The Sweet Stinging Bee

 

    In my opinion, entertainment is one of the reasons why movies exist. Part of their role in our society is to provide entertainment to those who come seeking for one. As for that, this movie will never fail to provide what the audience wants. Usually, if it is a movie that involves kids or animals, it would be great miss if we do not watch that movie. As in this movie, it revolves around a little girl named Akeelah and her passion in spelling. She is a brilliant student but her life is not balanced as she had lost her father. It really creates an interest in me as I started watching this movie as it started with a simple narration that straight away brings the audience into the storyline. It is also fun to watch how the kids from ghetto talks of their slang, it was like listening to a rap song. This movie is really fun to be watched from the beginning till the end.

    As a student of B.Ed TESL, I was very impressed with the words that they used in the spelling bee competition. I have never come across those words in my life before. Probably I would have screwed up even in the school level. Taking it in a positive way, this is my inspiration to learn more new words. Not only that, but I would like to use them when I write or speak. The real purpose is not to make myself sound bombastic but it is just for my self-satisfaction. I just feel that I am learning to make myself better and when I see the fruitful outcome from it, that is what happiness is to me. So, basically, this movie acts as one of my inspiration for me to learn more, not only in the aspects of new words but together with all the elements of this course, such as teaching methods, research skills, every single element that will be useful to me.

Seeing the character of Dr.Larabee by LaurenceFishburne reminds me of my primary school teachers who trained me for district level public speaking competition, Pn.Zainon and En.Zabadi. They really did their best that whenever they have time, they will hang out with me just to make sure that I will be able to speak well. I know it was not only for the purpose of school’s achievement, they were very sincere in their jobs. We became more like a small group of friends rather than teachers and student. They would call me to their office and we would talk stories while practicing. I spent quality time with them that they have become part of my life. They gave me so much of confidence and I would daringly say that they are one of the reasons why I am who I am today. This movie reminded of my good moments and bad moments that I had my teachers. It was worth the tears that would have shed if I had continued thinking about for quite some time.

     

     “Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate, but how strong we are, it is beyond measure”. This has to be the turning point of Akeelah’s life when Dr.Larabee asked her to read them. The same happened to me. Those lines were very strong and deep and I told myself that this has to be the best line from the movie. I used to think very negatively because of my past experience. But recently, I read so many motivational books and I have managed to change my mind to be more positive. This line has become a boost for me to be more positive. We are our on master, we have more power than we could imagine, we are our own super heroes, when we fully realize this life would be different for real. As a future teacher, I also have learnt that I must have the passion to teach and I must be sincere in what I do. I just hope that as long as I can be a teacher, I would like to create at least ten students who would make me proud and that would satisfy myself as a teacher.

Edward and The Dragon

Childhood is one period of time where it is filled with fantasies and amazing stories. Everything is possible in the stories because our imagination know no limit for it. Therefore, children story are often the best method to make children keep quiet, at least for a while.

The story that I have chosen is Edward and the dragon. I read this story when I was in primary school. It is about a young knight named Edward. Despite his young age, he has fought so many enemies and won over them without using any weapons. His best weapon is his intelligence. One day, he comes across a cave as he goes for a walking. He heard voices crying for help and he goes searching or it. He reaches a castle and heard the voices again. He finds that they are locked there for years and treated as slaves by a dragon. As he climbed the castle wall to rescue them, he almost got killed by a fireball from his back. There is the dragon standing furiously behind Edward. Without getting angry, Edward tells the dragon that he forgives the dragon because it does not know who Edward is. The dragon is shocked as no one dared to speak like that to the dragon. He challenged Edward to fight with him. Edward used his intelligence and created a story telling that he is the owner of Great Crystal Sword. The only place that the sword’s magic would not work is the Gold Castle at the other end of the world. Edward told the dragon that he will wait for the dragon there and creates thick smoke so that he can hide. The dragon flies off to find the castle and Edward took his time to rescue the people in the castle. What happens to the dragon? Well, it found the castle and squeezed itself into the castle. It is stuck in it and still waiting to be rescued till today.

The reason why I chose this story is because I always have been fascinated with dragons. As I was born in the year of Dragon, I feel that I am a part of it. It gives me so much of inspiration as the creature is legendary. Anything that relates to dragon would catch my attention, even till today. I feel that this story is interesting because the bravery of Edward facing the dragon despite his small size compared to the dragon is something that we should make exemplary of. I wish I could be Edward and fight the dragon. I would have made the story filled with actions.

The characters shown in the story are a boy, a dragon and the people who are slaves. Dragon is shown as the villain of the story and they often do not have enough intelligence as the hero. That is why it got tricked by Edward who is better in using his brain and win against the dragon without raising his sword. This story is really suitable for the children because they will be able to represent themselves as Edward and learn from him to be brave. As Edward is also a small boy, this would create a relationship with the children as they would feel that it is someone just like them. Probably, the children would even gear up like Edward and ready to face a dragon. This story helps them to be braver and widen their imagination so that they would be able to solve the problems which seems to be bigger than them without any help.

Learning through the children's world

Who says that we cannot learn from children? No one set the rule that adults are created to teach children and children are only to learn from what the adults say. There are so many things that we, as adults can learn from the children. They often remind us of our past, our beautiful childhood memory and they form as reminders of the lesson that we inherited from our ancestors.

One of the good example would be the story of "Edwina the Emu" by Sheena Knowles. It is a story of a female emu, going out of her nest to work and support her ten new emus that are ready to crack out from their eggs. Edwina goes to town, while her husband takes care of the eggs. She becomes a ballerina but rejected because she's a dancing emu. She's rejected for the second time because she's an emu that can sweep chimneys and lastly, she runs away to her nest when a guy said that he could eat ten eggs for breakfast. This story is written with wonderful ryhming lines that even adults like us would enjoy reading it anytime.

What should be taken note is that lesson inflicted in this story is a reminder of the lesson that we have learned from the past. Being a female, Edwina would be the best person to raise up her babies. But she forgets her duty and goes out to find a job. I did not mean to be gender bias but I feel that it is the duty of a woman to raise and take care of the family while a man goes out and provides what is necessary. This is what the lesson of the story is all about. It is a wonderfully illustrated and funny alarm of reminder.

There is another children's story that would be a good lesson for all of us, regardless of the age to learn. It is the story of "The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson. This story is one of the best tool that can be used to expand our imagination as it is our own world, we are the king of our own imagination. Whatever goes through our mind, is because we think of it, there is no other reason. The mouse, the protagonist in this story, creates an imaginary wild animal that would scare off other animals that want to eat the mouse. eventually, he bumps into a gruffalo, an animal that he thought does not exist and he uses his imagination to overcome the problem with the same method.

What we can learn here is that, we are responsible for what we are saying to people and we must have the guts to face the conequences. As for the mouse, he is aware of what he had said and he is ready to face the consequences. At the end, he manages to send the gruffalo running for his life. The exciting part is how the mouse imagines a gruffalo to be and describes it to his enemies. We should have the ability to imagine and we know that the children are really good at it. So, this would be give a helpful hand for them to expand their imaginative skills and what do you know, you're kids might be the future creative heads of the country.

So, here is a suggestion, preferably a request for parents or adults to get the book and read it out for yourself and kids around. It is time for us to go back to our roots and let our kids learn good lesson from us. It also time for us to remind ourselves of our own duty. Equality is one part but let us see what is our duty and what we are good at as our priority. This is how we learn through the children's world.