WEEK 3-Research that Benefits Children and
Families
When I look back at
what made me have a change of focus in the field of education, it was an
experience that brought about a conviction that truly I could contribute to
this field and that learning with children had a strong association with play.
Looking back at the moment that brought about a turning point in my passion as
a professional is a short story of a young girl, who was brought from the
village; she had been staying with her uneducated grandmother in the northern
part of Nigeria, she could not express herself in any other language than Hausa
which was their native language and she had very little knowledge. Her father
was well educated man but was away for a while so had to put the child with the
grandmother, and when he came back he realized the girl was of school age, he
was afraid she would be able to cope. There, I came to the picture, someone recommended
me to the father that since I was a teacher .although my area of training was
for much older children, but I was ready to challenge myself. How then do prepare
this young child for school, then I tried to visualize myself as a child, and
how I was able to learn more when I was playing, so I thought, of adopting that
method, even though I was not trained or well prepared for the task ,within couple
of months this little girl was expressing certain words in English and eager to
learn new things, to her it was fun, singing ,rhyming and puzzle, meanwhile she
was learning and she was a fast one at it. She was enrolled to school, sooner
than expected. Then, I began to see the reality of how play could help children
develop and learn.
This belief has
influence me a lot as regards how children learn and so with this in mind I always
thought of researching on play and its significant impact on children. I wanted
to understand better how to articulate it as an educator for it to yield favorable
result .social skill are very essential for young
children’s survival and learning. Social skills teach them to relate positively
with others and also be able to express their needs, wants, desires appropriately.
Based on these important acquiring early is essential. Play gives room or
create avenue for interaction, through interaction, children learn to take turns,
follow rules, masters skill, compliments others, share things, show concern, listening,
compromising, cooperation, asking questions amongst others. These skills
enables them relate better with people, thereby make them learn better
In other words I believe that my research on
play as promoting early social skill would bring about change in attitude towards
play ;correcting the notion of it being a waste of time, bring about better
understanding of how it supports learning and development, better public
awareness of the need to promote play in curriculum, generate ideas on how to
articulate the impact of play in the classroom by teachers and finally get more
awareness for provisions ,more rich and safe play environment for kids.
