After reading Rethinking Vivian Gussin Paley’s books, develop an informative advocacy speech targeted at policymakers, school administrators, and parents about the importance of play in early childhood.

Although early childhood educators have long advocated for play for learning and teaching, often play in the early childhood classroom is not considered important and often not relevant for learning, particularly for children of underserved backgrounds such as children of color, those who live in poverty, dual language learners, and immigrants. Very often children of these diverse backgrounds are evaluated from a deficit perspective thus labeling them “at risk.” Negative and deficit terms such as “at risk” lead to classroom environments where play is limited and the focus is on academics. After reading Rethinking Vivian Gussin Paley’s books, develop an informative advocacy speech targeted at policymakers, school administrators, and parents about the importance of play in early childhood. You are expected to reference the readings for the course but show your own transformative views of play (that’s why the course is titled Advanced Studies in Play.