Chapter 3- Personal and Soical Development

What?
Personal and Social Development is the process in which children develop behaviors and self-understanding as well as learning how to socialize. Social development can also include children understanding their peers and how process society's standards for behavior.

Several environmental factors influence the development of this. A child's personality is developed by parent's, culture expectations and temperament. As these take place in a child's life, they began to develop a sense of self. one of the major points we focused on was that of Erik Erikson. He described the process in which a child develops this through eight stages, they are as follows: Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. role confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generatively vs. Stagnation and Integrity vs. despair.

So What?
Each stage is different and focuses on what the individual is most influenced by when developing this sense of self. this is important as teachers because it can help us understand where the the student is coming from and having struggles with. It also helps with teaching the students the curriculum because as we understand what they are capably of doing and where you can help them stretch. This sense of self is just as important as helping the students learn their curriculum because it is such a large influence in their lives. knowing the stages and help you identify certain behaviors and reasoning behind them.

Now What?
So I just found out that I'll be doing my student teaching at a middle school and this has a huge effect on me especially when it comes to the development of the students self and social skills. The students will be at an entirely different level than that of students from a high school. I know now that some of my students will still be figuring out who they are and experiencing some role of confusion and other behaviors. As i identify these behaviors, I can personalize my lesson plans to fit the needs of the the class, students and peers. Understanding that they are still in the development stage, i can help them achieve their identity and its foundation so that as they continue to develop, they can be successful and feel like they know who they are.