Myth and Folklore

How Arts Education Teaches Kids to Learn From Failure I believe there is no better way to set young people up for success than by teaching them arts in school. I have learned the most important life lessons from my time spent in the dance studio - about time management, about the process of learning and refining a craft, and about pushing my limits to go beyond where I think I am capable of being. As the article states, art is fundamentally about a growth process, because it's not like you can slap a letter grade on a tendu. Instead, you work each day to understand how your feet move across the floor to create a specific shape, which ultimately enables greater movement built from this fundamental concept. The phrase "practice makes permanent" is one I have heard before in dance, and it relates the idea that when you ignore the process of making something better, you are essentially an unwanted result. It is much better to fail a thousand times than to spend those tho...

Day and Night  I've always loved the idea of personifying day and night: as the guardians of light and darkness, and as the timeless couple that works together to keep the cycles of earth in balance. My grandparents have two beautiful native American sculptures that depict the sun and the moon as vaguely humanesque creatures. They live side by side on a wall in their home, and I have always loved imagining the special bond they share as the keepers of day and night. For this project I would like to explore how and sun and moon have been represented in different cultures, and what the concepts of day and night mean to them. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013437416&view=1up&seq=294  (p.248) A New Alice Alice in Wonderland is a timeless classic, and one of the reasons it is so beloved is because of all the unique characters the reader encounters during Alice's journey. I think it would be a lot of fun to start with a different initial c...

There once was a little girl named Maya who lived with her family at the edge of the wood. The forest surrounding the cottage they called home was lush and extended as far as the eye could see. Maya loved weaving through the trees and wandering between the twists and turns of the brambles. But although she felt at home in the forest, she always wished for a playmate to explore with her. There were no other children for miles.  One day Maya decided to create her own playmate. She gathered sticks and leaves, and grasses and mud, and slowly layered the elements of the earth together to create the image of a young girl. She stacked the sticks as sturdy bones, wove the leaves and grasses together as delicate tendons and muscles, and smoothed the mud over the exterior. She found two shiny black pebbles that she pressed gently into the mud for eyes, laid a soft bed of moss for hair. Maya adored her new friend. She sat with the earthen girl for hours beneath the trees in the ...

Origin Stories: The Moon -Two versions: the moon in the moon and the hare in the moon The Man: -The man in the moon was originally a blacksmith -Goes through a series of wishing to be something else (a stone, a stone-cutter, the sun, and finally the moon) -Decides being a blacksmith is ultimately the best option, but it is too late; the man is destined to remain in the moon The hare: -The buddha was born as a hare -Has three friends: monkey, jackal, and otter -Decrees that alms must be given to the poor -Each animal comes upon food in a different way, on a continuum of morality -The hare has no food to give -Decides to offer himself as food  -A brahmin seeks to test his sincerity, and builds a fire to roast the hare -The hare jumps on, but is unaffected by the flames The Three Roses -A seemingly more grotesque version of the more familiar tale of Beauty and the Beast -A mother picks three roses for her daughter, but pays dearly when the ow...

Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4 Week 3: Bible Women Week 4: Jewish Fairy Tales Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6 Week 5:  Arabian Nights Week 6: Turkish Fairy Tales Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9 Week 7: Filipino Popular Tales Week 9: Folktales of Bengal Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11 Week 10: Apache Tales Week 11: Myths of the Cherokee Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13 Week 12: Alice in Wonderland  Week 13: Faerie Queen Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15. Week 14: Czech Folktales Week 15: Italian Popular Tales *For the master list, please visit the  The UnTextbook Comments: I grew up on folk tales and fairy tales. I always loved the idea that each story was associated with a moral or deeper meaning of some kind, and that the stories were often narrated by animals. Hearing a story from a the po...