education
One time that I remember being invited to play was at school during lunch. When I was in first and second grade, the girls sat on one side of the schoolyard and the boys on the other. A couple of girls and I at lunch would bring in our cabbage patch dolls to play with. I had a girl doll with blonde hair and blue eyes. My friend Jackie had a boy with brown hair and green eyes. My friend Karah's doll was black with green eyes and brown hair. All of our dolls looked different and were of somewhat different ages. That lunch we would pretend to take our dolls (babies) shopping, to the doctors, play school with them and change their diapers. If we had decided that we were at the doctors, then one of us became the doctor, another one was the mommy and also one of us had became the nurse. We would take turns as the doctor, cashier person or teacher. Those were the rolls that took charge of our play time. While engaging in this play we were using symbolic play. Symbolic play enables children to present reality as they mentally think through solutions to problems (a "what if" attitude) and deepen their thinking (an "as if" attitude)
Sometimes while we were pretending to be shopping and one of our babies needed their diaper changed, Kara would respond "we need to find a bathroom the baby needs changed" or Jackie would say "Oh my I left the diaper bag in the car". This is how Kara referred to her doll. Vygotsky believed children learn primarily through their relationships with other people, particularly in dialogue between each child and a more knowledgeable person (pg133). Throughout the day both children and adults are continuously interacting with each other, and play helps encourage children to do things that they would not ordinarily do. Play allows children to have this enormous strength and become a superhero and save the city. "Through the use of culturally appropriate materials and toys, children have the opportunity to learn about others, practice newly acquired skills, take on new social rules, and "play out" what is already familiar and comfortable to them (pg122). I agree with Vygotsky that relationships with peers and adults help form a basis for later communication and thinking. It also allows children to act out a situation in their lives that has been bothering them, and repeat this act until they come to accept what has happened. Not all parents are comfortable with their children playing with dolls that do not look like them or represent their cultural background. This was allowing us to see that though there were not many "colored" children in our school at the time, in fact there was only a handful, did not mean we should not play with them and except them into out social lives. At such a young age Karah was incorporating diversity into her life. Through play language is developed and children gain social skills that are key in development. The three of us had older siblings and would find ourselves reenacting fights we had with our old brother/sister.
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Acceptance Essays
