My Connections to Play

In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior. In play it is as though he were a head taller than himself.

Lev Vygotsky

Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.

Michael Jordan

It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can remember when I was a child how we used to play. We would come home from school have a snack, do our homework, and go outside to play. We would stay outside until it was dark. We spent hours at a time playing in the streets. All of the neighborhood children would gather together to play kickball or baseball. We would ride our bikes around the block, or skate up an down the street. We would sometimes play hide-n-seek and all of those made up games. We would find some place in the backyard to build us a secret club house, and only certain people could enter. Man those were the good times. Today play has changed the children do not know most of the games that we played when we were kids. They have evolved from a time when play was made up, to a time of technological play. The children now sit in front of the tv playing video games, and those handheld games. The do not play the little clapping hand games that we as girls grew up on. They now have to have the latest gadgets to enjoy play.

These are some of the toys that I loved to play with as a child.

There was nothing compared to playing with a tea set with your friends, or baking a cake in an easy bake. When I was a little older I played with the Rubik's cube, I could never solve it though. I would come close, but I could never get all of the sides the same color.

My most favorite toy as a little girl was a baby doll. I loved to dress her up, and comb her hair.

RELATIONSHIP REFLECTION

Relationships are the foundations of life. Everyone has a relationship with some person and that relationship can be positive or negative. I think that relationships are the building block for a person's life and how you foster those relationships will determine what type of life you will live. The far most, most important relationship that I have is my relationship with God. I put God before all the relationships that I have, yes all. I know that God is my all and all and without him I can do nothing. My God tells me that he is a jealous God and that he will have nothing come before him. The Second most important relationship is that of my husband  and children.

My husband and I are first of all friends, I believe in order to have the relationship that I desire with my husband we have to be friends as well as husband and wife. We have an open communication which is important to me. We are able to talk and communicate, even when we disagree we are able to talk and work it out. The relationship that I now have with my husband is all that I have ever wanted out of a relationship. We have grown closer in the past 4 years than ever before out of a 17 year relationship.

The relationship that I have with my family is also important to me. I am a baby of 5 kids and I love my family. I am very close to my family and we were raised to put family first and that is what I have done.

My most ppositive relationships is with my close circle. My Husband, Travis Carridine, My Mom and Dad , Mary and Melvin Holloman, Mys Sister, Bernice Martin, and Faye Mack, and my two best friends, Shikira Johnson and Vanessa Bateman. I love each and everyone of them dearly and I depend on those relationships to get me through life. One thing I do know is that in order for these relationships to last there has to be a give take relationship because if there is always a take relationship then, that will wear the relationship out, vice versa for a relationship where one half is always the one giving.

The relationships that I have in my life gives me the passion and the drive for myself as a professional. I always strive to have positive relationships with my students and their families. It is important for me as teacher to love and treat my students just as I would my own children.

Speaking On Children

Self-esteem is the real magic wand that can form a child’s future. A child’s self-esteem affects every area of her existence, from friends she chooses, to how well she does academically in school, to what kind of job she gets, to even the person she chooses to marry.

STEPHANIE MARTSON, The Magic of Encouragement

The family is both the fundamental unit of society as well as the root of culture. It ... is a perpetual source of encouragement, advocacy, assurance, and emotional refueling that empowers a child to venture with confidence into the greater world and to become all that he can be.

MARIANNE E. NEIFERT, Dr. Mom's Parenting Guide

A Word of Thanks

I would like to thank all of my colleagues who gave me meaningful conversation and comments. Thanks for sharing your life's story with me a stranger to you in the beginning, but hopfully someone who you have grown to know and respect toward the end. Thanks to Dr. Myers for all of the help and support that she has given me throughout this course. I have enjoyed this classs and I have enjoyed working with all of you. May God bless you and keep you. Sincerely, Melanie

TESTING 1,2,3 TESTING 1, 2, 3...

During the spring the time will come for the schools to begin their yearly teating of the children. Here in Ashburn, the elementary school test all grades, although the test results doesn't count for all grades. From kindergarten through second grade  and fourth grade the tests are just a measure to see what the children know, but for third graders and fifth graders they have to pass the CRCT test(Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests ) before they can pass to the next grade. You wouldn't believe the stress and pressure that they put on thoses children (even the one's whos test score doesn't count) to pass that test. My philosophy is to test or study or even evaluate the whole child. Some children will pass a class with flying colors, but when it comes to taking a test they freak out and blow the test because of stess and anxiety I do not think that so much pressure should be placed on these youncg children these days about passing a test. I remember taking only one test that determined a pass or fail and that was my high school graduation test that had to be passed in order to graduate. Passed it with flying colors, there was not pressure on me at all to pass that test because we all knew that if we wanted to graduate then we had to pass that test, so that is what I did. My son was held back in third grade because he did not pass the reading part of the CRCT for the 2009-2010 school year. For the 2010-2011 school year he had to retake the CRCT and pass in order to go to the fourth grade and this time he exceeded in math  and was a few points away from exceeding in the rest of the subjects. The pressure of passing test has become overwhelmiong for some of the children who are required to take and pass those test. No test is good enough to serve as the sole or primary basis for important educational decisions. Readiness tests, used to determine if a child is ready for school, are very inaccurate and encourage the use of overly academic, developmentally inappropriate
primary schooling (that is, schooling not appropriate to the child’s emotional, social or intellectual development and to the variation in children’s development).

Japan implemented a new comprehensive guide to elementary education in April 2011, representing an attempt to maintain some of the benefits of the educational reforms of the 1990s and early 2000s while increasing the academic rigor of Japanese compulsory education. Shortly after the implementation of the new curriculum, Japanese students declined in their achievement on international comparative tests, especially the TIMMS and PISA studies. In response, a number of gradual changes were implemented designed to help improve the academic performance of Japanese students while maintaining some of the benefits of the earlier reforms. Key changes included a gradual increase in the required topics to be taught in the standard academic subjects, a gradual increase in the number of hours devoted to these subjects, and the implementation of national standardized testing at the end of the 6th and 9th grades. The tests were implemented with a desire to assess the skills of the students as a whole and target areas where there were needs for improvement in the system. The tests were met with significant concern that they would be used as a means of creating greater comparison and competition between schools as well as increase pressure on students. The tests, which included extensive student and teacher surveys, provide a rich source of data regarding not just the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese students, but also rich data regarding other factors that can effect learning as diverse as the amount of time spent reading independently each day, student breakfast habits, and student use of cell phones to send e-mails each day.

IF YOU ARE HUNGRY, THEN I WILL FEED YOU!!!

I can sit all day and listen to my mother tell us the heart felt story of the things that she has had to suffer as a child. The one story that fits this assignment is the story about her being hungry. My mother's mother died when she was 4 years old ans she and her three siblings were being raised by her father, but it came a time when her father had to go away for a while so that he could work. My mom, her brother(one brother died), and her sister had to go and live with her father's mother. My mom told the horror story about her grandmother. She told us that her grandmother would not feed her, her brother, and her sister. She did not know exactly why, but my mother told us that her grandmother hated them and would not feed them. They went to bed many of nights hungry and had not had anything to eat for days. My mother told us that she would sometimes have to help her grandmother in the kitchen and she would hide food from the kitchen and her brother and her sister would be under the porch and she would throw them the food up under the porch so that they could eat something. My mother is 67 and she continues to struggle with all that happened to her in her childhood. My mom always made sure that her children and grand children always have enough food to eat and she never lets any of the children go to be hungry. If one of them happens to fall asleep and not eat she will wake them up so that they can eat. That story really moves me and every time my mother tells that story I sit and listen in amazement, because I could not imagine how someone would starve their own grandchildren to almost death; which is what happened to my aunt, she had gone many days without eating and she passed out almost to death and when she came too , my great grandmother(worried at the time because my aunt almost died, and she would go to jail) had my mother to soak some bread in water and feed it to her.

My Mom

We sometimes think of hungry children outside the US, but hunger is a big problem today in the US.
In high school, Katherine Foronda trained herself not to feel hungry until after the school day had ended. She wasn't watching her weight or worrying about boys seeing her eat.
She just didn't have any food to eat or any money to buy it.
"I thought, if I wasn't hungry during class I'd be able to actually focus on what we were learning,'' said Foronda, now 19.
Every day, children in every county in the United States wake up hungry. They go to school hungry. They turn out the lights at night hungry.
As many as 17 million children nationwide are struggling with what is known as food insecurity. To put it another way, one in four children in the country is living without consistent access to enough nutritious food to live a healthy life, according to the study, "Map the Meal Child Food Insecurity 2011."


The story of what happened with my mother and her siblings is still occurring today, there are millions of children who just do not get enough to eat.

In The Beginning

I chose the topic of nutrition/malnutrition because I have been fortunate enough to be able to provide myself with the nutrition that I needed during my pregnancies, but unfortunately there are people all over the world that have under weight babies because they are unable to eat properly during pregnancy.


A pregnant woman should get plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein. In addition to making healthy food choices, taking a daily prenatal vitamin — ideally starting three months before conception — can help ensure you're getting enough of this essential nutrient

The nutrition of a pregnant woman directly influences the course of the pregnancy and normal fetal development, and also the long-term health of the mother and child. In the first half of pregnancy, nutrition requirements mainly concern quality, while in the second half, quantity is also an issue, to ensure fetal growth. Proper nutritional habits should already be established at the start of this second life - if possible even before conception.

 India has exceptionally high rates of child malnutrition, because tradition in India requires that women eat last and least throughout their lives, even when pregnant and lactating. Malnourished women give birth to malnourished children, perpetuating the cycle.

Quotes About India's Mothers

You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women.
- Jawaharlal Nehru

However much a mother may love her children, it is all but impossible for her to provide high-quality child care if she herself is poor and oppressed, illiterate and uninformed, anaemic and unhealthy, has five or six other children, lives in a slum or shanty, has neither clean water nor safe sanitation, and if she is without the necessary support either from health services, or from her society, or from the father of her children
- Vulimiri Ramalingaswami, "The Asian Enigma"



The women who participate in and lead ecology movements in countries like India are not speaking merely as victims. Their voices are the voices of liberation and transformation. . . The women's and ecology movements are therefore one, and are primarily counter-trends to a patriarchal maldevelopment.
- Vandana Shiva

8lbs3oz and 6lbs6oz

I can remember it like it was yesterday that I gave birth to my first son. He was a big baby, as a matter of fact he was the biggest baby in the nursery. I was awaken by the pains of birth around about 2:34 am. I knew that it was time, so I took a shower grabbed my bag and awoke my husband so that we could go to the hospital. The pains were unbearable so I asked for an epidural, and on August 16, 2011 at 1:34pm my son Travius was born and he weighed 8lbs3oz.

 Eight years later I found myself back at the hospital going into labor. It was different this time the baby was just lying in the birth canal awaiting me to dilate. The pains were hard to bare, I asked for an epidural and by the time the doctor arrived and positioned the epidural into my back the baby was coming, I pushed one time and he was here. Joshua was born at 7:01a.m.

These are two great moments in time that I will never forget, and I wanted to share my birth experiences with you. After you have gone through the pains of labor and hold your child for the first time you forget about the pain that you  just experienced and you begin to focus on that little bundle of joy that you are holding in your arms for the first time. That same love and warmth that I felt that day I took it along with me from the hospital and I use that love, and care to make sure that my babies were given all that they needed to develop into a strong healthy child. I am still providing that nurture to my children and I do not think that that care will ever end for a parent. Child development is key in making sure that children will have a standing chance to grow up to be a vibrant adult.

In China the annual number of births in 2009 was 18294.

China has proclaimed that it will continue its one child policy, which limits couples to having one child, through the 2006-2010 five year planning period.
China's one child policy was established by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to limit communist China's population growth. Although designated a "temporary measure," it continues a quarter-century after its establishment. The policy limits couples to one child. Fines, pressures to abort a pregnancy, and even forced sterilization accompanied second or subsequent pregnancies. It is not an all-encompassing rule because it has always been restricted to ethnic Han Chinese living in urban areas. Citizens living in rural areas and minorities living in China are not subject to the law. However, the rule has been estimated to have reduced population growth in the country of 1.3 billion by as much as 300 million people over its first twenty years.

Now that millions of sibling-less people in China are now young adults in or nearing their child-bearing years, a special provision allows millions of couples to have two children legally. If a couple is composed of two people without siblings, then they may have two children of their own, thus preventing too dramatic of a population decrease.

I really did not know there was such a law to prevent people from having children. I am glad that I live in the US because I have always wanted to have two children and I have them. I do not want anymore children, but there are other people who would like to have more than just two children. China went to drastic measure to make sure that its population did not grow out of control, but the US being the country of freedom have not implemented such a law.