Hotspots:
Erikson's Emergence of the Self
Erikson's Psychosocial Development - All stages are interdependant
Developmental Crisis
(Page 75)
Trust vs. Mistrust
Autonomy vs. Doubt (ZPM?)
Erikson believes that these stages can effect a person throughout their entire life
Initiative vs. Guilt
*Guidelines* on page 77: Encouraging Initiative in Preschool Children
Industry vs. Inferiority (Page 77)
-Predictions for academic years ahead
-Students who suffer cultural and economic shock (page 78)
Identity vs. Role Confusion
-Identity statueses
-Moratorium
Intimacy vs. Isolation
Generativity
Intergrity vs. Despair
The Structure of Self Concepts
-Big Fish Little Pond
Declines in self concepts in Gifted/Talented classes (page 78)
Point/Counterpoint page 83
School life and self-esteem
-Low/High ability classes
Diversity and Identity
-Underestimation of competence
Questions:
Did Erikson base his ideas off of Piaget and Vygotsky? It seems especially reminiscent of Vygotsky's ZPM to neither over-indulge or under-care for each one of these stages. It also reminds me of "Equilibration" by Piaget...
Why do Piaget and Vygotsky stop so short in terms of life span? I like how Erikson mapped out the entire lifetime past what most people would consider "school aged". Isn't there a popular idea of "I never stop learning" out there in the world? It must be true.
Opinions:
I found Erikson to be by far the most intriguing theoristy we've studied so far. The Emergence of the Self is an interesting idea when paired up against Erikson's stages. The providence or even overprovidence of nuturing or the lack there of can shape a young mind into what they are and who they will be. I say this as part of Erkson's theory because the stages are interdependant which totally makes sense to me. Everything that happens is effective on what is going to happen and everything that happens is retro-active on what has already happened.
Each stage seems disturbingly and honestly pivotal to me. I can remember when I was a kid and now I can really pinpoint some weird situations that could have been handled better by my parents and teachers. I guess there's a difference between learning something and learning something the hard way.
Trust vs. Mistrust is incredible because I feel like many people take this for granted. When I read about this stage, it reminded me of a sociology 101 professor I had at Essex County College who once told our class about the difference between her biological children and her adopted children. Apparently, the adopted son was very delinquint and has been in and out of trouble his whole life (I believe he was serving a jail sentence when she told us this story.) To explain this, she actually said that he was given up by his mother as a baby and was put into foster care. Well, fostercare orphans usually have laundry lists of problems and I wonder if perhaps Erikson's stages of psychosocial development have any impact on them.... I mean, this woman who raised her adopted son was clearly a philanthropic person so it is interesting to see what becomes a person's modality when their life is different from most other people. The fact that her adopted son had grown up also suggests to me that the concept of Erikson's stages being interdependant must be true.
Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt made me think largely of the ZPM as proposed by Vygotsky. In the cluster it describes that "parents must tread a fine line. They must be protective - but not overprotective." It is almost as though your own judgements are directly influenced by parental judgement... So knowing when to back off or let a child cry and cry and not let them have their way is important. It makes me think of "Enablers," or parents who just let their child have anything they want.
Initiative vs. Guilt is an interesting stage because in terms of Piaget, we're still in the preoperation stage. Children are now becoming freer to explore the world on their own terms and are at the moment still lacking good judgement in all instances. Hell, even adults lack good judgement in all instances. Erikson to me seems to be more concerned with Emotions than academic capabilities like Piaget and Vygotsky. How children learn logically is fascinating but the way children learn emotionally is in my opinion the springboard for their interpersonal and social relationships. With that will come the want/need/fascination with learning that we all hope our children would have as a student.
Industry vs. Inferiority is an especially intereting stage for me, because as I have admitted in past blogs I have always ALWAYS been a terrible math student. This shed some light on what I was going through at the time because it was very traumatic for me to be getting phonecalls left on my parent's answering machine from my 4th grade teacher that said I was "lacking ability." Yes, I heard the message and to this day it still haunts me. I cried a lot over that but what I really did was focus on the things I was good at. In terms of the literature we've read, I am fascinated to realize that these precious years have a huge impact on what a young mind will focus on into their lives... It also presents the ramifications of the actions up until now as a definitive marker in the way a child will turn out. Back to that disturbing phonecall from my 4th grade teacher, I incidentally was cursed in math for the rest of my life... I was in normal math class until 8th grade and I was put in "STARS" math class from the until my Sophomore year of HS. I took pre-algebra in 9th grade and limped through everything until my senior year when I opted to not take another math. It's amazing at how young I decided I couldn't deal with something and it had an effect on the rest of my life... at 9 years old I knew how I would be at 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17. It was definitely an emotional thing as well... It could have been handled a lot better (I disliked my 4th grade teacher for several reasons)
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