Tuesday, August 4, 2009
I Had a Great Idea
for this post. It was around 4:30, I had spent some time in my classroom (in the summer it reminds me of the interior of those haunted houses in movies, all dusty and covered up) working on the Adolescent Identity thing, but I was on my way to the grocery store. Zipping along on a pretty busy stretch of road, (what happened to the merge lane?!!) it hit me, a great title and all. I wondered if I should drive one handed and fish around for a pencil and notebook, but the concept seemed so clear to me that it was almost haloed in golden light in my mind's eye. I opted to operate my vehicle in accordance with state and local ordinance. Got to the store, concept still there, parked, picked up a cart, started checking the origin of the produce-- Is it organic? Is it local? Impressed by the price of peanut butter, I bought two, as I did with the dishwasher tabs that were on sale, too. Over at the wine aisle, I was completely engaged in choosing one that paired with our dinner and a couple others that I liked having on hand. And on I went through the grocery store, leaving well satisfied with my active shopping. I have since cooked that dinner and enjoyed some of the wine, and all along I've been racking my brain for that perfect idea I had, but I can not recall it.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Identifiable Crisis
Okay, so let's say you're conversant with Erikson and Marcia's models of identity formation. What'll that get you? Imagine you are a teacher participating in a conference for a student who isn't performing academically. Perhaps you recognize that this child, formerly foreclosed and 100% on board with her parents' values of hard work, organization, and academic success is now quite obviously diffused or perhaps in moratorium. What's your approach?
My friend and I kicked this question around a bit this morning (and glad I was to have the chance to do so, because talking to her about school always helps). We agreed that the obvious implications of identity formation models are in forming personal relationships with students and establishing a safe and caring classroom climate. Certainly both of those things are easier to do with the empathy that results from an understanding of the flux and turmoil that kids must face as a matter of development. She also reminded me that this knowledge should rightfully shape our expectations in terms of student behavior and what attitude an 11, 12, 13 or 14 year old is actually capable of sustaining. Let's face it, "Because I said so," is no longer a compelling reason, but a sensible alternative can sometimes be a stretch.
But I feel that in order to fully convince teachers of the value of this information there must be an application beyond classroom management. What about our instructional practices and student acievement?
My friend and I kicked this question around a bit this morning (and glad I was to have the chance to do so, because talking to her about school always helps). We agreed that the obvious implications of identity formation models are in forming personal relationships with students and establishing a safe and caring classroom climate. Certainly both of those things are easier to do with the empathy that results from an understanding of the flux and turmoil that kids must face as a matter of development. She also reminded me that this knowledge should rightfully shape our expectations in terms of student behavior and what attitude an 11, 12, 13 or 14 year old is actually capable of sustaining. Let's face it, "Because I said so," is no longer a compelling reason, but a sensible alternative can sometimes be a stretch.
But I feel that in order to fully convince teachers of the value of this information there must be an application beyond classroom management. What about our instructional practices and student acievement?
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Identity Crisis
I'm taking myself out of the expert category of adolescent identity formation. I'm still having a hard time pulling all my research together. Here's what I know so far:
Most identity formation theories are based on Erikson's model of human development. According to him, we go through eight stages, each of which roughly corresponds to a certain age range. The primary task of adolescents, age 12-18, is to determine who they are and who they will be. In pursuing this self-concept, kids have three things to contend with: sexual maturity, occupational skills and talents, and their social context.
James Marcia further refined the model by identifying two key processes that adolescents use in forming their personalities: actively exploring their options and making deliberate choices about those options. The use of these two tools, either separately, in combination, or not at all, describes four phases of identity development. The adolescent who has adopted his or her opinions on sex, a career, and society from a parent or institution without conscious exploration or choice is foreclosed. The teen who is neither exploring nor choosing, but rather living day to day without consideration of the future is diffused. A kid who is actively struggling with these issues is in moratorium, and one who has resolved them has achieved identity. The process is recursive: people can cycle through all the phases several times. A stable identity is not necessarily unchanging; it is however continuous over time.
What does all of this mean to the classroom teacher? Good question.
Most identity formation theories are based on Erikson's model of human development. According to him, we go through eight stages, each of which roughly corresponds to a certain age range. The primary task of adolescents, age 12-18, is to determine who they are and who they will be. In pursuing this self-concept, kids have three things to contend with: sexual maturity, occupational skills and talents, and their social context.
James Marcia further refined the model by identifying two key processes that adolescents use in forming their personalities: actively exploring their options and making deliberate choices about those options. The use of these two tools, either separately, in combination, or not at all, describes four phases of identity development. The adolescent who has adopted his or her opinions on sex, a career, and society from a parent or institution without conscious exploration or choice is foreclosed. The teen who is neither exploring nor choosing, but rather living day to day without consideration of the future is diffused. A kid who is actively struggling with these issues is in moratorium, and one who has resolved them has achieved identity. The process is recursive: people can cycle through all the phases several times. A stable identity is not necessarily unchanging; it is however continuous over time.
What does all of this mean to the classroom teacher? Good question.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Platinum
I have a Wii, and I'm not afraid to use it. I like all the games, but I especially like American Idol Karaoke. For some reason, I find it extremely relaxing to grab that mic and belt out a few songs-- the tension just melts away. I'm no slouch at it either; I consistently score above 95%, even on advanced difficulty. That's actually kind of funny to me, because I really can't sing. I feel sorry for anyone within earshot of my "performances", but still the platinum records pile up. A little while ago, as I was delivering a particularly shattering rendition of My Heart Will Go On (think of the extra cheesy emotion and those looooong high notes in that one, and you'll be glad that you are there and I am here), I wondered about the electronic scoring, and it reminded me of an article I read recently about how diligently ETS is working to write a computer program that will be able to score expository essays. I had to laugh; I really can't imagine any substitute for human evaluation. Say what you will about Paula, Randy, and Simon, but they would never let me through.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Flashback
How did this happen? Thirty years ago I left high school behind forever. I went to a boarding school in Switzerland, so the chances of the 70 students in my class having regular reunions was nil.
Enter facebook. At first I was thrilled to reconnect with classmates I hadn't heard from since graduation. To be honest, there were people I hadn't even thought of since then, but our shared experience was our bond, and it was interesting to discover the narrative arc that their lives had taken over that time and to find out what they were doing now.
A couple of weeks ago, though, someone in our class got the bright idea to set up a conference call reunion. He circulated a phone number and PIN that we could all call at an appointed time. He asked us all to forward the information to other classmates and then to send in a brief bio in advance so that people would have talking points.
All of a sudden I was back on that small, exquisite campus where everyone knew everyone else, but we didn't all socialize. Sure, I had a core group of friends, but we had stayed in touch before fb, and I really didn't spend much time with too many of the other kids. Now they expected me to call in and make small talk for two hours. It'll be just like hanging out at Angelo's or Montag someone wrote, and I realized just how far I hadn't come.
The virtual peer pressure to participate was intense. E-mail bios were arriving every half-hour along with the count of all those who would be dialing in. Everyone was doing it, and I didn't want to disappoint, but I didn't want to do it, either. Just like that, thirty years of accomplishment and confidence-building crumbled beneath me, and I knew that I would be uncomfortable if I did and uncomfortable if I didn't. I was transported right back to the worst part of high school, not fitting in with the cool crowd.
Enter facebook. At first I was thrilled to reconnect with classmates I hadn't heard from since graduation. To be honest, there were people I hadn't even thought of since then, but our shared experience was our bond, and it was interesting to discover the narrative arc that their lives had taken over that time and to find out what they were doing now.
A couple of weeks ago, though, someone in our class got the bright idea to set up a conference call reunion. He circulated a phone number and PIN that we could all call at an appointed time. He asked us all to forward the information to other classmates and then to send in a brief bio in advance so that people would have talking points.
All of a sudden I was back on that small, exquisite campus where everyone knew everyone else, but we didn't all socialize. Sure, I had a core group of friends, but we had stayed in touch before fb, and I really didn't spend much time with too many of the other kids. Now they expected me to call in and make small talk for two hours. It'll be just like hanging out at Angelo's or Montag someone wrote, and I realized just how far I hadn't come.
The virtual peer pressure to participate was intense. E-mail bios were arriving every half-hour along with the count of all those who would be dialing in. Everyone was doing it, and I didn't want to disappoint, but I didn't want to do it, either. Just like that, thirty years of accomplishment and confidence-building crumbled beneath me, and I knew that I would be uncomfortable if I did and uncomfortable if I didn't. I was transported right back to the worst part of high school, not fitting in with the cool crowd.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Wisdom of Experience
All summer long I've been griping about this curriculum project that I voluntarily agreed to work on. It is an electronic course on adolescent development for middle school teachers. The concept is that those who enroll will spend about thirty hours working their way through the materials and assignments that the four of us who are creating the course put together. At the end, the objective is that the participants will have a better understanding of adolescent development and the best instructional practices that are rooted in that theory; in addition, teachers who complete the course will have had the opportunity to connect the theories that they are exposed to with what is happening with real students in their own classrooms.
Now that I've typed it out like that, it sounds pretty good, but my objection to it has been that the people they have tapped to put this course together are not experts on adolescent development. Take me for example: sure, I've been teaching middle school for sixteen years, and it's true that I have my National Board Certification in Early Adolescence/English Language Arts, but I don't really think I'm qualified to teach other professionals about Adolescent Identity Development. (Why did I say yes to this?)
Anyhow, I committed to doing it, and I've struggled all summer trying to get a handle on the task of designing seven contact hours of reading and responding on my segment of the curriculum. I've spent plenty of time reading up myself on adolescent development and the formation of identity, to be sure, but my lack of confidence has impacted my focus, and I'm a bit behind deadline.
In tandem with this dilemma, I have also been reading Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones by Thomas Newkirk. One of his major premises is that teachers, like doctors and nurses and other skilled professionals develop "the wisdom of experience." Every minute of every teaching day, we make innumerable decisions, many of them unconscious, based on specific situations, our experience, and our knowledge; we adjust and readjust our instruction and directions student by student and moment by moment. In recent years, the value of this experience has been undermined by the search for objectives standards to measure student learning.
Today, as I labored to organize all my research on adolescent identity development, I realized that none of it was news to me. All of the theories of Erikson, Piaget, and the subsequent researchers who designed their studies based on the work of those two, made intutitive sense to me after spending the better part of the last couple of decades working with children of that age. I have seen those " temporarily disorganized egos" in action, witnessed the usually messy transition away from the "internalized parent", as well as the often painful struggle to "integrate physical changes into a new sense of self." And the "affiliation-abandonment dynamic" as it relates to peers? Check.
Perhaps more importantly, I have some pretty good ideas about how to address such issues when they impact my students and their learning. Hm. Maybe I am an expert, after all.
Now that I've typed it out like that, it sounds pretty good, but my objection to it has been that the people they have tapped to put this course together are not experts on adolescent development. Take me for example: sure, I've been teaching middle school for sixteen years, and it's true that I have my National Board Certification in Early Adolescence/English Language Arts, but I don't really think I'm qualified to teach other professionals about Adolescent Identity Development. (Why did I say yes to this?)
Anyhow, I committed to doing it, and I've struggled all summer trying to get a handle on the task of designing seven contact hours of reading and responding on my segment of the curriculum. I've spent plenty of time reading up myself on adolescent development and the formation of identity, to be sure, but my lack of confidence has impacted my focus, and I'm a bit behind deadline.
In tandem with this dilemma, I have also been reading Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones by Thomas Newkirk. One of his major premises is that teachers, like doctors and nurses and other skilled professionals develop "the wisdom of experience." Every minute of every teaching day, we make innumerable decisions, many of them unconscious, based on specific situations, our experience, and our knowledge; we adjust and readjust our instruction and directions student by student and moment by moment. In recent years, the value of this experience has been undermined by the search for objectives standards to measure student learning.
Today, as I labored to organize all my research on adolescent identity development, I realized that none of it was news to me. All of the theories of Erikson, Piaget, and the subsequent researchers who designed their studies based on the work of those two, made intutitive sense to me after spending the better part of the last couple of decades working with children of that age. I have seen those " temporarily disorganized egos" in action, witnessed the usually messy transition away from the "internalized parent", as well as the often painful struggle to "integrate physical changes into a new sense of self." And the "affiliation-abandonment dynamic" as it relates to peers? Check.
Perhaps more importantly, I have some pretty good ideas about how to address such issues when they impact my students and their learning. Hm. Maybe I am an expert, after all.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
I'll be Back
Home from Tucson, we returned to 80-80 at 8 PM, heat and humidity, and the contrast couldn't have been starker. The very air was hydrating, and that nice, straight Arizona hair I'd been admiring on myself in all those mirrors in our hotel returned to its usual lame wave-- I really do need a trim.
My forehead was pressed against the window of the plane as we took off this morning, scanning hard for one last glimpse of Saguaro National Park and Mt. Lemmon, or even that javelina we saw trotting alongside the road yesterday morning. High above the city, I could see the dark green veins of the vegetation growing along the arroyos running across the desert just outside of town, and I thought how Tucson was a lot greener than I expected it to be; the amount of life flourishing in the brown desert, even in the middle of summer, really surprised me. As we flew east, leaving it all behind, I made a list of the things I want to do on my next visit.
See more cowboys
Watch the sun rise and set over the desert
Go back to Mount Lemmon
Hike the desert
Learn more plants and animals
Eat nopales
Star gaze
Enjoy temperatures below 90
My forehead was pressed against the window of the plane as we took off this morning, scanning hard for one last glimpse of Saguaro National Park and Mt. Lemmon, or even that javelina we saw trotting alongside the road yesterday morning. High above the city, I could see the dark green veins of the vegetation growing along the arroyos running across the desert just outside of town, and I thought how Tucson was a lot greener than I expected it to be; the amount of life flourishing in the brown desert, even in the middle of summer, really surprised me. As we flew east, leaving it all behind, I made a list of the things I want to do on my next visit.
See more cowboys
Watch the sun rise and set over the desert
Go back to Mount Lemmon
Hike the desert
Learn more plants and animals
Eat nopales
Star gaze
Enjoy temperatures below 90
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