Nothing is Wrong with Cinderella!

Peggy Orenstein's article focuses a major part on how girls get the wrong message at a young age when they idolize Disney's princesses and "play princess". At a young age, I believe it is perfectly normal for girls to buy princess items and want to "be" princesses because what else are they going to do for fun? Sure, there are sports that they can play at a young age and there are other toys that they can play with, but most of the toys targeted for little girls are "girly" things. I'm not saying that girls should only play with girl toys; I believe that children at a young age should play with whatever makes them feel happy. I do believe however that because we live in a society that shows girls that playing dress up and pretending to be princess is accepted, then they should be allowed to go with their imaginations and do so. After all, it will just be a phase. How many teen girls now believe that they are princesses and play with barbies? The answer would be almost none. Children go through phases in their lives. One minute Sally is a princess and then the next minute she is teaching her stuffed animals the ABC's. The days when I thought I was princess hasn't had an effect on me growing up and the way I perceive women today; it was assumed after the age of ten or so that girls don't grow up to become perfect princesses because that is what we are taught even before the princess phase is over.

"The Rules of Attribution" Response

In the first years of highschool, I was taught not to take someone else's ideas and put my name on them to hand them in for credit. Plagiarism was taught in every classroom and in the same way; a handout and maybe even a packet in which we as the students were asked to read when we got home. In the essay, "The Rules of Attribution", I strongly agree with Gerhardt in that sometimes teachers do not fully teach the rules effectively so that students can fully understand what Plagiarism is. My teachers assumed that we already knew what it was because every teacher for every subject was supposed to touch on it. Because of this assumption, my teachers rarely discussed it at all, and if they did, they would just whip out the handout and tell us to read it on our own. Yes, people could easily have asked questions the next day, but who really reads a one to two page paper on plagiarism when we think we know what it is in the first place? I believe that teachers and professors shouldn't lecture what Plagiarism is, but give examples of different writings that include plagiarism and show us how to replace "stealing" with creating our own ideas based off of others.

"Culture Renaissance or Culture Divide?"

While reading "Culture Renaissance or Culture Divide?" by Bill Ivey and Steven Tepper, I gained a lot of knowledge that while in a growing technological world, we still experience a "culture divide". Although more and more people are experiencing the arts through their own creations, whether building their own recording studios, or filming their own "professional" movies and posting them over the Internet, those with less technological resources and time and money cannot experience other people's creations or their own. This does not allow those who have less time and less money to broaden their horizons, which forces them to "jump on the bandwagon" and listen to the same songs on the radio according to what is "popular". I think that this is why people need to not wait around until the next big thing is broadcasted on the televisions or the radios, but to find the next big thing by experiencing it themselves. To do this, it does also require people to use the latest technology and to keep updated in a world of endless technological advances.

I think it is great that "pro-ams" are experiencing art hands on and this is what we all should do. It only takes one person with one new idea to help America's culture broaden. With more and more ideas and new skills, the world can be more culturally diverse and more people will be forced to experience an array of things and become more culturally diverse themselves.