My Connections to Play

Two quotes about my play as a child:

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” - Plato

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw

 The play of choice from my childhood is set in the woods, up the hill behind my house.  I have cleared an area of debris and I am sweeping with a few white pine branches I hold together like a broom.  I have created areas in my fort sitting and star gazing, as well as an area for eating including two large logs set next to an even larger stump with a flat top for a table.  The longer I spend there, the more details are added and the cozier the feel of this area of woods is.  Maybe some wild flowers on the stump table in a small vase provided by my mom or a bed made of leaves for my favorite doll Sally.  I can play for hours by myself or with a friend and I need no help from my mom (besides the occasional snack).  There are no instructions, no rules made by someone else and most importantly, no electricity.  All that is required is a little imagination, space in the woods and a heart for a home, and there you have my play from many, many years ago.

Stump Table

broom

wild flowers
 

Does play like this exist today?  I would like to believe so.  I do not live in a place where my own children have a place in the woods to play but some day I hope to so they can have a piece of this kind of play.  Their play involve toys and the outdoors and I can see them create their own rules and fun with the tools they have.  My mom always encouraged us to play outside, maybe to help keep the house clean, but none the less we were sent outside until it was dark.  We would go in for dinner, only to rush through before our doorbell rang and we were beckoned outside again by a friend.

These hours spent playing have made me be the kind of parent to encourage play outside when some parents these days may not.  I want my kids to have fun engaging in physical activity outside and sometimes that means joining the game my self like jumping in a game of wiffle ball or joining a water fight.  They have more fun when I play and that lesson is valuable to educators as well as parents.  We do not have to be the best player, we just have to play.  Nothing delights my eight year old more than showing me how to do something he has already mastered.  The same is true for my students.  I can encourage their fun by playing with them and even ask them for help to help build their self-confidence.  I hope I never stop playing!!

EPP week 2

Relationship Reflection

Thank you!

"Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each."

- Plato

Children are amazing and I take the job of helping to prepare them for life very seriously.

Thanks to all of my colleagues who have given me feedback throughout this past course.  Good luck and maybe I'll see you in the next class!

Intelligence Assessment

     Well,  the topic for the week is types of intelligence and if they should be assessed regularly in school-aged children.  Right now mostly 2 out of the 9 types of intelligence are tested for using standardized testing.  There are nine types of intelligence according to Howard Gardner and the two we test for in the USA are Logical-Mathematical intelligence and Linguistic intelligence.  I have an aunt and uncle who live in Canada, specifically Ontario, and I looked into what kind of standardized testing they do there.  It seems to me that a standardized test in Canada is used more as an assessment tool for the schools than for the students.  It also seems that not too many provinces agree with each other about the method in which these tests should be given.
     Standardized testing is an interesting topic for me because I guess I do not really know how I feel about it.  I dislike more than I like I guess but really I think the practices are not going to be easily changed.  Our whole school system values the two types of intelligence I mentioned earlier but as I was looking into other kinds of intelligence, it seems that emotional intelligence in adults may be more important for functioning successfully in society.  Why then do we not have some kind of test for that or even some sort of standardized class or curriculum to help teach it?  I know many teachers and they are really teaching strategies to help their students do well on the standardized tests.  Seriously?  That is how we teach kids?  We spend a majority of the year teaching them strategies to succeed on a test?
     I wish I had some brilliant solution to this issue, but unfortunately I do not.  I will say however that I do believe there should be some way to track a student's progress during school so that they do not get lost and if they are having a hard time and falling behind, they could get the help they need.  It doesn't seem that standardized testing does what it is supposed to do but I think we may be worse off without it than we are with it.

Childhood stressors

     The fact that children have to deal with many different kinds of stress is true regardless of the source.  Some children have stress from pressure being put on them by their parents, some children have abuse in their home, some children are stressed because there is nothing to eat at home or maybe there is drug abuse in the home.  Stress can come from anywhere.  When I was growing up, we had four children and one parent.  My one parent did the best she could do and I have many fond memories of my childhood.  The thing I do remember being stressful for me and my sister (the one closest to my age) was we often did not know where our next meal was coming from.  There were a few families who would bring us food when we were really out and we ate a lot of Ramen noodles when we had them but for a while we did not have food around.  My sister and I cope by getting creative with the food we did have.  I remember eating brown sugar once because that was all there was.  Eventually, we started baby-sitting and we were able to buy some groceries as well to help out.

     The kind of hunger we experienced is nothing in comparison to real world hunger though.  According to www.worldhunger.org there were over 925 million hungry people in 2010.  That site also lists poverty, conflict, economics and even hunger/malnutrition leading to poverty, as some of the causes of hunger.  Children seem to suffer greatly as a result of world hunger.

     Children are the most visible victims of undernutrition.  Children who are poorly nourished suffer up to 160 days of illness each year. Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year--five million deaths.  Undernutrition magnifies the effect of every disease, including measles and malaria. The estimated proportions of deaths in which undernutrition is an underlying cause are roughly similar for diarrhea (61%), malaria (57%), pneumonia (52%), and measles (45%) (Black 2003, Bryce 2005). Malnutrition can also be caused by diseases, such as the diseases that cause diarrhea, by reducing the body's ability to convert food into usable nutrients.

     According to the most recent estimate that Hunger Notes could find, malnutrition, as measured by stunting, affects 32.5 percent of children in developing countries--one of three (de Onis 2000). Geographically, more than 70 percent of malnourished children live in Asia, 26 percent in Africa and 4 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. In many cases, their plight began even before birth with a malnourished mother. Under-nutrition among pregnant women in developing countries leads to 1 out of 6 infants born with low birth weight. This is not only a risk factor for neonatal deaths, but also causes learning disabilities, mental, retardation, poor health, blindness and premature death.  (www.worldhunger.org)

Lambo, 3, with his grandmother and mother, Samina Tahiaritsoa, at the Centre for Treatment of Acute Malnutrition with Complications (CRENI) in the town of Amboasary Sud. According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), two out of three Malagasy live in poverty and 50 percent of children younger than five have stunted growth due to malnutrition.  "Above all, it's the poverty that's causing this," said CRENI's head doctor, Samuel Rasaivaonirina, adding that most wage earners support an average household of 10 people on just $10 a month.  Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN

Children who are born hungry know nothing else, I wish instead that they never knew hunger.  Maybe someday.

Child Development Post #2 Mental Health

For this week, I chose mental illness in parents and the effect it has on the children in the family.  According to a study I read, almost 38% of adults in Europe suffer from a form of mental illness.  The effect that may occur as a result of that is stunning when you consider how likely children with mental illness are to have mental illness themselves as adults.  I am attaching a link for an article by the AACAP.  I chose mental illness because as a pre- school teacher I deal with children whose parents suffer from mental illnesses on a regular basis and it is something I would like to learn more about it so I can be a better resource to the children, parents and often grandparents who are involved.

I also have included the article about mental illness in Europe and the high rate that this study says exists there.  The more I learn, hopefully the better equipped I will be to help the families I work with and also the better I will become at supporting those little ones who may really need it.

http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_of_parents_with_mental_illness

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20102085-10391704.html

Child Development Post #1 Birth

Well,
     I feel like when people talk about their own birthing experiences they are usually horrible stories about pain, or drugs or medical problems and unfortunately mothers choose to share them with pregnant women who probably do not need more things to worry about.  Why do women do this I wonder?  Perhaps there is some kind of gratification knowing that you made it through something so awful and maybe mothers are proud of themselves so they share.  Really I feel like we, as mothers, should only say encouraging things to pregnant women unless they ask us about all the stuff they are hoping will not happen.
     I have had three children and three fantastic birthing and recovery stories.  Unfortunately women don't seem to want to hear about that.  I tend to not talk about it too much because of looks of disdain I often receive for sharing such stories.  That being said, our assignment is to share in a birth experience.  All I will say is, after reading about birthing practices and traditions around the world, I feel so blessed to live where I live with the medical care and experience that we have here in the USA.  I specifically read about Uganda because I know a few people who have traveled there and I was curious.
     According to www.biomedcentral.com  before and after care for pregnant women in Uganda is basically non-existent.  It is amazing to me that in 2011 people can actually blame something like pre-eclampsia on the man in the relationship being promiscuous.  Wow!  I guess I take for granted where I live and the resources we have.  No wonder the mortality rate is over 62 deaths per 1000 births as compared to the USA where we have just over 6 deaths per 1000 births.  I wonder how long (if ever) it will take for other countries to catch up.  Hopefully, not too long for the sake of all those mothers and babies whose lives are at risk.