History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
The playtime's the thing
- 11-23-2009
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By Emma Brown/Washington Post
On a recent Thursday, 5-year-old Estefani Lovo Rivera took charge of a make-believe hair salon in her preschool classroom at Oakridge Elementary in Arlington County. Wielding a plastic fork as a hairbrush, dispatching customer after customer with a certain cool efficiency, she looked around the room for more classmates to entice. "You have to come today," the budding stylist said. "Tomorrow we're closed!" To the untrained eye, such play appears to be nothing more than a distraction from the real letters-and-numbers work of school. But research shows that it might be an essential part in determining these children's social and emotional makeup as adults. As Estefani and the children buzzing around her -- one taking hair appointments over a telephone, another pretending to curl a client's hair with an eggbeater -- spun their scenario, they were developing the roots of empathy and the capacity to take turns, negotiate with peers and understand how their behavior affects people. (more...)
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