I absolutely knew cured blind men. What would the lord have said, If he knew Daddy didn’t see castles? And Mommy! The things she saw! She saw a stork bring babies, I know because the stork brought me. Once I tried to tell her though, About this Ernie fellow. About his sailings, his trips, That were of the imagination. And you know what? She said they didn’t exist! Well I loved being called ‘Cookie, Because he reminded me of Cookie Monster. My aunt and uncle’s house was such fun! We could use these imaginary nicknames. No one ever told my aunt, uncle and I, That we shouldn’t do it. Here there were no limits! Though I hardly knew of them, Except for the fact they ruined everything! How could I run ’round with Ernie, Slaying castles and their knights in armor, If someone came to fetch me home, Taking away my sword? My eyes would fill with sadness, That would fall like God’s rain, Which by the way is another thought of my parents- If someone again lectured me of existence! Never did hardship fall on me, When I learned the rote of Existence, Since he never bothered me very much. I think that imagination taught, What it truly is to believe, So with my 'magine 'dat theory I tell you, That I never learned, playtime from reality, Because I believe they both exist! One does not separate from the other, And the second compliments the first. Reality is a bit imaginary, While imagination sparkles with a bit of realism. And you know what? They are both really attractive. When I was a young child I never second-guessed myself. A quality no doubt characterized by naturalness, although schema theory brings us to a rather interesting paradox. Children believe in the imaginary world around them so easily, that it would be better perhaps, if the units of knowledge we acquire were not so time oriented. The sensory images, plethora of imagery, syntax, word-meanings and furthermore emotional aspects of present circumstance brought to a person when faced with foreign, as yet undeveloped schemata- plural for schema or the knowledge- are more accepting of strangers to their party when one is undeveloped. Consider the number of nursery rhymes, poems, and children’s narratives whose sole focus concerns the self. A keystone of the schema theory creating thus a forceful matter of importance in the way education presents itself in schools, takes a stake in the most optimistic environment of the inner self. Many short storybooks as an example, center around a child’s physical body. Young children learning to potty-train are exposed to corresponding books about the subject as soon as their mothers can attain them. One of the most popular potty training books for boys entitled, Once Upon a Potty, begins by specifying each part of the body of the main character in congruence with a bald, simple picture of a small child which covers the whole page. In addition the first sentence on the second page relates the reader to self. “Just like you, Joshua has a body, and this body has many nice and useful parts . . . [goes on to list them]” (Frankel 2007, p. 5). Self-esteem and its ability to enable the experience of learning passes through the fastidiousness of most educators. It is lost among designated reading material. Literature still purposes to solve inner and outer difficulties, but meaning, the interactive relationship between the self and the material or its creation, no longer makes an appearance. Educational tyranny in the suppression of a reader’s purified oneness may be similar to Eichmann’s opinion of the Nazi system’s authority over himself during World War II, when carrying out the government’s desires: “We heard the prosecutions of the defense that Eichmann was after all only a ‘tiny cog’ in the machinery of the Final Solution . . . ” (Arendt 1963, p. 289). The ability to read and to write well, unlike any other more distant forms of learning, cannot flourish without fulfilling some certain need. This broad attachment of personal development, perhaps, can account for the reason that teachers of the art begin introducing various types of literature to students at a very young age, striving to implement that knowledge through the theory of schema. In literature we just like to play! The mind is a natural wanderer. That harnessing of the creative as tempered by the rational, the individual uniqueness of the scholar made available by the rationale of silver. Whether it be for enjoyment, the reader and writer together share a common bond in the struggle to compensate for some sort of disappointment. Such an ingenious tactic of mental health of the beautiful yet incomprehensible human body unsurprisingly sits friendly with schema theorists. “ . . . When information from one source, such as word recognition, is deficient, the reader will rely on information from another source, for example, contextual clues or previous experience” (University of California n.d.). Therefore with this natural feature of the brain in thought, the ways in which the writer and his audience seek out satisfaction for various desires make themselves endlessly available. Simple prose, one of the earliest forms the school-system teaches to beginning students, generates an uncomplicated emulation of skill with little structure, easily providing for such spiritual fulfillment. Consider the character of Jane Eyre, her parallels to Scarlett O’Hara, even those of Rochester with the legendary Rhett Butler. Margaret Mitchell writes of a rebellious young woman whose hard times have turned bitterness into the strength to deviate from the norms of her contemporaries. Although Scarlett and Rhett generally lose most of their prior ties of companionship due to their erratic behavior, they sacrifice virtue for pragmatism, making themselves eventually an abode of luxurious adoration. Jane Eyre breathes a similar battle of internal crossroads, finding herself unable to choose between the man she loves, Edward Rochester, who too has made himself a black sheep among his people, or a life of liberation which reflects her studious endeavors. Life for all of these characters reflects much wanting. Tossed among the brinks of destruction of her home and family throughout the Civil War’s rally Scarlett O’Hara powerfully, inspiringly vows aloud to herself, “ ‘As God is my witness, as God is my witness . . . the Yankees aren’t going to lick me . . . I’m going to live through this, and . . . as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again’ ” (Mitchell 1936, p. 428). ‘Well, it’s story-time.’ What does this phrase denote for children? In the story of Little Ida’s Flowers, “At the piano sat a large lily. It seemed to little Ida as if the tall yellow flower really was like the young lady. She had just the same manners while playing, bending her long yellow face from side to side, and nodding in time to the beautiful music” (Andersen n.d., p. 58). What? Can’t we be beautiful flowers? The lesson of the strange phenomenon creates but one of the many curious routes of learning students meander down, wrapping formal teaching into one with self-expression, a pathway paved by schemata. Teachers may next draw up a poetry instruction, for students now have a generalized informal layout on which to build further dendrites. Depicted by its neatly organized structure, the poet’s muse requires some generic background knowledge before the structure can be stored to mindset through conceptual devices. After this introduction the reader once again becomes liberated to an onslaught of knowledgeable nourishment. Such as dreaming of a tree house: “A tree house, a free house . . . a street house, a neat house . . . ” (Silverstein 1974, p. 79). Poetic syntax and rhyme scheme opens the avenue for short plays leading into full-length theatrical works, until scholars of the art studies finally see the merit in the works of Shakespeare, discovering supernal value in Gregory’s: “To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand; therefore, if thou art moved, thou runnest away,” from the renowned Romeo and Juliet. Reading and writing reflect development of the student host at all organizational levels, at all levels of learning, a surface mirroring ourselves as the human being truly stands. The intellectual capacity of the homo sapien separates our species from beings living or otherwise whose special purposes of conformity validate their ability to adhere. We are not ruled by facts, nor are we specimens created for A Brave New World’s functional carry-out. Humans look to a greater faith for an exceptionally higher ruling, as a road-turn in the route towards the narrow path of happiness. An escape from excessive imbalance, the path which is so bountifully populated. J K Rowling’s (2003) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix throws a cap out to the martyrs of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the fight of foes, displaying Harry and the rest of his friends as heroes in the shade of the school’s dictate. “ ‘It’s about preparing ourselves, like Harry said in Umbridge’s first lesson, for what’s waiting out there. It’s about making sure we can really defend ourselves . . . we need a teacher, a proper one, who can show us how to use the spells and correct us if we’re going wrong’ ” (pp. 325-326). Students hold the infrastructure of their own education, in Rowling’s story, they have the courage to run with it. The genres used to teach literature merely define avenues by which students can unlock this treasure, bringing meaning to exposures in their scientific interactions with them, casting the indescribable upon the describable, and utilizing them both. My ’magine ’dat theory I formulated in all those many glorious ages past, is a lake’s mirroring image of that thought, that of trust children cherish in themselves, made lovelier by connections around them. They don’t know of schema. Yet it is always in their mind. They have no need of structure, for they trust their own. The simplest poetic work describes easily the day of tomorrow, the love of our life today. Yet as they say a ‘book filled’ up lifetime could be stated in just a few pages. There is no tomorrow. And there is no today. Life is an interactive play between two worlds, one of which knows the better end of existence. They are beautiful counterparts. But when we believe in the gift of the writing hand of our imagination, there is no doubt that we, in our infinite insatiable fulfillment are, luckier than stars. List of References Andersen, H C n.d., Andersen’s fairy tales, Grosset & Dunlap, New York. Arendt, H 1963, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Viking Press, New York. California State University n.d., Schema theory, viewed 4 August 2011, http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gipej/teaparty.pdf Frankel, A 2007, Once upon a potty, Firefly Books, Buffalo. Hanlon, E n.d, Falling down the rabbit hole, a practical guide, viewed 4 August 2011, http://www.emilyhanlon.com/Default.htm Mitchell, M 1936, Gone with the wind, Macmillan Company, New York. Rowling, J K 2003, Harry potter and the order of the phoenix, Scholastic Press, New York. Silverstein, S 1974, Where the sidewalk ends, Harper Collins, New York. Word Count: 2,424 Read More