My Connections to Play

Quotes that summarize my playtime as a child

"Life must be lived as play."
Plato
Retrieved from http://www.thestrong.org/about-play/play-quotes

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

Albert Einstein 
Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/0313/Albert-Einstein-15-great-quotes-on-his-birthday/Imagination-is-power



"Play is the highest form of research."   
Albert Einstein    
Retrieved from  http://www.joyofquotes.com/play_quotes.html

 "…play produces feelings of pleasure which help you escape from two major creativity killers – stress and self-consciousness."   
Jordan Ayan    
Retrieved from http://www.joyofquotes.com/play_quotes.html




How people in my life helped to support play

Some of my favorite memories are built around playing. My family and I would have a game night about once a week. We would turn the television off and would spend the evening playing board games and card games as a family. It was a great way for our family to play together and spend quality time with one another.

I also remember always being outside playing. The only time that I would be inside the house playing was when the it was late or the weather would not permit me to go outside. I would spend hours upon hours riding my bicycle with neighborhood friends, playing on the neighborhood playing, climbing trees, or just pretending to be anything I wanted to be. 

As I grew up, my style of playing had changed. I went from playing with the neighborhood children to playing ball with my teammates. In middle school, high school, and college my play revolved around sports. I loved playing basketball and soccer and everything that I did was built around becoming better at my sports. I would spend hours playing hoops with my father or kicking a soccer ball around with my brother.

The similarities and differences from my playtime and playtime for today's generation

When observing children in today's generation playing I can tell that they still enjoy using their imagination. I would hardly go an minute without using my imagination. I do not think there is a big age gap between my generation and today's generation of children, but there is a big playing gap. 

As a child I was always playing outside, and when I couldn't be outside playing my parents had a small trampoline in the house that I could jump on. I always wanted to be moving and doing something. One of the biggest differences that I have noticed from my childhood that is missing in a lot of my students childhood, is the desire to just play without the assistance of some form of technology. Don't get me wrong, I loved playing on my Nintendo when it was raining. It is sad to see how unsafe and corrupt the neighborhoods have become. When I was a girl we could play out in the streets for hours without having the parents watching every move. Today's generation rarely get to have that privilege.


The role of play throughout my life

Playing has helped me to stay focused and on task when needed. As a child I would play just for the pure pleasure of playing. It was enjoyable and helped me to meet new friends. As I grew my playing turned into sports, which taught me a lot of life lessons. Through the sports I have learned self-discipline, unity, teamwork, winning, losing, and so much more. Now that I am not involved in childhood playing or sport teams, I  go to the gym to shoot a basketball and play one on one with my husband. When I pick up a basketball, all of the days stresses and worries just melt away for the brief moment of time.  So many times I get focused on the tasks that are due tomorrow that I end up missing the beauty of the moment. Playing helps me to relax and to enjoy that moment.

Relationship Reflection

Relationships can have both positive and negative impacts on a person’s life. The impacts of those relationships mold who we are.  I have been very blessed to say that most of the relationships that I have developed have left a positive impact on my life. It is through the different relationships that I have learned how to laugh, love, cry, and forgive. One of the relationships that has helped mold me, are my parents. 

 My parents have taught me how to be women of character. They have showed me how to love others through the eyes of God and not through my own eyes. My mother has taught me how to be a wife that brings honor to her husband. My father has taught me how a man should treat women. It has been through my parents’ actions that I have learned how to be a teacher, wife, and a parent. I am very grateful for my parents.

 Another relationship that has left a lasting impression on my life is my brother. My brother and I are very close. Through the relationship with my brother I had learned how to develop and maintain friendships. 

It has been the relationships with my family that have taught me how to be a friend and show love. These relationships had taught me how to be a loving wife to my husband. My husband is my rock. I am thankful that the Lord had brought my husband into my life. He is not just my husband, but also my best friend. I could not imagine life without him. My husband has taught me a lot about respecting and accepting different cultures. He was born and raised in Cuba, and moved to the United States when he was 14 years old. It has been through his relationship that I have learned how to combine two different cultures into one house hold. My husband treats me like I am the queen of his world, and this makes it easier for me to trust his guidance for our family.  

God has placed each one of these relationships into my life. I am thankful for the different lessons that He has taught me through the loved ones that are around me. t I feel that God has been using these relationship to prepare me for motherhood. I am pregnant with our first child. We will be meeting our baby girl in October. I have learned that relationships are not always give and take. There are times that relationships are formed to solely benefit the other person.  I can not wait to meet my little girl and be able to be a mother that will help her to develop healthy relationships. I hope to be a mother that can help her to learn about God. love, laughter, joy, and forgiveness. 

Lastly all of these relationships have helped to develop me into a teacher. My relationship with my parents has taught me the importance of how to treat others with respect. I take the lessons that my parents taught me and I apply those lessons to my classroom. I have really been able to learn a lot about the early childhood field, because my mother has over 25 years of experience being an early childhood educator. My brother has helped me to learn how to develop a friendship with the parents in my classroom. He has showed me that it is important to establish a healthy form of communication with those who are around you. I have learned about diversity and cultures through the relationships that I have built with my husband and his family. Lastly I have learned how to take care of others through the relationship that I am developing with my baby girl. As an early childhood teacher it is crucial to remember the differences that each family can bring into the classroom, and to respect and honor those differences. It is also important to remember that the parents are allowing me to teach their most prized possession, their children.

A Note of Thanks

During the course Early Childhood Development I have gained new insight regarding prenatal development through middle childhood development. I am thankful for each one of my colleagues’ insights that they had posted on their personal blogs. It has been through these blogs that I have learned about the importance of breast-feeding.  Susan Johnson had posted great research on how breast-feeding has a positive impact on infants development. I had also found the information that Mahitab Wasfy blogged about the view of intelligence testing in Egypt. I am thankful that I have been able to learn from professionals who are actively involved in the Early Childhood field. I would like to thank each one of my colleagues for openly sharing their research and personal options on their blogs.

Quotes regarding Childhood Development

“We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competencies and gifts and cultivate these. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to succeed and many, many different abilities that will help you get there.”

- Howard Gardner

Retrieved from http://quotes.dictionary.com/subject/child%20development,%20intellectual

“The path of development is a journey of discovery that is clear only in retrospect, and it’s rarely a straight line.” 

-Eileen Kennedy-Moore

Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/child-development

"The first duty of an education is to stir up life, but leave it free to develop."

-Maria Montessori

Retrieved from http://junojuno2.tripod.com/words.html

 

“Our aim is not only to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core.”

- Maria Montessori

Retrieved from http://junojuno2.tripod.com/words.html

Assessment

I personal believe that administrators tend to put to much emphasis on standardized testing. Educators feel the pressure of having their students receive the desire scores on the standardized test. The pressures of these scores can create an educational atmosphere that teaches facts about the test. The pressures put on educators is creating an educational system that Vygotsky had noticed and wanted to change. Vygotsky had noticed that the educational system was becoming memorization (Stassen Berger, 2009). While standardized testing is informative, it should not be the only means of measuring students’ achievement. All aspects of school play an important role in education. Assessment should be both formal and informal. The school system should take the formal assessment of standardized testing and then combine that with the informal assessments that have been made about that child throughout the school year. Some children have test anxieties, which can cause them to have lower scores on the standardized testing. Other students may have a learning disability that may affect their test scores. So it is imperative to take the test scores as a part of the child’s learning process and not the whole. Some of the informal testing would be measuring the students’ critical thinking skills. It is also important to see how the students work with one another, their social skills. Every aspect of school should be considered when measuring the child’s development during that year.

I wanted to study China and find out why their test scores are higher then other countries. According to Mark McDonald (2012), a writer for the International Herald Tribune, testing becomes a whole community affair. Everyone in the community will go the extra mile to make sure that students are given the best testing atmosphere possible. McDonald said that the Chinese would go as far as blocking off roads that could go near a testing sight. This emphasis on standardized testing has always been a part of the Chinese culture (Mr. D’s Neighborhood, 2010). The reason for the emphasis on standardized testing is to prepare the students for the Gaokao (Huff Post, 2012). The Gaokao will determine what time of future a child in China will have (Huff Post, 2011). Most students who come from a wealthier background have a higher percentage on doing well on the Gaoko (Mr. D’s Neighborhood, 2010). The Chinese authorizes are starting to reevaluate the emphasis that has been placed on test scores (Huff Post, 2011). “When faculty of a major Chinese university asked [Professor Jonathan] Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. "After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud," Plucker says. "They said, 'You're racing toward our old model. But we're racing toward your model, as fast as we can.' (Huff Post, 2011)"

I found it interesting that a University professor noticed that America is turning to rote memorization due to the pressures put on standardized testing. This is the same thing that Vygotosky had noticed. We need to find a way to combine the standardized testing scores to other forms of learning. We cannot expect all children to fit the same mold. Each child is different and unique and with that uniqueness they all posses different types of knowledge. As educators we need to find what the students excel in and how to assess that knowledge. We also need to find ways to help students master the standards that have to be met by using their natural interest.

Huff Post. (2011). Education In China v. America: The Question Of Standardized Tests. Education. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/education-in-china-testing-diane-sawyer_n_785016.html

McDonald, Mark. (2012). Putting Chinese Students to the Test. International Herald Tribune. Retrieved from http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/putting-chinese-students-to-the-test/

Mr. D’s Neighborhood. (2010). How Standardized Testing Created, then Destroyed, an Empire. Retrieved from http://mrdsneighborhood.com/2010/09/13/how-standardized-testing-created-then-destroyed-an-empire/

Stassen Berger, Kathleen. (2009). The Developing Person through childhood 5^th edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers