Play has always been an integral part of our lives in the Caribbean. Whether it is playing cricket, football (or soccer as it is called in the United States of America), dominoes, checkers, running, dancing, biking, skipping, jumping, swimming in the rivers, going to the beach, climbing the mango trees, breadfruit trees or ackee trees- play time has always been preserved and sacred to us.
Quotes on play that summarized what play represented to me during my childhood:
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| Swing |
“Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it.”- Eileen Caddy quotes.
“Play needs direction as well as work.”- Elbert Hubbard quotes (American editor, publisher and writer, 1856-1915)
“The true object of all human life is play.” G.K. Chesterton quotes (English born Gabonese critic, essayist, novelist and poet, 1874-1936).
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| 1960's Dolls |
Throughout my childhood, I can remember that play was supported by both my parents. I did not go to preparatory school until I was nearly seven years of age as during the 1960’s that was the time most children started school in the Caribbean. Therefore, most of my playtime was spent at home supervised by my mother who stayed at home with us. My father was the one who made our swing and see-saw for my four brothers, my sister and I. We also played with dolls and toy trucks that my brothers creatively made from milk/juice cartons and other cardboard boxes. As I continue to travel back in time, I cannot forget our hopscotch games that we carved out in the earth and our marble games that helped us to count, because we were serious about keeping an idea on how many beautiful marbles that we had collected. Our one-two-three-red light games and in –the-river-on-the-bank games filled our hearts with delight , kept us alert, focused and energized because nobody wanted to be out of the game.
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| Marbles |
I believe that we cannot let play die. When we go outside to play, we see how our children are revitalized when they swing, slide, climb the monkey bars or ride the stationary horse. The pictures interspersed throughout the blog are representations of the things that delighted us as children when we played.
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| Toy Truck |
It sounds like you guys have fun playing in the Carribean where you are and what makes it better, is that is sounds like the children are outside alot engaged in activities. You are so right,as teachers we cannot let play die, but how do we enforce the importance of play in a child's life to the people outside of the early childhood education field. Play allows the children to relax and recover from the days activities. I agree that society does not value play in a child's life and people are starting to focus more on educational activities to take up time in a child's day. If children lose the concept of play in their life, they will lose their childhood as we know it.
ReplyDeleteSharon,
ReplyDeleteYou make an excellent point. When children go outside to play you can see how revitalized they become. No matter what is going on in my classroom during the day nothing beats playing outside for my students. They love to run,jump,climb and discover when they are outdoors and nothing can take the place of that.
Thank you colleagues for visiting my blog. In the Caribbean, the children are able to play during recess,lunch time and after school.Yes we are indeed outside a lot especially during the sunny days.Many of our classes are held under trees and even though we have standards to abide by, we are not so restricted by the curriculum that we cannot stop to have fun and explore some ideas/ questions posited by a child.I love the outdoors with my students here in the United States and hope that their play time will extend from half hour to one hour. Thank you for kind comments.
ReplyDeleteSharon.