Welcome Students....To The Fairy Tales, Folktales, Myths and Dreams Workshop. Fairy Tales is a place for you to go back into childhood stories and dreams. A place where fantasy and reality seem to merge into an overflowing dream state.

In this workshop you will discover and re-visit various components of your life that make you unique and wonderful. I am not here to teach you these things, but to guide you towards the discovery. Discovering who you are is an on-going process that combines those life experiences; past, present, and future. According to John Locke, "personal identity (the self) depends on consciousness, not on substance, nor on the soul". We are the same person, to the extent, that we are conscious of our past and future thoughts and actions in the same way as we are conscious of our present thoughts and actions.

Humans are viewed as goal oriented agents who actively seek information. They come to formal education (and training) with a range of prior knowledge, skills, beliefs, and concepts, that significantly influence what they notice about the environment and how they organize and interpret it. This in turn, affects their abilities to remember, reason, solve problems and acquire knowledge. (Bransford, Brown & Cockling 1999, p10)

This workshop is designed as a stress-free environment, free from paperwork, reports, research projects, and negative attitudes. This will be a time for you to return to a place that you found joy and comfort. Being a grownup is highly overrated, so enjoy the class.

THE POWER OF WORDS

WHAT ARE YOUR WORDS SAYING..........

Hansel and Gretel

"Hansel and Gretel" asks us to believe that two children abandoned by their parents, in the forest, will find a house made of Gingerbread. But these and other tales live on because they are dramatic metaphors of real life. "Hansel and Gretel", for instance, represents the two greatest fears of children - that they will be abandoned and that they will be imprisoned. Many adults, if they think back, will remember one of both of these fears, though usually in a less extreme version. We occasionally felt neglected, disregarded, unsupported - unloved. Or we felt overprotected, overindulged, intruded upon - loved, but in a very possessive, almost scary way.

"Hansel and Gretel" was essentially about a brave and clever girl who saves her brother from danger. For another, it was about a brave and clever boy who figures out how to find his and his sister's way home by marking their path through the woods. Some may view the tale as a warning against a greed for sweets.