Blog 8- Work Hard, Play Harder, and Chillax to the Max!

From both of the readings for this week, I don't have any questions nor critiques however, I would just like to emphasize what both readings are pushing us as the readers to do in life. In Henry Jenkins post "Shall we Play Part 1", he emphasizes that play is just as important as working. That schools often put play in a negative light as it "distracts youth from learning" when in fact, play is a very important factor to youth learning. Through play youth take whatever environment that their in and completely change the entire scenery! Through play youth are able to show their creativity and talents. Working in the after school field I try to incorporate more play than work for my students as well as asking the questions and reflecting on the activity to ensure that they are still learning something.  The post also mentioned how often times we take the fun out of play as well when we emphasize the goal to "win" rather to have fun. When I play games with my youth, one of the first things I try to do is mess up or purposely do something wrong to show my students that it's ok to mess up. That we are all human and that in order to learn, we can't master the anything on the first try! 

From the other reading, The Creative Underclass: Youth, Race and the Gentrifying City by Tyler Denmeade, he discusses two young women from low income neighborhoods who battle against time itself. In his third Chapter "Chillaxing" both Alicia and Laura feel although they are running out of time and although they are both in  high school, they feel as though they should've already accomplished so much or at least have been able to gain scholarships or proper financial aid that will get them into college and jumpstart their lives. In a society that focuses so much on a chronological timeline, we often feel as though at a certain age we are to accomplish so much and if we get to that age and haven't then there is no more time left to succeed and we are now failures. Not realizing that we still have  soooo much time left to accomplish what we want. While reading this chapter, I though about myself and how I often fall guilty to this societal trap. One example being grad school itself! After graduating from my undergrad and hearing my peers say that their next step is going to grad school and from there they will become successful so it discouraged me when I did not go to grad school right away. I started working and I felt as though I was going to be stuck at the same job doing the same thing for the rest of my life because I missed my chance for grad school. It wasn't until I started speaking with my bosses and colleagues that I realized that I didn't have to rush to go back to school right away. That it was more beneficial to work first and see what my actual interests are in the Human Services field first before I go to school and waste my time and money on something that I have no interest in. So after a year and a half of taking a break, "chillaxing" and discovering my interests through work,  I enrolled into grad school and discovered that I haven't missed a thing and I'm in a field that I'm passionate about!

Comments

  1. Victoria RestlerNovember 12, 2020 at 9:19 AM

    Thanks for these reflections Tamera and for the ways you connect the readings to your own experiences

    ReplyDelete

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