My Connections to Play

“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.”

Plato

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.

Kay Redfield Jamison

  

When I was little I was encouraged to play all the time and was certainly provided a number of toys.  However, some of my fondest memories of play were educational ones now that I look back.  Reading with Teddy Ruxpin was one of my favorite things to do along with playing school. I also enjoyed playing grocery store with my grandmother and using her calculator as my register. 

Play today in my opinion offers the same learning benefit, however today children are not given the opportunity to play freely.  It seems like many children are always on the go and there is not enough time for free play, which is where one gets to use their imagination and express their creativity.  I hope children are able to experience free play opportunities and that they are not always playing on video games or on the computer because it keeps them quiet.  The more play a child is able to participate in the more experiences they handle and learn from. 

Play in my life was a wonderful experience.  I was able to express my creativity and use my imagination in a number of different play ideas, with and without others.  I feel that play helped me in all developmental areas as I was growing up.  Play truly is beneficial and I only hope that I can encourage the children and their families that I work with about the importance of play. 

Immunizations

I believe that immunizations are very important to not only young children but also the public’s health as well.  Immunizations are there to help all grow healthy and be safe against such preventable diseases and as a future teacher I want to keep my classroom, including my students and myself healthy and safe.  The United States is very lucky to have a number of immunizations to help prevent these diseases, while many other countries do not.   For example, in Nigeria there is a very high mortality rate caused by vaccine preventable diseases and they are hoping to cut the mortality in half by the year 2015 with the help of WHO and the government.  The government has created programs to help with this task and have already seen a decrease.  Like the United States they now have a routine immunization schedule and national immunization days.  They are still fighting disease that we see little very little here in the states such as Polis and Measles.  They are gradually making progress which is certainly a step in the right direction. 

        With working in a public school system I am fortunate enough that the system requires certain immunizations before entering school, and that I am not the one that would have to enforce this requirement to the families of the children I am teaching.  However if the topic was ever to come up I would be able to discuss the immunizations and their importance and their benefits with the families. 

http://www.who.int/countries/nga/areas/epi/en/index.html