Studying Growth

“Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life.” -Steve Jobs This quote particularly stuck out to me in Steve Jobs’s Stanford address. Death is a part of life that we all fear because it is the final part of our life’s journey. As humans, it is only innate to fear or even dread death because we have worked so hard in the duration of our lifespans developing our fullest senses of self, creating intrinsic and meaningful relationships, and finding value in our impact on society. It is the absolute and definitive end to the cumulation of all of our live’s hard work, acquisition of knowledge, triumph over stressors, and cognitive development. Through the shared experience of death, one thing often repeated is: “they lived a good life”. It is this “they lived a good life” mentality that makes the road to our shared destination worth traveling. The construct of the uncertaintie...

Chapters 9 & 10 strays away from adolescence and into adulthood. In our reading, we see a persons physical changes making way for social and cultural transitions. During emerging adulthood, young adults 18-25 are engaging in experimentation and exploration as they attempt to form and navigate life paths on their own. Here, a person is not only able to reproduce, but they realize that they are responsible for their own lives and are able to take on adult responsibilities. Further, young adults are able to use the life experience gained throughout adolescence pertaining to personal interest building, problem solving strategies, and perspective development. In this phase, lifestyle changes such as diet, fitness, and substance use majorly affects cognitive development as well as into the other phases of life.  As technology advances and emphasis on the media and pop culture increases, I believe that the transition from adolescence to adulthood is getting harder and harder. Ado...

Our chapter 8 reading this week defines adolescence as a time of life marked by physical transitions like puberty, body image perception, and stages of cognitive development. During adolescence there is an increase in hormone flow, growth spurts, and secondary sex characteristics. Further into the reading, we see perspectives and theories of psychologists that illustrate an adolescent’s journey towards a fuller sense of self.  Erik Erickson outlines adolescence as the fifth stage in his psycho social theory of development. Erickson says that adolescence is the time a person makes major decisions regarding their identity. He goes on to say that adolescents experiment with a variety of identities in order to become individuals. I agree with Erickson because when I think back, I can remember changing my identity like clothes.  On the first day of school I met Courtney. Immediately, I thought she was one of the sweetest girls I’ve worked with. Definitely the sweetest ...

For anyone interested, I watched the film called Bully in another class. I thought it applied to our film analysis for the week. It tore at my heartstrings, but is a good watch. Check it out—thought I’d share! 

Chapter 6 of LIFESMART discusses the emergence of a sense of self and establishment of self awareness in children. Here, we see a shift in a child’s description of themselves from physical characteristics to a more personal view of their character. “Erik Erickson categorized early childhood as the stage when children grapple with initiative versus guilt. They experience a tension between their increasing abilities and their developing conscience.” (141) This struck me, because teaching high school special ed, I see my students’ sense of self developing every day. All of my students want to appear independent and more adult in their own way. A boy with Down syndrome in my classroom carries around a clipboard because it makes him feel official—even though the writing on the clipboard is nonsensical. Another one of my female students with autism will wear her aunt’s high heels to school from time to time even though she cannot walk around in them. As someone who wants to further my caree...

Chapter 3 divides prenatal development into 3 stages: germinal, embryonic, and fetal. What struck me in chapter 3 were tables 3.2 and 3.8. I learned that teratogens are any environmental agents, like smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol during pregnancy or exposure to infectious diseases,   that create developmental risks to an embryo or fetus. Exposure to teratogens lead to abnormal birth defects such as cognitive deficiencies, neurological problems, and even death. Figure 3.8 shows that during the embryonic period (3-8 weeks when the heart, ears, and eyes form) a fetus is most susceptible to teratogens.   In chapter 4, I learned that a newborn child is also known as a neonate. Neonates exhibit their development through their sensory perception and reflex responses to stimuli. Sensory competencies such as: vision, smell, taste, hearing, and touch play an important role in how an infant gains information about the world and grows physically, cognitively, and emotionally...