Erikson's stages of Psychosocial Development are more profound then I thought. I took Psychology 101, so I knew of this theory, however, I did not think much of it. My, I guess you could call it an epiphany, on this theory happened just prior to writing this blog. Besides going for a Sec. Ed.: History degree, I am also going for an Anthropology degree. As such, I think about education in a little different light than the average education major. My two major paths allow me to not only look at how our society works, but I also have the opportunity to look at societies from around the world and throughout time as well. While I was trying to decide what to write I thought about a study I had read about. The point of the research was to find out whether adolescents from all societies go through a period of rebelling or whether it was a culture attribute. The study focused on Tongan girls in their teenage years and found that they did not go through a time of unrest. This though made me reexamine Erikson's theory more closely.
After looking at Erikson's stages of Psychosocial Development more closely I found that it contains psychosocial developments that are universal and cultural; however, I will only focus on two stages that are universal.
The two universal developments that I shall focus on are: Trust vs. Mistrust and Initiative vs. Guilt. Trust vs. Mistrust is universal because no matter what society, parent child relationship form an important part of the society. Often it is between mother and child, however, this is not always the case. In smaller societies, if the parent are not present, some other individual is usually there to fill that role (i.e. the mother's brother assuming a father role in matriarchal societies). Also going along with this is the fact that all known present societies have some form of a lullaby. These examples show the importance of Trust vs. Mistrust (parent child relationship) universally.
Initiative vs. Guilt or, am I a good boy/girl or a bad boy/girl, is interesting because this concept exists in all the societies I know of. One of the ways a society can mold this is the use of monsters as enforcers of rules. The thought that if a child misbehaves (chooses to be a bad boy/girl) they will be taken away/ eaten by a monster allows adults to control the actions of children when they are not present. Around 3-5, monster stories are told all over the world, so Erikson was correct about this stage happening around these ages.
The reason I discussed the above is because the information can be useful for educators. This knowledge can help educators show students that they are not all that different from each other even if they are culturally different. Children psychosocially develop differently in different cultures, however, the similarities are more present than the differences.
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I appreciate Chris mentioning two of Erikson's stages of development that are universal. I felt that most of the psychosocial developments identified by Erikson were cultural, so Chris' comments helped me to approach Erikson's theories in different ways. I agree that from ages 3-5 children are learning to balance their actions with those of others and that this happens in a variety of cultures. It is in the variations of cultural values and societal conventions that we see differences in exactly how children are learning to initiate actions on their own (335). I'm wondering whether the "monster stories" that are (according to Chirs) prevalent in a number of cultures serve as a positive or negative reinforcement of behavior. Do they perpetuate guilt, fear and discourage children to initiate actions on their own? Do the monster stories serve to teach children good judgement to use when initiating action?
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ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more it is so important as educators to use this knowledge to be a better teacher. Like you said it is important for use to show our students that they are all the same even though they might have some differences. A great way to do this is do community builders with your students. Some teachers only use community builders in the beginning of the year. I feel that in order for community builders to be effective you need to do them throughout the year. Continuously building your classroom community.
Sandra Lara, I love how you bring up community builders as a year long part of your classroom agenda. I too believe (and have experienced) community builders as an on going experience in the classroom. I think it is important to let your students know that it is important that we have different experiences with our peers and continue to get to know one another on different levels. This camaraderie will only have positive affects on the students and their eagerness to take risk in the classroom and outside the classroom.
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