Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Blog Post #7

Last week I was fortunate to attend a Student-Center Learning Research Conference, hosted by JFF.

JFF is a non-profit organization that works to bring change into the traditional American workforce and the education system.

I really enjoyed the conference because I learned many things about why it is important to center education around the students rather than a curriculum. I love that JFF has actual high school students on their panel and they listen to them and make sure to listen to their ideas, their questions and concerns.

I found that the conference did connect to out Leading With and Purposeful Play. In YDEV we tend to lead youth lead and be in charge of their own learning and this is exactly what the conference was about. We find a purpose in everything that we do and we make sure to always put youth first. We make sure they know that they are important, that they are being heard, and that their needs are being met.

I truly enjoyed the conference because I learned many new things and felt even more connected with ydev. I am looking forward to going to more conferences like this one, in the future.

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Blog Post #5

This weekend I went to the Children's Museum with my sisters and niece. It was so much fun!! I decided to take the opportunity to just play, rather than capturing a million pictures on my phone. Sometimes it is better to live in the moment and have the memories rather than the videos and pictures.

At first, I felt a little awkward to play because here is a grown woman playing at a children's museum, not an adult museum. I thought to myself that it did not matter how old I was, I was there to enjoy the time with my siblings and niece.

We had fun in the whole museum. The girls enjoyed running around freely and play with no directions. They loved being in charge of their space and time. I had fun not worrying about them being bored or lost, not knowing what to do. We pretended to work on farms, we built many different things.

We pretended to be pirates when we got to the exhibit that had a ship in it. We were owners of a bodega and we just really enjoyed and took advantage of the space.

Jenkins's 6 Ps are:

  • Permission 
  • Process 
  • Passion 
  • Productivity 
  • Participation 
  • Pleasure 
I found myself doing 3 out of these 6:


Permission: Children and adults have to give themselves the permission to play. Before stepping foot in the museum, I had to analyze myself give myself the permission to have fun in a public place - something that is out of my norm.

Process: Process is when we focus on the play, we focus on how we do things and what we do. At the museum, I focused on the play, I watched what I was doing and how to set an example to the little ones.

Participation: You are engaged and putting in the effort to be involved in something. I was participating in the activities with my siblings and niece. I was present and was enjoying playing around with them.

This assignment was fun to do and I realized that life does not always have to be serious and as adults, we should play more often!