Importance of appreciating what we have and creativity

Soon I will begin my volunteer work at Tunbridge public charter school and I am very much looking forward to it. I want to help these kids by doing all that is in my power and I believe that the message in these readings contain some of the things that I want to teach the kids but also some of the fears that I think might happen to me. In the short story “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one realizes that one must not focus on perfection and always improving what one has but valuing what they do have. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a newly wed wife is suffering from what they call a nervous depression but the real cause of her breaking down was her unavailability to express herself. Finally in the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth, he talks about how we must cherish a moment that is right in front of us before it becomes only a memory.

            While helping out at Tunbridge, I plan on teaching the kids that focusing on being the perfect student or perfect anything is not the way to live your life. In “The Birthmark”, Aylmer noticed a birthmark that looked like a hand on the cheek of his new wife and considers it a flaw in an otherwise perfect woman. He suggests that she remove the birthmark with the help of his knowledge in science and later becomes obsessed with getting rid of that birthmark. Aylmer invents a potion that will eliminate that birthmark but in the end she dies after achieving “perfection”. Aylmer did not value what he had and could not accept Georgiana’s one flaw which led to her demise. At Tunbridge I intend to teach them to value what they have in their lives and to not take anything for granted.

            One of the school’s goal is to promote creativity and for the kids to be themselves. My goal is to help demonstrate how imagination and the act of self-expression are good for a person. In the other short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator is a wife in the 1800’s and she believes that she is sick but her husband says that it is only temporary nervous depression and that she should do nothing but rest. They will not even let her write but she decides to secretly write and writes about their new house that they have just moved into. She becomes fixated with the yellow wallpaper in her room and she says that she sees these patterns in them. She then pretends that everything is okay but she becomes more and more obsessed with the wallpaper. She eventually believes that in the wallpaper were women trying to get out of the wallpaper, so she decides to rip the wallpaper off. In the end the narrator became crazy but this was due largely because her husband insists that she control her imagination and not let it get the best of her. She must hide how she really feels in order to make everybody else perceive them as a happy couple. The children will have to learn that expressing yourself and showing how you feel is how you get things done in real life. If they are not happy with a situation or need more help on a certain subject than I would be glad to help.  

            Lastly in the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth, the main message that I detected was that in life we have to make sure we cherish the special moments in our lives because soon they will become only memories to reminisce about. The speaker talks about how one day while walking he comes across a field of daffodils that were “Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way”. He describes the daffodils as dancing and that one could not help but feel joy while watching them. Then he says “I gazed- and gazed – but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought”, “For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye”. The speaker realizes that at the moment of watching the daffodils he thought nothing much of them but in sad or lonely times the images of the dancing daffodils pop up in his head. I want to make sure that I do not overlook this experience that I am about to embark on. I fear that I will only see this task as something I am forced to do and will not enjoy the opportunities that present themselves while working there. I will get to meet new people and the experiences that I have there will hopefully create everlasting memories.