The Art of "Following the Yellowbrick Road"

Since as long as I can remember, the Wizard of Oz has been one of my most favorite films, and the versatility that it brings about shines in many different aspects of my life. The lessons that I learned from that movie seem to resonate in so many different areas of my life, and seem to teach a new lesson to people of all ages, each and every day. When I was three years old, my mom threw me a birthday party with a Wizard of Oz theme. We had a pin the ruby slippers on Dorothy game, a sandbox full of plastic "emeralds" to mine for, and a yellow brick road leading up to the front door of our house when guests entered. My mom had made sure to include that aspects of that movie that would help me, as a three year old at the time, to realize some of the important lessons that the story portrayed. The yellow brick road, though being the fun entrance to my third birthday party, exemplifies the long road to success that life takes us all on. When a child watches the Wizard of Oz, sees that Dorothy wants to follow the Yellowbrick road in order to achieve her dreams and aspirations, they realize that in order to get where we want to go we need to have motivation by something in order to do something. Also, in order to get where we want to go, we must stay on the right path the whole way there. Another lesson I learned while spending most of my childhood watching "Oz", was that your friends are the greatest things you can have, and that accepting them for who they are is the best thing we can offer them. Whether our friends are "tin mans", "scarecrows", "cowardly lions", or whatever they may be, they all have something important to offer this world, and even though we may be completely different from them, we are also so much alike. Yet another lesson that this story teaches children is that hiding yourself behind a false image, like the Wizard, is not going to make you get anything that you truly want. It only sells yourself short, and being who you truly are is who people want to see of you. My mom has told me since the day I could talk, that I needed to stay true to myself, because I am a beautiful person in so many different ways, and I should be proud of every single part of myself. Being ashamed of yourself, and hiding behind a false something, such as the screen the wizard hid behind, only made him look like a coward, and less of himself in the end. It showed that he was just too insecure with who he really was. If we can enforce this to our children, maybe they will realize sooner that they do not need to look like others, because we are all beautiful in our own special way. One of the greatest lessons a child can learn in life, and one of my most favorites, was that there is No Place Like Home. As Dorothy always, said, and as she clicked her red heels together, home is the place where we all can find our truest identity, and find the love that we all started off with. While being away at college I have truly realized that no matter how far away I am, or where I end up in life, I have a beginning,  and a place that I can always return to and find everything the same. Each child needs to know that there is someone at home for them, and that there is a place that they can go to find the love that home provides. The Wizard of Oz is a story that captivates the hearts of the young and old, and this is a truly great film to base a lesson off of in schools, in any grade and for any age. It is a truly timeless classic, with more lessons than I can even explain. 

 

Toptenz.net (picture of Dorothy and friends from Wizard of Oz) 2010.