S00238485

Shiwangi Sharma

WEEK 9

In this reflection, I am focusing on how a child develops through play and their development
varies through culture. I have decided to think about it because in this chapter, I came across
two different ideas. The first idea is by Piaget who saw thought that children use play as the
way of combining their experiences and learning (Smidt,2013, p.49), which means children
use play as reflecting their experiences. The second idea is by Bruner (ibid.) who thought that
children uses play as a tool from which they create and use culture. To get more clarity about
this both ideas, so I tried to see whether they can be applied to my childhood.

In my childhood, I was quite into symbolic play, refer to the play where a child pretends to
or make- believe play. I use to call my pretend play as ‘teacher-teacher’. I was the main
teacher, who controls everything and my siblings were students. My mum is a teacher and I
often used to visit her school and spend some time with her in the school. This was the time I
was actually learning from the point of view of a teacher, which can be referred as my
learning from the environment (culture). With the help of Bruner theory on play I was able to
identify how my culture has influenced my learning. My experiences were strongly
influenced by my schooling as I use to see my teachers and the way they behave. They were
the ones I was role modelling in my play and I was demonstrating my learning and
experiences in my play. Which co-relates with the idea of Piaget, that play allow children to
explore rules and norms. Having analysed my experience I see how experiences and learning
through environment plays crucial role in the cognitive development of the child. According
to Garwood (1982), symbolic play, which parallels preoperational thought, increases as the
child acquires ability to use mental symbols to represent experience (p.3).

As I as reflecting on this experience I came across on this article which suggest that
symbolic play requires the child not only to begin to take the role of another but also to recall
their cultural symbols for present use[CITATION SGr82 \p 3 \l 16393 ] . I liked the idea of taking
the role of others and use cultural symbols to create a play as it would help children to
develop their imagination skills and use their cultural tools in their play. Therefore, I want to
take this new knowledge into my teaching. As a further teacher, I would like to provide them
appropriate resources and play activities through which they can enhance their play and can
share their cultural tools among others that will give them the sense of belongingness.

Bibliography
Garwood, S. G. (1982). Topics in Early Childhood Special Education. Piaget and play:translating
theory into practice, vol.2(3 ) pp.1-3.
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Shiwangi Sharma

Smidt, S. (2013). The child at play becoming a creative thinker. In S. Smidt, The devloping
child in the 21st century: A global perspective on child development (pp.46-62). Milton park,
Abingdon: Oxon : Routledge