Tag Archives: elementary school

Barney Parody Song

“Joy to the world, Barney’s dead
We barbecued his head!”

Context: The informant is a junior at USC, originally from Illinois. She told me that children from her elementary school would sing this song to the same tune as “Joy to the World,” and while there’s more to the song, she doesn’t remember it. She hasn’t sung it in a very long time and does remember there being different versions of the song as well. The “Barney” referenced is Barney the purple dinosaur from the children’s show Barney & Friends.

Analysis: From my experience, a lot of elementary schools had parody songs related to violence against Barney, but this was the first I had heard of that wasn’t actually to the tune of the show’s theme song. Regardless, this, as per Jay Mechling’s chapter in Elliott Oring’s Folk Groups and Folklore Genres, reflects one of the antithetical categories of children’s folklore: parodies. Violence against Barney is a purposeful subversion of the show’s theme (a theme that starts with “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family”) and, considering Barney was a cornerstone of many childhoods, almost seems to function as a rejection of that childishness. I think that as we grow up, it becomes “cool” to be more like the older kids; it becomes “cool” to associate with more taboo concepts like sex and violence. It becomes “uncool” to continue to believe in the blissfully unrealistic world Barney portrays, or to engage in displays of earnest emotion. Parodying violence against Barney seems to function as a way to divorce oneself from that childishness and start moving more towards adulthood. It reinforces social dynamics between age groups and shames those who still like things deemed as “childish,” defining social norms that persist far beyond childhood.

Mr. Magic

Informant AJ is a university freshman from San Jose, California. AJ attended a San Jose elementary school since he was five years old.

Text:

“Unfortunately, after some time, students noticed that one staff member who we called Mr. Magic wasn’t appearing in the classrooms anymore showing off his awesome magic, but we didn’t really think too much of it. I can’t remember if this was in elementary school or after I moved on. I just remember my family was telling me that he was caught stealing money from the PTA and keeping it for himself, so that was a very disappointing story, and it wasn’t really shared with the community. I can’t necessarily confirm this story but this is just what I’ve been hearing from a couple people.”

Context:

“Mr. Magic was a guy who did magic for his students at our elementary school. Some of his tricks were very nice but other tricks were definitely just because we were pretty gullible. Quite frankly, they weren’t the greatest tricks but overall it was pretty fun to see what he had for us students. He was very well-liked by most of the students, and was definitely a people person.”

Analysis:

The fact that Mr. Magic was affiliated with an elementary school contributes to the creation of the quasi-legendary figure of Mr. Magic. As is customary in the United States and in numerous other countries, there is a distinctly separate identity for children than there is for adults. This may constitute what stories, games, clothing, or behavior is appropriate, but especially dictates to what extent a child or adult is allowed access to information. Following the creation of the printing press in 1450 and the emergence of widespread schooling was the emergence of a complementary childhood identity that separated from adults, whereas beforehand, children were seen as small adults and expected to take on many of the same responsibilities. This would explain why students such as AJ were left in the dark at the time, paving the way for folk narratives to emerge both about his dazzling status as a well-liked magician, and of his mysterious disappearance.

Bloody Mary in the Bathroom – Legend

Context:

J is a screenwriting second-year at USC, raised in Canada but moved to American when J was 10 years old. The below text is a story told among the female students at J’s elementary school.

Text:

When J was in elementary school, there was a bathroom where people said that a girl had died in while she was a student in school who continued to haunt the bathroom because of how gruesome her death was without finding peace. Her spirit believed to be lingering there resulted in the creation of their own version of Bloody Mary. Students would say that “Bloody Mary lives in that bathroom.” They could tell because it was the very last stall and one of the pipes on the toilet had a splash of red paint on it, which students thought was blood. J themselves would go to the stall at the end of the day, and never got haunted by Bloody Mary. But, J was always on edge in the bathroom, where every little noise or motion may “summon” Bloody Mary, so J never did the “summoning” (saying Bloody Mary) to not chance the possibility of the ghost.

Analysis:

This narrative takes advantage of two legend themes: ghosts and Bloody Mary. Ghosts are an entity that lives on liminal boundaries: the line between life and death, human and non-human, and science and will power. The legend of a ghost forces the audience to question if one’s will truly is strong enough to overrule death, if a death with regret strong enough truly can provide haunting, or if there really is a line between life and death that is invisible to the living. Death itself is enigmatic and frightening for the living, so ghosts are a way people cope with it. For an audience as young as elementary students, ghosts not only become a way to deal with the permanence of death, but also a way to refuse grieving or accepting death, tying ghost narrative back to anti-hegemonic childhood folklore. So, the ghost itself as a literary object in a story subtly questions much of the real world’s ideas of death, maybe even denying them outright. Furthermore, because the legend is also about Bloody Mary, the story also becomes a coming-of-age for young girls. Bloody Mary serves the mark women’s menstrual cycle, a point at which blood comes out of the body, the girl is no longer chained to childhood and has to face harsh reality. Avoiding the bathroom stall avoids Bloody Mary, avoiding growing up as a young woman. An acknowledgement that Bloody Mary is not real (this childhood rumor is not real) marks a turning point in the young female world, that they have “risen above” childhood, gotten their period (marked by blood..Bloody Mary) and became women.

The Secret under the Tarpaulin

Context:
The informant is a 20 year old female who went to Shipai elementary school in Taipei, Taiwan. The interview was conducted through a video call. Shipai Elementary school is a public elementary school in Beitou District. It’s directly next to Shipai Junior High School.

Text:
Informant: I remember when I was third grade, my classmate at the time asked me if I have heard about the rumors. I asked her, “What rumors?” She said that people are saying there was a dead body under the tarpaulin at the corner of the school. I asked her where exactly was she talking about. It was an empty space between the first grade building and the third grade building, next to the wall that separates the elementary school and the Junior High School. We, and other kids, decided to check it out during the long recess. We ran downstairs to the place and saw this huge tarpaulin with blue and white stripes. The tarpaulin was covering a lump on the ground, so we know there is something underneath. None of us were brave enough to approach the thing, let along uncover it. I remember we were all standing there, 10 meters away from the tarpaulin, and a squirrel ran across the tarpaulin and we all started screaming. That was that. There was another time I walked past it and a corner of the thing underneath was out. It was just a pile of wood. We don’t really know who started a rumor and we don’t really know if it was a pile of wood when we first saw it, but that corner of the school always feel weird to me. I don’t really know why though. After I started junior high, people were talking about how some bad kids would hide there, on the other side of the wall, and smoke, maybe that’s why.

Analysis:
This legend that circled among kids around early 2010s in a particular local school shows how a simple trivial unknown thing can become the greatest mystery through imagination. The informant’s later revelation drew a conclusion to her early legend quest and she may have found the logical explanation as of why the legend appear in the first place. There is a chance that the school teachers were trying to keep the young kids away from that space by making up the rumors in order to shelter them from exposure to bad substance.

English Proverb

M is 19 years old, and she is a college student. She grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She heard this proverb at elementary school age from her mother when she was complaining about a group project.

“My mom would always tell me “Two minds are greater than one” which I think is very true. Growing up when I needed some advice she’d always tell me that proverb.”

This proverb seems like a great one to tell kids who don’t want to work with others. It encourages kids to work together and learn teamwork, which are traits that parents and schools often try to instill in their kids. It’s a very old saying that seems to trace back to the Bible. It’s a great proverb because it encourages people not to be selfish. In American culture that promotes competition, people want to be the only one who comes up with a great idea and gets the credit for it. But this proverb says that people should try to attack problems together. If people work together instead of in opposition with each other, society would benefit far more from it. This seems to be a mentality in other cultures, but one that is less common in current American society.