Join our next LIVE Zoom presentation,“A Community Within: Black Child Play as Response and Protest,” with Ariana Brazier, and Julia Brazier, Friday, April 17, 10:30am EDT/7:30am PDT. (Registered conference attendees will receive Zoom details by email.)
Join our next LIVE Zoom presentation,“A Community Within: Black Child Play as Response and Protest,” with Ariana Brazier, and Julia Brazier, Friday, April 17, 10:30am EDT/7:30am PDT. (Registered conference attendees will receive Zoom details by email.)This informative and interactive session explores the different ways that play contributes to childhood growth, focusing on the ways that Black children living in poverty play. Participants will learn to identify and analyze the racialized and classed ways in which play is deprived as Black children age and grow.
Ariana and Julia Brazier will guide participants through dialogue, physical play, and multimedia presentations to analyze the ages and stages of play necessary for holistic child development. They will lead play breaks in the form of physically active games, so have plenty of room for movement and activity (Note: Participants are encouraged to play to according to their personal abilities).
Ariana Brazier is a play-driven community-organizer and educator. She is an English, Critical & Cultural Studies, Doctoral Candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. Ari conducts community-based ethnographic research with Black students and families living in poverty in the southeast United States in order to document how Black child play functions as a grassroots praxis. She is the Founder and CEO of the 501(c)3 nonprofit, ATL Parent Like A Boss, Inc. (Parent LAB). Parent LAB’s mission is to enhance generational literacies through PLAY in underserved African American communities.
Julia Brazier is a mentor for Auburn University Family Child Care Partnerships and has served in this capacity for 9 years. She has 30+ years of experience as an early care/education professional, 2 of which were spent as a family child care provider. Julia has 14 years of experience in administrative positions serving, training, and mentoring family child care providers. She also served as the director of child care programs at the Bessemer YMCA for 5 years. Julia is the ATL Parent Like A Boss, Inc. (Parent LAB) Board Chairwoman.
“Play Hour” is a series of LIVE Zoom sessions every Monday and Friday in April at 10:30am EDT/7:30am PDT as part of the 2020 ONLINE Conference on the Value of Play. All “Play Hour” LIVE Zoom presentations will be recorded and included in our online conference launch on May 1, so don’t fret if you miss any!
The Conference on the VALUE of Play
The Play Conference, as it is commonly known, is an annual educational conference presented by the US Play Coalition. The latest research and practices in the field of play are presented at the conference, which brings together play researchers, park and recreation professionals, educators, health scientists, architects, landscape architects, designers, planners, business and community leaders, psychologists, physicians and parents from across the U.S. and beyond. The three day event has been moved ONLINE for 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is our first-ever online Play Conference!
Jed Dearybury began his education career in 2001. During his 13-year early childhood classroom tenure, Jed received numerous awards. He was featured in GQ Magazine as Male Leader of the Year, met President Obama as the SC winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching, and was named as a top 5 finalist for South Carolina Teacher of the Year because of his passion, love, and success in education. Since 2015, he has become an educational leader by providing quality, hands-on, engaging learning experiences for students and teachers across the country. Jed is also a Play Ambassador for the US Play Coalition.
School of Education and Graduate Studies. She maintains an active research agenda with interests including instructional technology and pedagogy, always with a mix of creativity and play. She is a Google Certified Educator, providing regular training for K12 educators on technology integration, and she serves as the Executive Editor for the Teacher Education Journal of South Carolina, a South Carolina Association of Teacher Educators (SCATE) publication. Julie is also a Play Ambassador for the US Play Coalition.
Scott Bedley is a 5th Grade teacher from Orange County, CA. He is an Orange County Teacher of the Year (TOY) and California TOY Finalist.
for playful learning, she believes people learn best through play and when they are in a state of flow and optimally challenged in meaningful and purposeful work. She is passionate about education and stays astride of the shifting paradigms of what makes children, teens and adults engaged learners. She believes this can be accomplished through Best Practices teaching and learning methods founded on research-based and brain-based educational theory, including Constructionism educational theory. Oteri is a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshop facilitator and works with businesses, schools, and organizations nationally and internationally.
Heather Von Bank, PhD (panel moderator) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Consumer Science in the area of Child Development Family Studies at Minnesota State University Mankato. For the past 11 years, she has taught a class to undergraduate students about the importance of play in the lives and development of children. The students create a play day for the community and in turn learn a lot about themselves and their own play histories.
several indoor/outdoor venues on campus and coordinate events. Prior to her current position, she worked with the City of Greenville (SC) Parks and Recreation to implement youth and adult fitness, athletic and community programs and events, as well as coordinate the Mobi-Rec vehicle, which takes “play” all over the city, especially to lower-income areas.
Erica Walker, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Graphic Communications at Clemson. Her recent research focuses on working with adjunct professors, in highly specified areas of visual and graphic communications, to translate their work experiences into fast-paced, game-based activities. Prior to that, her dissertation focused on the impact on that a senior design project had on students and instructors as they transitioned from a from lecture-based course to physical, interactive games.
incorporated a playful mindset into his courses, including Pavement Design and Construction where he challenges students to address real problems that engineers face using “loose parts” to create a prototype of their solution.
The US Play Coalition is proud to announce Lise Aangeenbrug, Executive Director of the