“Viejas pisadas”: Activating Postvernacular Ladino in the Works of Myriam Moscona

In both her hybrid-language novel Tela de Sevoya (2012) and in her Ladino poetry collec­tion Ansina (2015), Mexican author Myriam Moscona (1955) embraces Ladino as a post­vernacular language without any illusions of recuperating it for daily speech. Although her grandparents spoke Ladino, she herself is not a native speaker. While she recognizes that Ladino is a dying tongue, Moscona makes explicit the power of literary works to infiltrate and function within the liminal spaces that exist between languages, identities, or layers of history. Moscona’s dynamic and future-oriented creative work-composed in a language whose vernacularity exists only in the past-utilizes the tool of postvernacularity and en­ters into the discourse of feminist mobilization. Her works show how the active use of postvernacularity can open opportunities for her Spanish-speaking audiences to collective­ly engage in Ladino’s afterlife through acts of creative play.

Weaving in creativity

Creativity is an important means of encouraging children to experiment and explore the world around them. As children learn through their senses, creative play can help them to achieve and develop physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually, promoting skills to increase their self-confidence and self-esteem.

Availability of Teaching and Learning Materials on Creative Play Activities among Public Pre-Primary School Children in Bureti Sub-County, Kenya

Creative activities play a critical role in improving intellectual, emotional, and social skills among children. This study aimed to explore the availability of teaching and learning materials on creative play activities among public pre-primary school children in Bureti Sub-County, Kenya. The research adopted a descriptive survey design and was guided by Sarah Smilansky’s theory which emphasises the child-centred approach in teaching creativity. Sarah Smilansky’s theory lays emphasis on allowing young children to control their way of learning by stressing self-expression. The population targeted was 135 public pre-primary schools in Bureti Sub-County. Ten per cent (10%) of the target population representing 14 public pre-primary schools was utilised during the pilot study. The sample size for the study was 236 participants. This comprised 92 head teachers and 144 preschool teachers from 121 pre-primary schools in Bureti Sub-County. Questionnaires and observation schedules were utilised to gather data. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 23 was utilised to organise data for analysis. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The data was presented in the form of percentage tables. The results revealed that (73.9%) of the respondents indicated that there was insufficient learning and teaching materials listing out that the most available materials are manila papers, clay, paints, tires, pencils, and maise corps. The study recommended that learning and teaching resources should be made available by the County Government for learners to use while embracing creative play activities. There is also a need for adequate time to be allocated to play to enhance creative play activities in school.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Early Child Cognitive Development: Initial Findings in a Longitudinal Observational Study of Child Health

Since the first reports of novel coronavirus in the 2020, public health organizations have advocated preventative policies to limit virus, including stay-at-home orders that closed businesses, daycares, schools, playgrounds, and limited child learning and typical activities. Fear of infection and possible employment loss has placed stress on parents; while parents who could work from home faced chal-lenges in both working and providing full-time attentive childcare. For pregnant individuals, fear of at-tending prenatal visits also increased maternal stress, anxiety, and depression. Not surprising, there has been concern over how these factors, as well as missed educational opportunities and reduced interaction, stimulation, and creative play with other children might impact child neurodevelopment. Lev-eraging a large on-going longitudinal study of child neurodevelopment, we examined general childhood cognitive scores in 2020 and 2021 vs. the preceding decade, 2011-2019. We find that children born during the pandemic have significantly reduced verbal, motor, and overall cognitive performance com-pared to children born pre-pandemic. Moreover, we find that males and children in lower socioeconom-ic families have been most affected. Results highlight that even in the absence of direct SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 illness, the environmental changes associated COVID-19 pandemic is signifi-cantly and negatively affecting infant and child development.