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Interestingly, I had a conversation with one of my co-workers about this particular reading sometime back at the start of the school year. We were discussing about the differences in our students learning achievement according to their self-concept. We reflected back to our learning, when we were their age and discovered that as we went through school, we understood what was taught on the surface level only because we were still trying to find who we were, what we were good at and how much we knew. We were dealing with balancing the cultural differences at home and at school. Everything was a blur as we struggled to please ourselves, our teachers, parents and friends. It truly affected our learning potential in the classroom. I believe that as a teacher, working with diverse students, I need to take the time to understand these situations that my students will go through as well.

My favorite part of the reading was to have no expectations about your students; families at all. I agree with this, just thinking about a few of the students I worked with recently. I had a few students whose parents simply wanted nothing to do with their child's education and relied everything on us. No contact, no show for conferences, no signed field trip slips, no show for assemblies or events at school. The students were performing poorly first half of the school year. We began to debate what factors affected their child's learning abilities and we tried to find blame. However, after creating a mentoring program, we saw improvement in the student's academic performance. As I was reading school life and self-esteem, it confirm my knowledge that no matter what happens at home, if they feel that school is a place they belong and they feel good when they come to school, they will give it their all.

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The majority of research studies in the field of Human Development tend to be conducted on European-American middle-class individuals. In the past the reason for this exclusionary practice has been to limit the number of potential confounding variables (e.g. SES) in research studies. However, over time researchers have become aware of the limitations of the results because the findings in most domains do not automatically apply to individuals of all cultures. Although this is a weakness in most domains (e.g. physical development, cognitive development, and social development), in our textbook only the topic of parenting styles discusses specific differences among members of different cultures (p. 89).

I was glad to read that the author described the basis of these cultural differences. A more “authoritarian” parenting style, with high levels of control as well as high levels of warmth, tended to be associated with better outcomes in African-American and Asian-American children and adolescents due to increased danger levels in inner-city neighborhoods. Woolfolk’s textbook is in fact the first textbook I have ever read to openly criticize the label of “authoritarian” parenting style because it may include misreading and misjudging the parents’ behavior (p. 89).

In addition to the standard categories of authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and rejecting/neglecting parenting styles, Woolfolk also brings up whether an additional dimension in parenting (i.e. autonomy) would be helpful for describing parenting styles of Latino parents. Autonomy given to Latino children and adolescents seemed to describe the characteristic of allowing children and adolescents to make more decisions on their own. Researchers have even identified gender differences in the characteristic of autonomy in Latino families. In fact, parents of Latino males tended to grant greater autonomy than parents of Latino females. I wonder if extending these characteristics into inner-city classrooms would be beneficial for the students. Would students respond the same way to a White female teacher’s rules and warmth as they would to the rules and warmth of their own parents?

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I found this week’s reading very interesting, as it dealt with identity, play, gender differences, parenting styles, and aggression. Even though there were sections that were hard for me to read about, particularly the section about neglect and abuse, I found the overall reading very informative and helpful.

The section that stuck out to me the most was the section about play. I personally agree that play is essential to the development of children because it contributes to their cognitive, physical, social, and emotion well-being.

Tomporowski’s research proved that physical activity and cognitive development are linked. Physical activity improves the development of the specific types of mental processing known to be important for meeting challenges encountered both in academics and throughout the lifespan. So, if physical activity is so important, why are our schools only giving our students 10-20 mins of free time each day? Recess can be very important to those who live in poverty and those who have disabilities. Recess can cut down on childhood obesity, which has doubled in every age group. 15 more minutes of recess every day has also been proven to help students improve test scores and behave better in class.

Overall, I believe that students need to the time to explore their environment and get the physical activity needed in order to experiment with things, have trial and error, experience conflict, explore what activities interest them, get their bodies moving, get their wiggles out. Kids are not meant to be cooped up in a classroom all day, sitting criss cross applesauce, with a bubble in their mouth. However, this doesn’t go strictly for those K-6, I also believe that 7-12th graders need it just as much.

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I enjoyed this reading a lot. One point I found interesting was about parenting styles. I would classify my parents as a mix of authoritative and authoritarian. I wonder if you can really ever put someone’s parenting style firmly into one camp, or if it is usually a mix. I think there are a lot of conflicts between parents because one parent favors one parenting style over another. So you might have one parent that is authoritarian, and one that is permissive. I also think that more research needs to be done with different cultures. I know my in-laws often comment on how American parenting is very different from the way that they see parents act in China. Another point in the text that interested me was about racial and ethnic pride. Growing up in a household with one American parent and one German parent made me especially aware of the differences I had with many of my peers. It also led to some internal conflicts when you consider that there are aspects of German culture that are positive (music and food), but there is also a terrible history with the Holocaust and World War II. It was encouraging to read that when students explore their own racial and ethnic roots, that this helps them to accept others. As the US becomes even more racially diverse, we will all need to keep working at ways to help students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds get along and work together in society.

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This entire reading was very interesting to me. The first part of this section especially really stood out because I remember the physical changes having an enormous affect on how I felt while growing up in school. I had always been considered a bit overweight while in elementary school and was given a lot of criticism from my gym teacher. I could never complete all of the fitness tests and always completed a near 14 minute mile. She was really surprised when my sister and I joined Cross Country at the end of middle school. It was an opportunity for us (my sister and I are twins so we had the same struggles) to not only prove her wrong, but more importantly take fitness into our own hands. I disagree with the book on page 81 where it talks about early and later maturing because I believe these statistics/data really have to do with a personal choices. We are in charge of our own lives and we make the choices to change our eating habits, or exercise levels, personal growth, etc. I have done so much research and continue to do more research on nutrition and I really feel as though these genetic things can be battled with that and personal choices. I had a large BMI when I was younger, but I have turned that around and I believe all people can do this if given the proper information and support. Perhaps this data is coincidental with how these people live their lifestyles. It would be interesting to find out where they got their research or how it was conducted.

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Overall this was such a good section of reading and it really hit home for me as a parent of three young impressionable children.  I was instantly drawn to the section on parenting and social context (Bronfenbrenner).   Parenting style has always been a topic with me and I am constantly looking at myself and asking, “am I the parent I want to be?”

As I look at how I parent, I lean towards the Authoritative parent.  I fear that title has a negative feel to it as well just because it sounds mean.  I love my children and want to them to know that by caring for them and providing an environment where many burdens and worries are lifted from them.  I feel that when a child knows who is in charge and that person or people are looking out for their well being in a loving way, they have the freedom to develop and be guided/taught.

I feel the same way about being a teacher and setting a classroom environment.  A lot of children do have very chaotic and unpredictable home lives, and having a predictable school day can put a lot of those feelings at ease. I feel students learn better in an environment where boundaries are clearly stated and enforced.  I think children feel safer in this environment and then they are ready to be challenged to learn.

I know from my own experience that when I am dealing with chaotic times in my life I am very stressed out and I am looking for a safe zone take down my own walls and relax.  My family is the same, sometimes our calendars dictate our lives and that can become very chaotic.   I can tell when my children are stressed out because they act out of character and that tells me that we need to reestablish our routines or review schedules are reassure my kids.

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I have a teenage nephew who lives with me. The whole family has been struggling to connect with him. So I came across identity diffusion in Module 9, and that helped me understand what may be going on with him. Identity diffusion describes when an adolescent does not actively explore their identity and is not disturbed by that. My nephew has had a rough life in the past, but he has no opinions about his struggles. Moreover, my nephew doesn’t believe that his experiences has affected him at all. In addition to that, we try to take him to do new things and he tells us that he doesn’t want to try anything. It makes me wonder, do we just let him be? We want to be involved in his life, especially now that he’s a teenager, but he is becoming more withdrawn than he used to be. I know that it is his role to explore his identity, but how can the family be involved in this process as well? The book explains the problems that may correlate with identity diffusion, and I was actually hoping for some tips to use for my nephew. Eventually, I think that living with a teenager really challenges me to give patience and that some things are out of our control. It takes time to truly understand teens, because sometimes they are just as confused as we are. Being Hmong, I can also know that it isn’t easy trying to find your identity.

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While I found the pages for our reading this past week to be very interesting as a whole, I find myself wanting to write about the section on peer relationships. One of the statistics mentioned in the book talked about the impact of cliques and peers on the student. That peers create incentives that promote certain behaviors over others and that this can affect teachers in those schools. One of these was that 1 in 5 peers made fun of people who tried to do well in school. This was followed by some statistics discovered by Steinberg when interviewing several schools: that 40% of students are just going through the motions of learning, that 90% had copied someone else's homework and that 66% had cheated on a test within the last year. I've seen similar high statistics for academic dishonesty, and they always surprise me. The propensity of these students to do these things is, in a large part, because of peer pressure, and the desire to be accepted into their peer groups. I definitely think this is true from my own experiences in school (where we had the opposite, you were ostracized if you did NOT do well in school) and with my own peer groups.

I also really enjoyed reading the section about cliques and friendships and the impact rejection can have on a student. I had some tumultuous years in middle school with a falling out with a best friend that definitely had an impact on my social and academic performance in school. It's definitely very important that we as educators are cognizant of the relationships our students have and, as the book states, being aware of how each students gets along with other students: that adult interventions can correct some of the problems students face.

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One of the topics that I was pleasantly surprised to find discussed in this week’s readings concerned identity and, more specifically, its formation in the advent of social media and constant-connectedness. As our graduate cohort prepares to take control of our classrooms, I believe this will be a topic/issue that will only increase in importance, and one that we must be prepared to address as teachers.

With youth’s usage of mobile devices beginning at ever earlier ages (even as I write this at the coffee shop there’s a toddler at the next table playing with his mother’s iPad), technology is almost certainly having an impact on nearly every stage of Erik Erikson’s theory, especially those centered on the concept of autonomy. Indeed, the book asks how it possible to establish an autonomous identity when one is constantly in contact and “tethered” not only to their parents, but also to their peers and the Internet at large.

Furthermore, this formation of identity in one’s early years is only complicated by sites and mobile apps that revolve around self-presentation, amplifying that already tenuous sensation of feeling like you’re constantly on stage around your peers.

I do wish, however, that the text had better addressed the role teachers can play in dealing with and mitigating any potentially harmful results from this constant connectivity. How might we as teachers approach students who are struggling with concerns about their presentation and appearance, both physical and virtual? Will the old methods of helping foster self-identity and autonomy apply in such cases? Or will we, as the first generation immersed in such technology, be the ones who will have to develop the means for best addressing these concerns and questions?

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This cluster yielded some interesting information, but left me questioning several claims. My major takeaway addressed the power of language and labels assigned to learner differences and learning needs. The readings so far are disproportionately putting minorities, particularly African-American students at a deficit lens and it’s important to understand historical context of the absent narrative.

The book lacks an in-depth understanding of why African-American students are “about twice as likely to be identified as having a mental health condition and three times as likely to be identified as having an intellectual disability.” The basis of such information is historically rooted in the education system sorting students of color a certain way intentionally developed to build a case against school integration of black and white children. Legal ramifications made way for physical presence in schools, but special education labeling practices demonstrated students were not the same.

I also found it interesting the omission of cultural intelligence in relation to other intelligences. With our multicultural society comes the necessity to be knowledgeable in this area that comes very natural to multicultural students. I can see a revised version of this book incorporating this intelligence as an equally if not more important asset.

A case against prescribing issue to hyperactivity, is the need for students to be engaged with learning beyond their minds. Lastly, the reading about gifted students raised some questions on definition. With complaints being always “waiting” for the next thing, how can such students build their interpersonal and leadership skills?

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I appreciate the fact that the book takes into account all factors that may affect a child in education.  It addresses how not to just meet the needs of the student, but the person.

The part that stuck me the most was the studies on racial/ethnic identity.  I do not recall studying that when I was an undergraduate, granted it was some time ago.  When I was looking at the dates of the ideas, that one jumped out to me as being one of the concepts that has been recently introduced as to identity.  It makes sense of course, as many of the barriers to having these issues being investigated have only been recently removed.  For example, interracial marriage was only fully declared legal in 1967!

As I was reading all this information about the formation of identity, I wondered how this information will be put into our practice.  I would like to think I could address every child’s need in my classroom, but that can’t be reality.  What is the best way to utilize this information?  Obviously classroom management will be part of it, because when anyone enters a classroom as a student, they also carry with them who they are.  If a student acts out, a teacher will need to reply to simply do their job.

I wonder why else are we replying to it?  Are we doing it to just maintain the classroom, follow standards, to help the person, etc?  Are all aspects of that truly possible or just lofty idealism?

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The modules in this cluster covered the expanse of child development relative to the physical, social, and moral structure, as well as the development of the self-concept as defined by how a person refers to their own beliefs and knowledge about themselves as opposed to a quantitative measurement of what their own image is (ie. Personal awareness vs. how good looking they think they are.)

What struck me most is that none of the developmental models presented, be it Bronfenbrenner’s, Erikson’s, Kohlberg’s, etc., exist in a vacuum. That is to say, each specific type of development holds some influence over the others and it is reciprocal. The family we’re born into, the religions we practice, the time we develop physically, the stimulus we’re exposed to is all connected. We can examine the individual pieces, the moral, behavioral, physical, etc. and gain some solid insight, but ultimately, every person is the construct of the synergy of all these elements.

If I look at my own self-concept and consider all of the factors that contributed to its development, I wonder if there could have been a reasonable expectation of outcome as to who I would become as a person. I have factors of my life counter-indicated by some of the studies mentioned (ie. I had no restrictions on television viewing and saw lots of violence, but I was not physically aggressive), so why did I develop the way I did? Where does one measurement stop and another begin?

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Like Jon, I was drawn to the Point/Counterpoint section on self-esteem. Based on the research presented in the section, it looks like there really aren’t any concrete benefits to high self-esteem. Instead, it seems like our society has just assumed that high self-esteem is a good thing, so research has mostly focused on factors that increase or decrease self-esteem. I was surprised that some studies that have actually researched the effects of self-esteem found it to actually have a negative effect – students with high self-esteem were less willing to take risks and more willing to inflict pain on others.

Although it was a quick aside in the text, I like the idea of focusing on self-appraisal instead of self-esteem. Since the concept of self-esteem is so general, it almost devoid of meaning. While it might be good in theory to have a “’summary judgement’ about yourself as a person”, there will never be a time when we’re without a specific context to judge ourselves based on a particular self-concept. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I read agree/disagree statements that try to gauge self-esteem, my mind immediately races to specific experiences that fit the question. If our goal as teachers is to prepare students physically and mentally to be moral citizens, then shouldn’t we just focus on being effective teachers? While not universally found in all teachers, the dependent variables used in the self-esteem studies – teacher’s passion, feedback, and interest in students – are all qualities found in effective teachers.

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Cluster 3 focused on personal, social, and moral development. I greatly appreciated the guidelines in this cluster. They will be useful during my time as a Camp Naturalist and my future career as a teacher and in some ways I feel that this module even helped me better understand my personal, social and moral development.

Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model stood out to me, too. Since my background is in ecosystem ecology, I enjoyed the system approach in grouping and addressing the different interactions and level of interactions. It reflects how many different variables there are that impact the personal, social, and moral development of a child. It's important to understand how we fit in and influence a student as well as understand the other influences in their lives. Relationships within the model are reciprocal. The student may influence us, too.

Erickson's 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development are laid out in a series of stages similar to Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development. However, Piaget focused on how a children thinks changes with time and Erickson focused on how a person's personal development process is connected/affected by the social environment. Erickson's sociocultural perspective on personal development is somewhat similar to Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective on cognitive development. It's important to understand that the society and culture a student lives in can not only affect the way their minds develope, but also the way their morals, values, personality, and identity develope. As teachers were are a rather large influence in all these development processes. That's a great responsibility

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I took to college with me the ideals about what it meant to be a “high achiever” (i.e. a recipient of good grades, succeeding in various extra curriculars, etc.) that had become so engrained in me as a high schooler.  I had to learn, in college, what it means to be a learner as separate as what it means to be a good-grade seeker. It is concerning, then, that the high schoolers I work with today seem to have even higher self-imposed standards for themselves.  Because adolescents, especially, are developing self-concepts about themselves in relation to the various courses and activities in which they participate, I think that our education system often places far too much value on grades.  One bad test or paper grade can totally shape a student’s self-concept about a particular subject, rather than that concept being formed by a student’s general interest, aptitude, or emotional reaction to that subject.

A high-stress, achievement-based school culture also encourages cheating, as a will to succeed, get a good grade, etc. can overrule other moral considerations.   I worry that focuses on standardized tests, high GPAs for college admissions, and even the interest toward packing one’s schedule with extra curriculars to boost one’s resume creates a school environment that is less focused on developing a love of learning.  I am interested in reading more research considering the role of the “pressurized school environment” in shaping student’s self-concepts and moral reasoning.  I want to hear from more teachers about how they balance “teaching for the test” with developing collaborative, inquisitive learners.

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In this Cluster, the “Point – Counterpoint” on self-esteem stuck out to me. In many ways the issue has become something of a joke, and everyone rolls their eyes when every child receives a participation trophy so that they don’t get left out. However, self-esteem is far from a laughing matter and both sides of this issue have brought valid points to the table.

On the one hand, there are those who would argue that a positive self-image is absolutely critical to a person’s development and we should do everything possible to bolster that. This is often done through constant positive reinforcement and the celebration of even the smallest attempts at achievement. Here we return to the “participation trophy” which supporters would argue rewards a person’s effort and gives them the desire to try again.

However, on the other hand, it is argued that all of this “unearned” praise and reward is stunting a generation. We have raised people with the expectation that any attempt they make in life will be met with applause, but this is far from the case in the real world. No one cares if your business “almost” succeeded. There will be no participation trophy when you go bankrupt. And there is no “thanks for trying” if you can’t put food on your plate. It is argued that we should let people experience the pain of failure and then allow them to learn from it and grow.

I would say that the best course lies between these two extremes. It is not helpful for everyone everywhere to get a trophy simply for showing up. That will not bolster self-esteem it will only teach that person that even with little to no effort others will congratulate you. However, if a child breaks a leg it is equally unhelpful to tell them to hobble to the nurse and learn from it. We should be building people up and celebrating their achievements, but we should also let people fail. There is nothing wrong with failure, you often learn the most from the times you fall short.

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Cluster 3 Reading Response: Nicolle Kitt

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Cluster 3 Reading Response: Nicolle Kitt

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While reading about recess and physical play a few questions came to mind.  The text states that recess has positive effects on students, but schools do not seem to honor this research.  It makes sense that one of the first things to be cut in favor of more academics would be recess.  Often adults see recess as just a “free” time for the students.  However, recess is a great time for children to explore and use their social skills.  Also, it is often hard for students to sit for long periods of time so sensory breaks seem pivotal to an active learning environment.  By the time students enter middle school, there is no long a recess period.  Usually the only active break they get is gym, unless you count the three minutes students have to go from one class to the next.  This is counterproductive to what the text is telling us.  Why is this a common practice in most public schools?  And if we are concerned about obesity in our society, why are we not encouraging more physical activity and play from our students and our schools?
As a small side note, divorce is becoming increasingly more common in our society and though we have a good idea how divorce effects young children, we are still learning the effects it can have on the older children (children who are in their 20s & 30s when their parents get divorced).  I am curious what the effects of having divorced grandparents have on young children?  It is definitely something I would be interested in learning.