1950s Portsmouth Childhood

For children in Portsmouth, the 1950s was an exciting time. With the war over and a renewed enthusiasm in the air, life was good. There was a range of entertainment – as well as day trips and holidays to the beach, families could relax in front of the television, enjoy their favourite stars on the big screen and dance along to the radio. For Valerie Reilly, the '50s was a time of celebration of national, local and personal events, which she recalls in absorbing detail here. If you remember the docks, trips to Southsea and exploring bombed-out buildings, then you'll enjoy this charming look back at an exciting era.

...The way kids get "it"...by William Poy Lee, the author of the acclaimed memoir "The Eighth Promise," Portsmouth Square stories is a bricolage of childhood remembrances circa the late 1950s: of beatnik families, Barbary Coast strippers, kids catching baby crabs barehanded and shiners with drop-lines at Fishermen's Wharf, picking summer raspberries on Telegraph Hill, feeding sea lions at Playland by the Beach; descriptions of the Italian American community, policemen, bailbondsmen, & lawyers; of catching butterflies, bumble bees, potato bugs, and pincer bugs in Portsmouth Square; of Filipino & Chinese shop owners, friendly black and white drunkards, and living within the inexplicable Chinatown community. So too, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, each of these vignettes fall into place for the reader who may re-experience how, as a child, we assembled the world. In the end, the author is hopeful that "...it will all come together..." as clearly and as exactly as in a more typically crafted narrative. The vignettes are told from the perspective of and in the voice of a ten-year old child named Billy and presented in a non-linear narrative, the way kids experience and remember life. And in its child-like way, while everything described here actually happened, it's not always clear even to the author the exact year of a summer of a particular memory, or whether a few vignettes might actually be a fusion of similar or related events over several seasons. But that is just so like the way a child sees the world before she or he "...figures it out..." into a first paradigm. Before a child starts to chart things by day, month, and year and hem it in further in by school year and teacher or the new TV series or in my case, which Chinese animal of that particular lunar new year. But most precious, we ran free throughout San Francisco because our community of adults silently watched over us, protected us, entertained us, and even gave us makeshift chores to earn money. This unspoken social contract by this motley gathering of marginalized and yet kind souls guaranteed to us the innocence of our childhood and cast a warm, unquestioning spell onto our play and our days in the square and beyond into all of San Francisco.

Full of the warmth and excitement of growing up in the 1950s, awakening nostalgia for times that seemed cosy and carefree with families at last enjoying peacetime, this book is packed with the experience of school days, playtime, holidays, toys, games, clubs and hobbies conjuring up the genuine atmosphere of a bygone era. As the decade progressed, rationing ended and children’s pocket money was spent on goodies like Chocstix, Spangles, Wagon Wheels and Fry’s Five Boys. Television brought Bill and Ben, The Adventures of Robin Hood and, for teenagers, The Six-Five Special, along with coffee bars and rock ‘n’ roll.This book opens a window on an exciting period of optimism, when anything seemed possible, described by the children and teenagers who experienced it. Liverpool’s traditional sense of community, strengthened by the war years, provided a secure background from which children and teenagers could welcome a second Elizabethan era.

This international handbook gives a comprehensive overview of findings from longstanding and contemporary research, theory, and practices in early childhood education in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The first volume of the handbook addresses theory, methodology, and the research activities and research needs of particular regions. The second volume examines in detail innovations and longstanding programs, curriculum and assessment, and conceptions and research into child, family and communities. The two volumes of this handbook address the current theory, methodologies and research needs of specific countries and provide insight into existing global similarities in early childhood practices. By paying special attention to what is happening in the larger world contexts, the volumes provide a representative overview of early childhood education practices and research, and redress the current North-South imbalance of published work on the subject.

Images of America: Portsmouth, Virginia is an educational and entertaining volume that will delight residents and visitors as well as lovers of history everywhere. Located in heart of the Chesapeake Bay at the zero milepost on the Intracoastal Waterway, Portsmouth's five historic districts and its thriving downtown are living landmarks, reminding onlookers of the gracious living, perilous times, and exciting events that often played a crucial role in the life of the nation. Here the last Colonial governor of Virginia took refuge, and here Lord Cornwallis garrisoned his British troops before going to Yorktown, where his defeat gave birth to the United States. Here the first ironclad ship, the first battleship, and the first aircraft carrier were designed and built, and here the wounded from all of America's wars since 1830 have been brought to recover at Portsmouth's naval hospital. Vintage photographs within these pages capture the everyday lives of almost four centuries of residents. The ferries that connected Portsmouth to nearby Norfolk, the trains that made it the gateway to the South, and the city's center-its commercial district-all come alive through the images. Focusing on the Olde Towne historic district, the Naval Hospital, the Naval Shipyard, and the downtown area district, this volume provides a tour of the quaint structures of the oldest part of the city and preserves part of the nation's heritage. Author, and lifelong Portsmouth resident, Robert Albertson draws together postcards, photographs, paintings, and engravings that capture the drama of the city's past and disclose the charm of its neighborhoods.

At the heart of this volume is the recognition that children’s engagement with play and story are intrinsically and intricately linked. The contributing authors share a passionate interest in the development and well-being of children, in particular through their use of imagination and adaptation of the everyday into play and stories. Following these principles, the volume explores the connections between play, story, and pretense with regard to many cultural and contextual factors that influence the way these elements vary in children’s lives. In a departure from earlier collections on play and story, the authors take a particular focus on normative as compared with atypical development. This collection begins with an approach to understanding the developmental relationship between play and story, which recognizes their similarities while acknowledging their differences. Much of the collection addresses pretend play and story in children with autism spectrum disorder, an understudied but important group for consideration, as these dimensions of their lives and development have often been considered problematic. The volume also includes sections on play and story in classroom settings and play and story across cultures, including non-English-speaking environments such as Israel, Romania, China, and Mexico. It concludes with a discussion of how play differs across sociocultural and economic contexts, making a unifying claim for the importance of play in children’s lives but also calling for an understanding of what play means to very different groups of children.

Divided into three parts, this book reviews the basic concepts of the High/Scope preschool curriculum and its development, implementation, and effectiveness. The introduction offers a retrospective of the program's history, describes the five basic principles that form the framework of the approach, and discusses some of the reasons for its effectiveness. Part 1 analyzes the core idea in the development of the High/Scope curriculum--active learning. The concept of active learning is discussed in several contexts: as an essential ingredient for learning, as a basis for how adults can create a supportive social climate, and as a foundation for working with the families or working as a team to make the active learning process effective in a particular setting with a particular group of children. Part 2 discusses methods for creating an environment that promotes active learning. It suggests selecting and arranging materials from which children can choose, and manipulating and developing the daily routine so children have many opportunities to initiate, plan, carry out, and discuss their actions and ideas. Part 3 introduces 58 key experiences that can guide adults while they plan activities to support development in creative representation, language and literacy, initiative and social relations, movement, music, classification, seriation, number, space, and time. Each chapter includes a list of references and related readings. (AA)

Play provides young children with the opportunity to express their ideas, symbolize, and test their knowledge of the world. It provides the basis for inquiry in literacy, science, social studies, mathematics, art, music, and movement. Through play, young children become active learners engaged in explorations about themselves, their community, and their personal-social world. An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children offers the theoretical framework for understanding the origins of an early childhood play-based curriculum and how young children learn and understand concepts in a social and physical environment. Distinguished author Olivia N. Saracho then explores how play fits into various curriculum areas in order to help teachers develop their early childhood curriculum using developmentally and culturally appropriate practice. Through this integrated approach, young children are able to actively engage in meaningful and functional experiences in their natural context. Special Features Include: Vignettes of children’s conversations and actions in the classroom Suggestions for activities and classroom materials Practical examples and guidelines End-of-chapter summaries to enhance and extend the reader’s understanding of young children By presenting appropriate theoretical practices for designing and implementing a play-based curriculum, An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children offers pre-service teachers the foundational knowledge about the field, about the work that practitioners do with young children, and how to best assume a teacher’s role effectively.