Chapter 3

What?

In chapter three it explores the ideas of sense of self. The sense of self is what makes a person an individual and how they see themselves. The factors to sense of self is how an individuals previous experiences have played a role in his or her life. They might feel they are unable to do math because they have not done well in the past, so he or she might have a low self efficiency of themselves. Self-efficiency is how an individual interpret or has the ability to handle a project and how they feel about what they did in that project. A person's sense of self is also determined by behaviors of others. How they compare to others in their class or family gives them either a high sense of self or a low sense of self. As an early adolescence an individual is in the process of having an imaginary audience towards themselves. They may feel that everyone is looking at them and paying attention to everything they do. They also have a personal fable about themselves. This is when they feel that nobody has every lived or went through what they have. Their pain is the worst pain ever, nobody has ever been in love like me and my boyfriend of two weeks. Adolescence also have a sense of invincibility. They feel like they are on top of the world and do not recognize the danger they put themselves into.
In chapter three it was also discussed a philosopher by the name of Erik Erickson. Erickson believed in a psychosocial development. He had eight stages which people move through throughout their life's. His eight stages are as follows; Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Role Confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generative vs. Stagnation, Integrity vs. Despair. Through these stags Erickson believed all individuals go through during different stages of his or her life.

So What?

Through this chapter I found value in most of the information. There is defiantly true statement about how adolescence perceive themselves and how they feel other perceive them also. As a future teacher I hope to build individuals sense of self and help them become aware of how to build a better self image about themselves. I also think this chapter gave great information regarding how students assemble as they age, and what factors help with individuals being social entities. The chapter talked about parenting styles and how to recognize maltreatment of a child, how parents rear more rounded self sufficient children if they are using the authoritative parenting style. It is great to know this information for me as a future teacher. If my future students are not receiving this type of parenting and only receiving authoritarian or permissive parenting I as an educator will be able to show this type of teaching in my future classroom. This will give students the opportunity to say things without fear of ridicule, punishment, or judgement upon them. This may show students that not all parents are as strict as theirs are and also if a students parents are very permissive it will allow them to have responsibility for their actions.

Now What?

What I still need to know is how to build a students sense of self and learn how to correct in a not critical manner. I need to know and understand that every individual comes from a different back ground and they may not like me as a teacher. They may believe that the rules are too stringent, but I know I do not want to be an authoritarian teacher. I want to teach with aspects from all philosophies and give students the opportunity to learn socially. I still need to learn how to apply Erickson's eight stages of development into a classroom setting. I also need to learn and read more into moral development. How to encourage students to make good moral decisions about his or her life's as well as how they affect others life's as well. I need to be more optimistic for myself and to teach others how to be optimistic vs. pessimistic. I think that is hard to teach an individual how to be an optimist and always look for good in things, but I look forward to learning more information about the subject in future classes as I progresses in my education.