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I am extremely grateful for this class and the new perspective it has given me. I remember Professor Adair joking saying she hopes by the end of this class we are annoying everyone when we talk about kids. I can say she accomplished this mission. I am constantly advocating for my siblings now and looking into everything they are doing because it truly is amazing. Now that I have taken this class my view on my role with children has changed. I now know how important play is to children and also allow children to use their agency throughout their daily lives. This is something that I will not neglect when I become a teacher in the future and something I will constantly strive to advocate for as well. My role is not only to advocate for these children around me and in my classroom but also to be there to listen as well.

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Growing up technology did play a big role in my life. Since my parents were teens they were always working and if no one could watch me I would have to go with them to work and play on my iPad till they were done. I do not think this hurt me because while I did spend a lot of time on it my parents had lots of restrictions set up so I was never watching or doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. I also was not on social media and wasn't allowed to be on it till middle school around 8th grade. This is how I have seen technology involved with social media being the center of so many kids' lives now. This I do believe hurts children because it introduces a lot of negatives into their lives. While I do think technology could be helpful it should be in small amounts and monitored. I see my younger siblings on technology a lot and especially my sisters who are on TikTok are already feeling shame around their body image because of the generic body image presented in social media. However one of my sisters has dyslexia and her teacher has introduced technology to help her and we have seen improvements in this.

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It all started with my great-grandmother coming to Houston, Texas from Mexico with her parents. My grandmother still owns and lives in the house she lived in when her mother came here. Sadly we have no relationship with the indigenous people who are from the lands where my family currently lives. Before this lecture, I didn't even think about the people who this land belongs to. Since I had no relationship and wasn't educated on this it never really had an impact on my play. However, growing up I was always playing outside since that's what my parents were used to doing and wanted me to experience the same thing. I think knowing more about the indigenous people from the lands I was playing on would make my play a lot more interesting than it was though. I think this is a topic that should be discussed with kids wherever they are growing up since it is such an interesting topic and part of history.

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Reflecting back on what I've already discussed ive noticed culture has had a huge impact on my life as many others do as well. As I've discussed before, when growing up I went to school with more minorities than white people so I was always surrounded by not only my culture, hispanic, but others as well. This impacted me in a positive way because I was always aware of so many different cultures and wasn't sheltered. I am grateful for this experience because it has allowed me to have a positive look on people from different cultures and have a better understanding of others cultures as well. Being around so many cultures also allowed my family to feel more welcomed and not allianted which is something I am extremely grateful we did not have to experience. I know this is a unique and privileged experience to have but it is something i do not take for granted.

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Throughout this discussion of ableism, my mind has opened to the importance of allowing children to express themselves and their different abilities. It was sad reading some of our assigned readings where it mentioned how children with disabilities are often viewed and treated in the classroom. This hit home because my little brother has autism and his treatment in class is often something that worries me. Luckily he has been with some amazing teachers who do not treat him in a way that negatively impacts him or his play. This got me thinking about how awesome many of my elementary teachers were as well. I was shocked reading these articles because growing up I was able to freely play with other children including children with disabilities. There was never a problem with the teacher constantly over our shoulders or trying to change our play. I think because of this and my parent's willingness to let me use my agency frequently it allowed me to explore my ideas. I am incredibly thankful for this because it made it possible for me to learn a lot on my own.

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Growing up neither of my parents spoke Spanish around me it was always English being spoken in my household. However, since my parents were so young they were always working to keep us afloat so I spent a lot of my childhood with my great-grandma while they were working. She would mostly speak Spanish to me and when she spoke to her friends or on the phone. I was able to start picking up on it and understanding but as I started school and spent less and less time with her I stopped speaking the language and later forgot completely. This is something that still upsets me because it makes me feel disconnected from my culture. Growing up I went to elementary with predominantly Hispanic students and felt left out often since the majority did speak Spanish.  I was often told I was white and not Hispanic because of this. However, growing up and coming to college I've met a lot of Hispanics who do not speak Spanish and it's made me feel a lot better about my lack of Spanish skills. I think language had a huge impact on my life and identity I didn't realize this until reflecting on this assignment.

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This week my padelt is messing up again and not allowing me to upload any videos so I am doing a written submission. This week's readings were very interesting to me since I have a connection to them with being Latina. Fortunately for me, this didn't affect my play as much as other latina/o/. Reading the first article "All in a Day Play" was very empowering. Seeing Cecilia demonstrate at least six different linguistic styles of speech during her play was incredible. I liked how they also shed light on how powerful this is for her showing how capable she is of speaking different languages and even changing the way to fit the person she is speaking to. In the second article "Intersectionality and Possibility in the Lives of Latina/o/x Children of Immigrants" I loved that the main point was how similar these Immigrants are to us and showing these similarities when people often view them as the total opposite. The part that stood out to me the most was when the author said "I want to suggest that their agency as human beings, although constrained by broader systems and structures of domination, is nonetheless reflected in the various identities that they actively construct for themselves and the possible futures that they envision for themselves.". This was very meaningful because it sheds light on what should be important not just the status of them being immigrants and I think a lot of people need to read this article.

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My play was definitely affected by my gender. This is something I originally mentioned in my autobiography project. It wasn't something I ever viewed as wrong or something that ever truly bothered me. Growing up I was always super “girly” so I did enjoy just playing with my dolls. However after reading more on this it has gotten me thinking if i only didn't care because it was so wired in my head that playing with dolls is what all girls enjoyed. I also thought back on other ways i played and house was a big one i loved to play. I think this is a reflection of both my gender and race having an impact on my play. I say this because I remember reading one of our articles discussing how we sometimes see what is happening at home and mimic it. I feel like not only was this idea that it's always the women in the house but in my hispanic culture it is heavily pushed on you at a young age that the house is the women's role. I would see all the women in my family proving this true so it makes sense why i would always want to play like this as well.

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I am having to do a written submission due to my padelt not allowing me to record anything. Starting off with the first article "How to play like a girl" an idea that stood out to me the most was " the idea that boys and girls, from a very young age, construct starkly divergent worlds for play". I enjoyed this article because it is something I could relate to I have discussed this in my autobio project on how my play as a child was centered around playing house or with dolls. In the second article "Using queer theory to rethink gender equity in early childhood education" the idea that stood out to me the most was "We react based on how we understand gender and children's gender identity development". This was interesting to me because it shows how much understanding of ourselves we have to have in order to teach our future students and be there for them 100%.

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While growing up I was fortunate enough to never really experience racism. Due to the location of my elementary school my school had a lot of minorities. I definitely benefited from this because I was always shown everyone is equal. I am extremely grateful for this experience because it allowed me to be introduced to children with different backgrounds at an early age allowing racism to not impact my play as a child. I know this is a very privileged experience to have and while I am grateful for it it did come with some downsides. Whenever I did witness racism or whenever my parents spoke to me about it I was extremely confused. Since I never experienced or saw it for so long it left me feeling naive about what was happening around me.  It wasn't until my family became vocal to me about it for safety reasons did I knew. I am so blessed to have had parents who were so open and honest with me about racism as well as open and understanding with their viewpoints on race.

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I believe agency had a huge role in my life as I was growing up. Whether or not my parents knew they were doing it they always allied me to explore my thoughts and learn a lot on my own. I was a very curious child and my parents always allowed me to act on it which led me to learn a lot of things on my own growing up. While my parents did allow me to do these things I still was not allowed to just do whatever I wanted. They just gave me enough freedom to explore my ideas and come up with the answers myself. Sadly I was not able to do this in school. I was in one of the classes where we had to sit on our hands and learn about volcanoes through worksheets. This does make me curious about how my learning would have differed if I had been able to use my agency in the classroom.

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I was born in Houston, Texas. Houston had a huge impact on my play and development in many different ways. With Houston being such a big city I was constantly exposed to different people of different backgrounds. This had a positive impact on my development because I understood at a young age that race and someone's background have no effect on how they deserve to be treated. Being from such a big city my play as a child wasn't all the time centered around being outside. Since Houston doesn't have a lot of nature to explore as Austin does I spent a lot of time inside and had imaginative play such as making up dances or my own games to keep me entertained.

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Till the age of 17, I was an only child. Growing up as an only child had/has a HUGE effect on my development and play. Since I was the only child I had to get creative when it came to play since most of the time I was alone. This forced me to think of new ways to keep myself busy and entertained when I didn't have anyone to play with. This also in a way forced me to mature faster since I was constantly around adults and not as much children. This also taught me to be independent since it was just me growing up and I had no siblings to rely on.

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Growing up as a female has had and still has a huge impact on my play and development. As I grew up I played a lot with Barbies and dolls because I was taught that it was what girls played with. I didn't realize the impact that had on my development till I was reflecting on it for this project. Growing up playing with baby dolls and having to "take care" of these babies engraved the idea of being a mother into me. I always talk about how I do want to be a mother when I am older and it wasn't until this class I realized the very way I was playing when I was younger had an impact on that desire. I would also play a lot of house growing up which just once again reinstated the idea that the women are the ones who do the cleaning and taking care of the children which impacted my development of always feeling like I should be taking care of someone.

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Growing up my parents had me at the ages of 16 and 17. With them being so young and not even graduating from high school I grew up lower class. Due to this, I was very limited in the experiences I got as a child due to money being a problem. However, this taught me to be incredibly humble and grateful for everything I get. Even though my parents moved in classes I still keep the same attitude and never forget where we came from. This also had an impact on my play since a lot of kids my age were in a bunch of different sports my options were very limited. However, when I did get a chance to join a sport I worked very hard because I knew how much my parents worked to get me there.

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I went to public school for every grade so far. Being in public school allowed me to be exposed to kids from different backgrounds and learn how to interact with kids properly. At public school we had a lot of clubs we were able to join which allowed me to meet new kids my age and do different activities with them such as cheer! Being a part of different clubs and teams taught me how to accurately interact as a team member and great communication skills I still use to this day.

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I am Mexican American. Most of my family was born here in America but my great-grandparents were not. Growing up in a Mexican-American family isn't as intense as those in a Mexican household. At a very young age, we are taught to be respectful and have good manners. This being constantly repeated to me had a huge impact on my development to this day because I am constantly aware of how I am speaking to people and treat the elderly with the highest amount of respect. Growing up Hispanic you are extremely close to family and taught family always comes first. Due to this, I was constantly playing with my cousins and was with them all the time growing up. Since we were so close I never hung out with kids much that weren't in my family.

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Growing up I was raised in the Christian religion. However, I didn't have a negative effect that many experiences with religion are shoved onto them with no room for exploring what they feel resonates most with them. Growing up I attended church but since it wasn't forced onto me I enjoyed going and it did not seem like a chore. It allowed me to play with other kids my age while simultaneously learning about God as well. My parents also encouraged of me to seek out whatever religion meant the most to me and at an early age, this taught me how to make decisions from an early age as well as identifying what values mean most to me when it comes to religion. This also helped and continued to help me develop into a person who does not judge others for the religion they identify with.

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My family structure had a huge impact on my play and development. Since my parents had me when they were teenagers all of my family was extremely supportive in raising me. This impacted my development by engraving how important family is as well as the idea of family being more than your blood. A lot of my parent's friends helped raise me as well and I to this day consider them family. This impacted my play because I was always around adults and didn't really "play" as often as other kids I more or so felt like an adult more than often which forced me to grow up faster.