Childhood Development

I grew up in the fabulous era of awesome cartoons. Fortunately for me, my world didn't need the glam, glitz and glitter of shows like Hannah Montana and Zoey 101 to satisfy my fix of afternoon television. No, I got the humbling satisfaction of watching shows like Hey Arnold, Pokemon, and Recess.

There's already a disconnect between the late 90s and the mid millenium generation. It seems that the different ways in which shows are conveyed to the masses now are affecting the way in which we behave and have outlooks on certain things.

So, I thought about how this might ring true for the youth who grew up in the pre and post era of the Berlin Wall. Surely the uses of media and even education must have differed on both sides of the wall, and therefore this brings up questions of what these differences were and what kind of impact it had on the Berlin youths.

It would be cool to perhaps look at some of the shows (if possible, hopefully YouTube might have some), or maybe view through grade school textbooks to see if any comparisons or contrasts lie within them to allow me a closer look into the childhood of an East and West Berliner.

After all, they say childhood is one of the most crucial time in a person's development. So, I want to examine the type of things that were playing a role in molding the lives of these youths, who, to my understanding, may as well have grown up on different sides of the world.

In class, after much thought about what my research question could possibly be about, the objects that I would put on my altar would be an East and West Berlin children's book, a popular toy memorabilia, a grade school teacher's lesson plan, and maybe even lyrics to a childhood nursery rhyme.

Gum Wall, mmm.

I was downtown the other day and I wandered down to the Pike Place. After indulging in some donut holes and admiring the rainbow roses and getting intoxicated off of the scent of seafood, I remembered that there's a popular wall here in Seattle, too.

The Gum Wall.

Who knows the history of the Gum Wall, perhaps a long time worker at the market used to stick his wad onto that wall during each smoke break because a trash can wasn't near by, maybe it was started by a hopeful contemporary artist, or maybe it was entirely unintentional. Whatever it's origin, it's clear to see why it attracts people.

A brick wall serving as a canvas to thousands, maybe even millions, of chewed gum. DoubleMint, Big Red, Dentyne, Bubble Yum, have all found their final resting place in this back alley. This wall holds an oral history of its own.

It's pretty impressive how articulate some people are with their gum, spelling out messages or their names, a stroll through a back alley turns into a gallery walk.

Local "Borders"

I've always been a bit weirded out by the elegant and high end establishment of the U-Village shopping strip down the hill from campus. It's such a huge contrast from the urban setting of The Ave, and a bit of an ironic name for such a non-university associated place (in fact, I don't think any of the retail stores down there are "Husky" owned). I remember stepping onto the strip for the first time and wondering whether such a place was truly useful for an average college student. Could one really afford a $500 Coach purse when tuition and books were nearly unaffordable to begin with? And yet, despite such criticism, U-Village remains fairly occupied by local UW students. And who could blame them? The shops are nestled within a dainty setting of groomed pots of flowers and friendly water fountain statues. Even buckets of umbrellas are conveniently located at the turn of every corner to ensure that the customer gets the best (and dry) shopping experience in a rainy city.

Perhaps this sparked my thinking. Such a slick move on the retailer's part, to make a shopping mall so welcoming. U-Village encased within it such an elegant setting that echoed one similar of upper-middle class suburbia, one can't help but be charmed by it. Corporate retail disguised as pleasantville.

These building walls locked in it a world of consumerism. Friendly signs that reminded customers of sales and deals. Store after store after store. Vibrant colors that the eyes loved drinking in; cleaniliness that made the environment feel safe,--safe enough to spend one's cash in. And, sure enough, it's what people do.

And, maybe, I'm looking this too heavily through a marxist lens, maybe consumerism is good, especially in this economy.

But, with such an alluring destination so close in proximity with people who rely on retail-therapy, and, on top of that, are easily sucked in by advertisement, can such a place (even outside of it's physical existence) be escapable?

A Personal Border

During Speed-Dating, I shared a really bland story of how living in Seattle my entire life was a border of mines. However, after more thought, I thought of another "border" that has more significance to it.

In my senior year of high school, my cumulative senior project was on Spoken Word. For an action plan, I drew up a curriculum on performance poetry and got to teach a Speech class during 5th period. I got to work with a lot of underclassmen, who, more or less, were unmotivated to write. While their personalities were exuberant, their feelings towards writing were one of disdain and disinterest. They were horrified when I first introduced the "5-minute-free-writing," an exercise that encourages the writer to let their mind run rampage and write for five minutes without breaks in order to get their creative juices running. I experienced a lot of turbulence while teaching that class, it was a weird position for me because I was so used to being seen as a peer, but came to realize that the students had attached a "teacher" title to me because I stood in front of the board. This complicated things a bit: they relied on me to teach them the content, but at the same time, were afraid to open up to me because I was the authoritative figure.

*side note* I guess to make this more understandable, my school has experienced a history of low expectations from the local community, we were deemed as the "Ghetto School" because of our diversity, demographics, and issues of student achievement. But the problems lie deeper than the statistics, a lot of the students were dealing with personal problems at home, their neighborhoods, and friends. A lot of the students had a preconception that teachers at school were seen as "enemies" rather than potential helpers.

I knew that personalization had always helped me in my academics. So, I decided to break that border of title and differences, be it age, ethnicity, or background, and to get to know my peers/students. I noticed that as the conversations increased, barriers and walls started to come down. I learned so much from them as we discussed topics of issues in life, relationships, school, our futures, and our opinions on things. Our views differed from one another just as much as they had commonalities, too, but even more importantly, our bond as a class grew stronger as our trust deepened. The students' writing grew more complex and revealing, and their confidence in speaking up and ability to execute their performances well also increased. It was definitely a rough and rewarding experience, especially in overcoming barriers/borders.