Monday, September 13, 2010

More on the Essential Trio (Play, Love, and Work)

Tori is the author of our third entry on chapter 1. As have our previous entry authors, she will share her thoughts about how play, love, and work are intertwined in childhood -- and you'll see that she speaks from not only her own childhood experience, but from her experience raising her own son! Enjoy.

As I started reading David Elkind’s book, "The Power of Play," I thought about many things. One main thing I wondered was how he was going to link children to work. When we’re kids we don’t work, we just love and play. As I continued to read, I began to understand how we worked as children. I understand that as children we do not understand or use the concept of separating love, work, and play. I completely agree with Elkind when he says that Dr. Seuss was a genius when it came to writing children’s books, but I did not know that children learned best through rhyme.

One thing that I am very passionate about that Elkinds says is that “..learning basic arithmetic can be easier and more fun if it involves a play element” (p.9). This is one of the main reasons why I want to become a teacher, and even better, a principal. Today, all kids do at school is WORK! They aren’t allowed to combine work and play because people are too worried about test taking: Why don’t they stop to think that if the learning part was fun and engaging then children might just learn a little better? I remember when I was younger and we used gummy bears or something else we could eat while learning math, colors, or whatever else they were useful for. It’s sad to see children coming home from school not wanting to go back because they have worked too hard, too much. To make things worse, most children cannot go outside to play and run around because their parents would rather have them indoors doing something else so they won’t get hurt; it’s all about work and no play for these children. Most parents don’t want to understand that just like when they are babies, children learn through play while putting in work.

As I read about adolescents, I felt that everything Elkind said was good, and I didn’t have much feeling about that particular area. As for adulthood, I could relate to a lot, since of course, I am an adult. I’d like to learn through my work when I start my career, which will be something I love and would therefore be considered play. Going back to working with school children, which is what I would ultimately like to do in the future, I thought about my experience working in a day care over the summer with kids who were 3-5 years old. I really had to think about what I did with them. There was a combination of working, playing, and learning. For example, we went outside, we learned about watering the plants while filling up the water buckets and playing with them.

I have a 3 year old son myself and everyone is always surprised that I let him learn for himself. My mom was so mad when I first moved into an apartment with stairs because I let my son climb up the stairs by himself; it was his first time climbing up three stories, but he did it. My point is that while my mom was so worried about him hurting himself, he taught himself how to climb up three flights of stairs and had fun doing so. He fell a little, but I was right behind him making sure he was doing well. When I was young we always got to play outside, get hurt, climb trees, fall, run, jump, and every other thing a kid could think of doing. Today too many parents are worried about what impact the surrounding world will have on their children and not the impact the parents will have on them. I know I learned so much from just exploring on my own with siblings and friends. When I was a child that was our job, to explore and see what kinds of new things we could learn!

1 comment:

  1. Tori, I completely agree with your opinion about including play into school learning. Students will not be as interested in learning if they are constantly reading from textbooks.
    Dr. Seuss is a definitely a genius. His books always caught my attention when I was younger. If you ask me to name 5 of his books that I have read in the past, I would be able to. If you asked me to name 5 textbooks that I have read in the past I wouldn't be able to give you one name. Rhyming is a great way for children to learn.
    Autumn Olfert
    Wed.

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