Phase+I


 * // Who Am I? What’s my Place in the World? //** // Dr. Candy Beal //

An Simple English (abridged) version of this essay is available here

Life is full of questions and not all of them are easy to answer. Two of the trickiest ones are the most important because they anchor the quests we undertake for our lifetime. Each question influences the answer of the other. These questions are:
 * Who am I?
 * What is my place in the world?

As we grow, we change how we think about ourselves and others. There are many development theories to explain how we evolve into who we are. The more we know about the theories and the stages they predict we will go through, the better we can understand what’s happening to us throughout our life.

Self-knowledge gives us the power to make wiser choices. So why aren’t we taught about these theories as we grow up? Who wouldn’t want to know that when we are in middle school and shifting membership from one peer group to another, that what we are really doing is trying on different identities (Erik Erikson)? In one type of group we behave one way, and in another type of group we behave another way. Which group makes us feel the most comfortable? Which group seems to be the most like us? In other words, which identity fits us best? Wouldn’t it be useful to know how we learn best so we could fit a project or lesson to match our learning style (Howard Gardner)? When we face moral dilemmas, and have to make tough choices, surely it would be helpful to understand what each possible choice represents. Are we acting out of selfish motives or trying to consider what’s the best for others as well as what’s best for us (Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan)?

Knowing and understanding how development theories work gives you the power to know yourself and others better. You can __predict__ with some certainty what’s coming next, and not just __hope__ for the best. You have much greater control over your life and future, and as a student you are able to make much wiser choices, both academic and social.

Check out the table at the end of the article. It contains some of the most influential theorists and a brief look at the theories they developed. Think how knowing more about these idea, might help inform your choices for your life and your pathway to the future.

Outside influences play a role in shaping who we are. James Garbarino’s theory, //The Ecology of Adolescent Development// (adapted from [|Urie Bronfenbrenner] ), is especially useful in explaining the influences and pressures we all face as we interact in the many “worlds” in which we live. Garbarino believes that adolescents live in four worlds (microsystems) - home, school, peers and community. Think about drawing lines among and between these four words. The more interconnected our four worlds are, the more support we have for what we do and who we will become. Influence also plays a role. The more connected we are the more influence others have on us and we on them. Here is a diagram that illustrates one way that Bronfenbrenner's four theoretical worlds can take shape.

Around the interconnected microsystem and mesosystem is another circle or world, the exosystem. Things that happen in this sphere are those over which adolescents, in particular, have no control, such as a family moving to a new location, parents changing/losing jobs, schools redistricting attendance areas resulting in a shift to a new school, etc. Finally, an outer circle or world (macrosystem) surrounds all of the worlds. That circle represents the values of a culture or of a society. This might be represented by the spiritual leaders, artists, athletes, governmental leaders, etc., who play a role in influencing our culture and our lives. They may be people whom we seek to fashion ourselves after, thus they have a role in helping us build our identity. Or, it may be the form of government or types of religion that strongly influence a region or a country.

With some of these theoretical ideas in mind, we can now focus our frame of reference on our own identity.

In our early years we all very ME focused. As we grow older and start to figure ourselves out (determine our identity) we move from **//it’s all about me//** (Who am I?) to **//how can I fit into the world and make a difference//** (What’s my place in the world?). We start to think more of others, other cultures, countries, people and the problems in our world. We realize that we are all part of the **//family of man//**. This doesn’t mean that we do not still worry about what’s in it for me and how will the solution to the problem affect me. What it means is that we begin to realize that sometimes the good of all must come before our own interests and wishes. That’s a hard concept for some organizations and nations to support.

The progression of questions from **//you- focused//** to **//others-oriented//** is easy to follow. A **//you-focused//** question might be, “How can **I** get along with my peers?” An **//others-oriented//** approach to the same type of issue, but on a global scale, would be, “Why can’t **countries** get along with one another?”


 * Can we make a difference? The GLIP Project can help **

The GLIP project will give you the chance to make your voice heard as you work with others around the world to investigate problems and suggest possible solutions. Phase One is all about YOU! Who are you? Give this question some serious thought. Sure, there are the outer trappings of you, your clothes, your school, your family, but who are you, really? What’s your sense of place? Where are you the most comfortable within yourself? What centers you? Are there some beliefs that you strongly hold? What really makes you who you are? Craft your personal profile to tell us all about who you think you are right now.

Phase Two will enable us to know more about your sense of place. How do you see your “world”? Think about your block, neighborhood, shopping area, city, etc. In this phase, you will select and share a picture of your sense of place and then tell us about the picture you have selected. Why does this picture represent you and who you are? Your picture selection will help your group’s participants learn about your “world.” We’ll all learn a lot about differing perspectives about the world from Phase Two - Perusing Pskov, Rediscovering Raleigh, Hunting for Facts in Hawaii, Chatting with China, Taking a Look at Turkey should give us a chance to lens switch with many other parts of the world.

Phase Three is called “making a difference.” Wait! That’s not to say that we don’t think that getting to know one another and looking at another’s home place from the eyes of the person who really knows it, isn't going to make a difference in all of us. It certainly will, because that gives us all a baseline of who is in our group, what they are like and where they come from. With all of that insight we are going to be very well prepared to dig in and help our group members try to find solutions to problems that they have identified as ones that need solving in their “world.” Here’s where we’ll go back to the beginning and look at the issues that each identified in Phase One as the local, regional or country problems that need to be addressed. We may see that problems across the ocean are very much like ones that are right next door.

So, we’ve come full circle and we are back to you. But now you are no longer alone with this concern you have identified. You now have group members from all over the world who know you and your perspective better. Because they know and understand your “world,” they can help suggest actions and solutions to your problem. It’s the old “two heads are better than one.”

Let’s not wait and pass these problems on to another generation. That’s what’s been done in the past. It’s time to step up. Let’s work together and bring our new understanding of each other’s “worlds” to our global table to help look for answers to problems we believe matter.

We hope that you will want to join us in adding a new facet to your identity as a global citizen. It’s important to get beyond the stereotypical views of others and their states/countries. Stereotypes are destructive things. They prejudice your views and can make meaningful work with world neighbors impossible. We have big problems all over this planet and we all need to be part of the discussion to find solutions. Won’t you be part of the conversation? Mother Earth needs YOUR input and would appreciate your help.


 * Next Steps **

Now that you have done some thinking about yourself, it's time to build your personal Wiki page. You will find you personal page by clicking on the left where it says "Group pages." On the next page, just click your group name. After you do that please edit your page to answer these questions so we can learn more about you. You will see that your page already has these questions on the page. You just need to fill in the answers!


 * What __really__ makes up your identity?
 * What __really__ makes up your sense of place?
 * What roles do your identity and sense of place play when you work with others in a group project?
 * What are the qualities that you bring to the GLIP conversation that will help you make a contribution to your global group?
 * What is one local problem (where you live) that you believe needs to be addressed? Suggest some steps could you take to try to solve it?
 * Finally, some problems have been around for a long time. What qualities do you think a person must have to step up and try to solve them?

Development Theories To Help Explain Why You Are You!

Testing limits, taking risks, but still need the security of rules and routine. Socialization and peers are priorities, but ultimately adolescents will value what their parents or significant others value. || Concrete physical and personal needs must be met (water, food, shelter, safety, love and acceptance, belonging) before we reach self-actualization (doing what you know you were meant to do for the good of humanity). || One experience leads to another (continuity of experiences) and the merging of experiences determine life’s pathway. Knowing a child’s frame of reference allows learning to be customized and highly motivational. || Fit the learning to the child’s life experiences, not the child to what’s to be learned. Child will then become engaged, motivated to seek knowledge and understanding. Reference the child. The child does not need to know the “final destination.” The teacher helps her find her way. || The mind’s information store- house is the schema or schemata. Bringing in information and sorting and expanding it in light of what you already know builds pathways to understanding. Disequilibrium is the time of greatest learning. || Concrete to abstract thinking (facts to reflection) Schemata - brain’s personal concept and fact web that can absorb and make sense of new learning. Assimilation - facts are “just passing through” and not web caught. Accommodation - facts hooked to schemata, made sense of and are the student’s for life. || Understanding that just knowing facts isn’t the only level of knowledge that’s important, we must help students apply them to more complex issues and problems. || Lays out stages of learning, from basic facts to understanding of how those facts are used, applied, analyzed, synthesized and evaluated. Reflective thinking is the ultimate goal. || Everyone has all of the intelligences, but mostly use those in which we excel. Often, we take risks and try other intelligences to broaden ourselves, and find through this exploration that we can develop other interests and skills. Adults need to provide a safety net when children branch out to try other multiple intelligences and encourage and support them in the exploration process. || Everyone has at least 9 different multiple intelligences (MI) that show up in distinctive learning styles. The multiple intelligences we find to be strong, we use more. It helps students if teachers teach lessons aimed at more than one learning style since we all have different strengths. Intelligences include interpersonal, intrapersonal, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, naturalist, visual-spatial, musical- rhythmic, body-kinesthetic, existential, with others still being discovered. || This is a full life theory that takes us from birth to death. Because each stage provides challenges, we, parents, walk a fine line between encouraging and supporting, and going overboard by taking too much of a part in assuring a child’s success. Children learn from mistakes, and when they are made, parents need to help their child understand, learn from the lessons and move on. There’s hope in Erikson because we can always go back and redo a stage that we left lacking. The traits we build in each stage combine to form our personality. Children and parents need to understand that we can fine-tune, or do major reconstruction, whatever is needed to more positively construct our personality. || Erikson’s Theory of Epigenesis explains social/emotional development from birth to old age. Just as the bud of a flower unfolds to reveal its inner most beauty, so each human grows, layering one experience on another to form the traits of our personality. Each stage we pass through has a challenge and its resolution determines the character trait we take away. Some liken the process to gathering “trait tools” for your “personality toolbox.” Not all traits are completely positive or negative, i.e., trust versus mistrust. Some might point out that a little skepticism is a good thing. If any tool is too much on the negative side, you can go back, have an experience that is more positive, reform your tool and allow yourself a “do-over.” || James found American education lacking in understanding of children and failing to connect with students. The six polarities can be instructive for everyone, but are especially important for understanding youth. Balance is what we seek to achieve, though we are often on one side of the scale or the other. Helping children to see how to pick and choose opportunities and experiences that give them some of each end of the polarity will ensure balance and appreciation for different choices and behaviors. || This theory deals with the six different continua on which we find ourselves developing. Each continuum has polarities. We are striving to know the polarities on each continuum and bring them into balance in our lives. The six polarities are: the need to needed and the need to be need, and the need for stillness and the need for activity, the need for fact, and the need for myth and legend, the need to move inward, and the need to affect the outer world, the need for intensity, and the need for routine, and the need for separateness, and the need for belonging. || Providing support to scaffold children through lessons and experiences is the job of mentors who pass on the values of society. Learning is not listening to fact (intermental). Lessons are only learned if they are internalized (intramental) and made one’s own. || The Theory of Cognitive Socialization seeks to explain how we learn in collaboration with others. Language allows us to share information, and through thoughtful consideration of what others have told or taught us we can make it our own. We learn through lessons that mentors scaffold in the Zone of Proximal Development. || Helping children understand problems and make wise choices usually means considering “what-ifs” that are at least one level higher on the Kohlberg scale. Theory, normed on white males is considered by many to enable males to be scored more highly morally developed. Some believe there is crossover by both males and females to authoritarian and authoritative moral actions and beliefs. || This theory of moral development is based on the degree to which responses to a problem demonstrate a law and order inclination. Authoritarian. Normed on males.Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment orientation. //Eye for an eye.// Stage 2: Individualism and exchange. //You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back.// Stage 3: Good interpersonal relations. //Good boy, good girl.// Stage 4: Maintaining social order. //Adolescent peer groups. Abiding by the norms.// Stage 5: Social contract and individual rights. //Following rules of society, country.// Stage 6: Universal principles. //Doing what’s best for humanity. Jesus, Mother Teresa, Gandhi.// || This is the development theory that helps to explain why girls form tight friendships with their female peers, and struggle, often emotionally devastated, when those relationships end. Authoritative. Normed on females. || Moral development theory that is concerned with relationship development and maintenance. Theory stages: 1. Individual survival. 2. Selfishness transitions to responsibility to others. 3. Self-sacrifice seen as goodness. 4. Goodness transitions to realization she is person, too. 5. Non-violent, will not hurt self or others. || The number and kinds of relationships we have with significant others determine the strength of our support system. Parents must know and understand the influences all of the “worlds” have on their children and be vigilant as they try to help their child move among these worlds. Children are helpless to affect the outer “worlds” and parents must be their advocates. || Ecology of Adolescent Development sees our “worlds” as influences on the views and values we develop. Youth live in 4 worlds (microsystem): home, peers, school, and community. The mesosystem is formed by connections among the Microsystem units. The amount and quality of these connections indicate the strength of ones support system. Micro and meso systems are encircled by the exosystem. Happenings here are those over which youth has no control. Ex: Parent job loss The macrosystem encircles everything and reflects the values of the culture. Individuals or institutions can play a role in influencing lives and culture. ||
 * **// THEORIST //** || ** TYPE OF THEORY/APPLICATION ** || ** FACTS ABOUT THE THEORY ** ||
 * // MASLOW // || SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL
 * // MASLOW // || SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL
 * // DEWEY // || COGNITIVE
 * // PIAGET // || COGNITIVE
 * // BLOOM // || COGNITIVE
 * // GARDNER // || COGNITIVE
 * // ERIKSON // || SOCIAL EMOTIONAL
 * // CHARITY JAMES // || SOCIAL EMOTIONAL
 * // VYGOTSKY // || COGNITIVE SOCIAL
 * // KOHLBERG // || MORAL
 * // GILLIGAN // || MORAL
 * // GARBARINO // || SOCIAL