PLAY

Blog post #3:  What kind of youth work have you been involved with in your lifetime?  Reflect on every youth space you have participated in (as a youth or youth worker) and, using the articles, explain how (or if) PLAY was approached in each one.

I have been involved in a few different kinds of youth work. One of the most memorable was mentoring at the Met School. After graduating I went back several times, to help my old adviser and his new students. I helped them prepare for there exhibitions and I was there for emotional support. Coming back to RIC, I have had the opportunity to go back to The MET in help while attending Rhode Island. Another kind of youth work I have been involved with was working with kids from 6 to 14 at a local park I helped set up games for the kids at the park. Examples of some of the games were obstacle courses, painting, and planting.

I enjoyed creating different activities, and seeing how the youth added to it with there own likes and dislikes.

After reading the Shall We Play?, I do recognize we try to add play into things and not for the right reasons. I can say after reading this I do to. I think of play as something to get the kids up and happy and that is the only way to Play. I now learned there is many other things.  Like Jean Piaget states “play is the work of childhood.” The play expands their minds, builds creativity. I now learned you can approach play in different ways. The article talks about the 6 'P's which are

 1. Permission

2. Process

 3. Passion

 4.Productiivty

5. Participation

 6. Pleasure.

In the first part Permission, they approach play by" lowering the consequences of risks; we agree to engage with each other with good humor" The article gives a good example of this, with the little girl sweeping.

Process part of play is approached by "plays value is focusing our attention on the itself, in the moment, in the process".

Passion part of play is approached by the child/youth’s interest. I did a lot of this kind of play at The MET when they were searching for internship placements.

Productivity part of play is approached by "while in the spirit of play, old rules and structures are suspended, allowing us to look at the world in new ways, and allowing us to transform and transcended our environments". This happens a lot with children they start playing then will add there on spin on it. I have seen this many times especially with the younger ones.

Participation part of play is how partitioning in the activity is important you and the others. I also encourage others to join in and it makes it more of a fun setting.

Pleasure part of play can be good or bad. They give a good example with the football. "And thus, a game may have offered pleasure to some but with no guarantees and often a strong threat of displeasure if we lose the game."  Setting up the obstacle course were very exciting to the kids but the team that lost became very frustrated".