Chapter Three Personal Reflections, Comments, and AH HAs!

“To Be or Not to Be?” Erik Erikson Hamlet

Right away in chapter 3 we see a presentation of Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development. Immersing myself in his stages, there seems to be a gnawing at the back of my brain. These stages seem so familiar. Referring back to my Child Development class in high school I am certain we studied Erikson, but these was something more. Having always been an avid – yet slow reader, I found myself constantly thinking of Hamlet and how his character developed.

Starbuck to Adama, come in...

When looking at how children develop socially and emotionally, the importance of play cannot be ignored nor undervalued. Children are very social and they must develop strong and supportive peer relationships. A child's interaction with peers mostly involves play. During the many forms of playing, a child's mind will work and be creative, they can craft stories, have discussions, resolve conflict and or course form relationships. Thinking back to my kindergarten days, I remember a long running series of cooperative play that at times would turn into parallel and associative forms.

It was the late 70's and Battlestar Galactica, starring Lorne Greene of Bonanza fame, ran for a whopping twenty-two episodes. The science fiction series was all my friends and I could talk about. Most of the kids in my kindergarten class began a running series of playing that found us creating our own starships out of these very colorful interwoven blocks. Each one of us took on the role of a different character from the show and girls and boys were involved. We all looked forward to the moments of free time that we had so that we could continue our stories.

Things that I remember about our playing:

1. In that first year of schooling there were already delineations between the popular kids and the rest of us. Most of the popular children were very athletic and outspoken. Also, they were not the best behaved. Then we had children such as myself who enjoyed sports but also had a love for being creative and reading. Our Battlestar play though broke down the boundaries between the groups and had us all working together to beat the evil Cylons (the bad guys from the TV series).
2. Often we would all be involved in some big adventure, but I recall certain times when we broke up into small groups to continue our own stories. Some of these peers I was in classes with all the way through senior year of high school and while we were not all best of friends, we always showed a great deal of respect for each other as opposed to kids from other schools who were incorporated into our classes as the years progressed. I would like to think that the mutual respect we exhibited was a byproduct of our conquering of the Cylon Empire.

It was...Injun' Joe!

It was a cool winter's day in Mrs. Bender's third grade class. The wind was rattling the windows and the radiator was whistling ever so slightly. Lunch was settling in our stomachs and the last couple of hours of the school week were in front of us. As was the practice, we all took out our copies of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mrs. Bender would often read to us but she especially enjoyed having us read to the class as well. There was no set order to whose turn would be next and you never knew how much you would have to read. You could be called upon at any time to pick-up reading where the student before you had just finished.

This particular afternoon I was an early pick, either second or third in line to start reading. Being a slow reader but one who enjoyed the visuals that books provided, reading aloud to the class was always a bit stressful. Mark Twain though has always been a favorite and I immersed myself into the story at hand, began reading. Paragraph after paragraph passed and many pages later I was still reading. Thinking back on that day I wonder if perhaps Mrs. Bender had dozed off for a “few minutes”. Tom and Becky were lost in an abandoned cave and they were shocked to find that there was another person in the cave, “It was...Injun' Joe!” As I read the line, I must have built up a bit of intrigue or suspense for the class. There was a gasp and I turned around and saw all eyes fixed on me. Mrs. Bender was smiling and she chose another student.

After the school day ended a couple of classmates came up to me and commented how they loved how I had read and that they were surprised, startled, and scared all at the same time over what was happening in the story. It is amazing how influential those words from my peers were not just upon my concerns of reading in front of a crowd, but they truly helped my overall self-esteem. The smile on my face was enormous.