Tag Archives: school

Wallball variant – Handball

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 5/1/2013
Primary Language: English

According to my informant, he and his classmates would play a game they called Handball during recess.  The ‘court’ was a specific area in the school between a set of stairs one one side and a railing on the other.  Games were played with a rubber playground ball.  If a player hit the ball at either of these points, that player was out.  Also there was a small hole in the court, and hitting the ball there also merited an out.  Additionally, there was a grey line partway up the wall, and if a player hit the ball above this line, that player would be out.

In a way, this game seems to be similar to regular handball,  where the player must hit the ball against a wall in between a lower and upper line.  However, my informant’s version of the game involved a large number of players, usually 15 to 20 at the start, and had more specific boundaries that can be attributed to the nature of the court they used.  Overall, this appears to be a mix of regular handball and playground wallball.

Tok-Lore

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 22
Occupation: USC student
Residence: Venice, California
Performance Date: 04/28/12
Primary Language: English

My informant told me of various rumors circulating the USC campus about Folklore professor, Tok Thompson. There are many suspicions of Professor Thompson’s wild nature outside of the classroom. She stated that she has overheard some of her classmates talking about beliefs that he could be a vampire or a werewolf. Their suspicions seemed validated by his hatred for garlic. The dead giveaway though, as she explained is the red bull and coffee that he comes to class with everyday, without fail. She stated that he must be in need of a pick-me-up after being up all night prowling the streets. Furthermore, his knowledge of vampire and werewolf folklore is suspiciously extensive.

Her belief as to why this legend about professor Thompson is passed around is because of how unusual a professor he is. Students need an explanation for a Professor who has dedicated his life to the discipline of folklore.

German Tradition: Schultüte (School Cone)

Nationality: German
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hamburg, Germany
Performance Date: April 19th, 2012
Primary Language: German
Language: English, French, Greek

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “I don’t know if you have this in the States, but we get school cones. Do you know what that is? Well, you know how a cone is where you put ice cream inside? And we get massive ones on our first day of school, but filled with gifts.”

Interviewer: “And what is in these cones?”

Informant: “Mostly presents of any type.  It can be sweets, it can be stuff for school, it can basically be pretty much everything.”

Interviewer: “And are these presents supposed to make students feel better about having to go back to school?”

Informant: “No, no. This is only on the very first day, when everyone is super excited anyways. And it’s just to make the start even more special.  And then it’s usually grandparents and everybody coming to the school and we have a big ceremony where the classes are announced and who is in which class, with which teacher and stuff. Yeah, it’s actually sweet.  And in my family we went out for lunch later, and we just ate. So that is what I did.”

Interviewer: “What are they called, the cone things in German?”

Informant: “School cone, schultüte.”

Analysis:

Schultüte translates into English as ‘school bag’, even though the object is in a cone shape.  A Schultüte is a cone shaped cardboard cup filled with things such as chocolates, small gifts, and practical gifts for school like pencils or crayons.  These are given to children in Germany and Austria by parents and grandparents on their first day of school, especially upon entering kindergarden.  This tradition appears to only be for younger children.  The tradition first appeared in the early 19th century in Germany.  It first began in the bigger cities, but the tradition soon spread to the rural areas of Germany and is now a common custom in Germany and Austria today. When the tradition first began, the school cones were not directly given to the children as they are today.  Children’s names were written on the cones, and then were hung from a metal Schultüten-Baum or ‘school cone tree’.  The children had to then pick the school cones off the trees without breaking them. There is a story connected to this that says adults would say to the children that if the school cone tree was ripe with school cones, than it was time to start school.

I am not sure what the connection to fruit growing on trees is for the school cones, but the cones represent an initiation for children to start the new year of school.  In my research I found that my first response to the reason why school cones are given, which is to make the children less nervous about going back to school, was just as reasonable as my informant’s reasoning that it was just part of making that day even more special.  The first day of school is full of all kinds of anxieties that come from starting a new school year with a new teacher and new courses.  School cones are given to the children to help create an atmosphere of celebration, which makes the anxieties of change more bearable to children because the gifts make the day more exciting.  I don’t know why this tradition has not spread to other countries, perhaps because it is a relatively new tradition compared to other traditions we see in folklore.  I like the idea of turning the first day of school into a celebration because it makes education special in the minds of the children due to this kind of positive association with the start of school and gifts.  This is not to say that in America we think of education differently than than they do in German culture, but the first day of school can bring about anxiety to children because things are unfamiliar to them.  Therefore creating a happy atmosphere would be a great way to dispel any feelings of nervousness that the children feel.

My informant was born in 1992 Hamburg, Germany.  She studied at USC from 2010-2011 before moving to Brussels, Belgium to study international policy planning for her undergraduate degree.  She lives part time in Brussels, Belgium and part time in her hometown Hamburg, Germany.

Loose Goose

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Portland, Oregon
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Loose Goose

 

Practical Joke/Senior Prank

 

When discussing pranks by high school Seniors, my informant shared one his friend conducted. The following is a transcript of our interview:

 

Informant: “ It was the closest thing to a decent Senior prank that came out of our school. One time my best friend’s older brother captures a goose when he was a Senior, and there was down by the river, I live close to the Willamette River, and there’s this beach park thing where these giant geese hang out, and they’re fucking mean. You try to feed them but they are really pushy so they’ll attack you unprovoked, I swear to god they want to kill you, so this guy goes down there and captures a goose, I think he lured it into the parking lot over like two hours with a bunch of bread, so in the parking lot they do kung fu stuff and put it in their care and I’m pretty sure it was dangerous and probably a little illegal, so they put it under a blanket and brought it into the school and released it into the cafeteria. No one to this day knows who was responsible for releasing the goose.  It was super angry and ran around and shit all over the place because it couldn’t get out. The custodian had to come out and capture it – it was pretty spectacular I hear. “

 

My informant said that, although he did not partake in conducting any practical jokes as a high school Senior, a large pastime for his group of friends was dreaming up pranks to pull on the school.

 

Capturing an animal to desecrating the school, this prank is an act of rebellion against the school. Empowering the student, this demonstrates the administrative body’s inability to control the student population, and serves as vengeance for the house of work demanded of students. Also, this makes a mockery of an otherwise serious space, defacing the school on a less physical level.

 

Falling Down Stairs

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Portland, Oregon
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Falling Down Stairs

Type: Tradition/Practical Joke

 

The following is a transcript of our interview, during which my informant described an unofficial tradition in his school:

“This guy named… I forgot his name but his legacy lives on. When I was in 8th grade he was a Junior, when this thing called may fate this big thing our school does when each Class makes a skit for fun, it’s a big assembly we go to its like 4 hours long. In the middle of it there  is a ball and there is a dance with princes and princesses and there is a ball dance where all the people voted dance with their date, and they’ve been doing it since the friggin 20’s and its all slow and quiet and the lights are off, and this guy goes down bleachers stairs and on his way down he each so much spectacular shit and it was hilarious, and if you didn’t see it you heard it because it was hilarious, and you knew it was too perfect that it had to be planned, so he got up and acted dazed and ran out . the vice principle walked out to see if hew as okay. Same year, the kid does the same thing again, the VP is pissed. Year after that, he’s graduated so my friend named Aaron took up the torch of falling down the stairs in a spectacular fashion during the ball. This time the vice principle,was pretty damn mad so he sprinted out after aaron.

 

We didn’t think it was going to happen in Senior year, and at the end of the dance, lo’ and behold, two people opposite sides of the gym at the same time fall like halfway down the stairs, it was incredible like a stunt team somersaulting down the stairs, the look on the VP’s face looked like he was going to have a goddamn stroke. That happened my Senior year and I assume it continued.

 

 

My informant said he looked forward to this every year; he claimed, “it was the funniest thing I remember happening.” He explained he liked seeing the Vice Principal so mad because he was a very strict member of the administration.

 

The rebelliousness of this event is crucial: by falling down clumsily in a setting predicated on grace, the prankster destroys the ambiance of the school’s traditional ball, willingly disregarding the authority that disempowers students—the administrative body. Thus, the prank is an act of empowerment, a way for the students to make the moment “theirs.”