and20yearslater - Tumblr blog

[and20yearslater]

Farewell...

There are so many things that I would like to say about this portfolio. I have enjoyed it. The posts that the reader will find after this one is like a summary of all the things, I learned this semester. It would be impossible for me to write all the things that I learned because if the reader has taken a Psychology class before, then he or she will know that every single line of text in a Psychology book comes from a research, a project, or a theory, so that when someone is working on homework, then that person comes across hundreds of names, statistics, and facts, and the ones that tend to stand out are the ones that we find (consciously or unconsciously) more compelling to us. As I was preparing every single one of my posts for this portfolio, I realized certain patterns that the information that stood out to me followed, these patterns helped me realize about things that impacted me more than I thought they did, and above all, realizing about these aspects of my life helped me become more aware of myself. Mission accomplished for this class. Now the mission of applying everything I learned and using this information for good starts.

Thanks to all those who read this Tumblr.

[and20yearslater]

Memento Mori

[and20yearslater]

How Far Will I Go?

With all honesty, I don’t know how long I will live and have never thought about it in a realistic way. I have always been very optimistic, and according to Santrock (2018) young adults tend to be a little selfish, so I guess that the fact that I don’t think about the age at which I will die has much to do with that trait of my current stage of life.

Something that I do consider when thinking about how long I would like to live is my brothers, I am totally certain that I would like to see them become adults and help them whenever they need me. And I also picture myself taking my parents to live with me when they get older, so based on that I could say that I would like to at least live some 70 or 80 years.

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

[and20yearslater]

Psychology Fits Us Taylormade... ?

I know a few older adults, but I believe that the stage of integrity versus despair clearly describes how they behave and what they spend most of their time in this stage of life (Santrock, 2018). Like I previously said, my grandfather is usually telling me about all the different businesses that he had and how he got through all the difficulties in his early years in order to be able to raise my dad and his brothers. Santrock (2018) also says that older adults not only look at their successes but also to the things that they did wrong, and this is true for my grandfather and my grandmother, they usually, tell me how they were very prone to get mad at my dad and his siblings when something went wrong and hoe there are certain things they lament and that I shouldn’t do.

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

[and20yearslater]

All Roads Lead To Rome... But Which One Has The Best View?

If we all start to think how we develop, I think that we can eventually get to the conclusion that we are the product of the things we have been through, and that’s what the life events approach as a way to examine lifespan development is (Santrock, 2018). In addition, if we try to find a pattern that never changes no matter the culture, we will find that as we age we tend to focus on different things in life so that we end up breaking life down into several stages, every of which has a predominant thought of idea, and that is what the stage theory is (Santrock, 2018).

Now, if we wish to compare the findings of these two approaches for the stage of middle adulthood, we can conclude that while one successfully identifies a particular struggle during this stage, such as the generativity vs. stagnation (Santrock, 2018) In which individuals try to be productive and want to be productive rather than being stagnant; the life events approach focuses on predicting how our early years impact our lives later on in live. I think that both approaches help us have a more integral approach to all the possible variables that play a role in an individual’s development, for example: The Eriksonian stages would say that an individual in middle adulthood wants to be productive (Santrock, 2018), but if this individual is insanely compelled by that, then the life-events approach would help us have more information in regards to why this individual feels that way. In conclusion, I can say that while the stages gives us the over all pattern of motion, the life-events approach helps us understand the case by case variables when examining an individual’s development more in depth, hence both are needed to have a better understanding of development.

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

[and20yearslater]

Let’s talk about Love

I think that I am a securely attached individual, or at least I have been raised that way. I like to describe myself not as someone strictly positive but as someone realist with a slight touch of optimism; especially when it comes to interpersonal bonds. I believe that I match what Santrock (2018) says about how securely attached individuals tend to seek long term relationships rather than one-night stands,  and I can personally say that the perfect relationship for me is one in which my girlfriend and I can trust each other and can speak our minds out.

I was recently asked what I think about problematic relationships, and I said that I think a relationship has the purpose of helping two individuals grow in happiness and virtue so that they can become something more beautiful. I also argued that problems are totally normal in a relationship but if there are more problems than anything else then the whole establishment of a relationship loses its purpose and it should be terminated. I believe that it also reinforces the secure attachment that I was raised with.

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

[and20yearslater]

To Be (A Youngster) or Not To Be (An Adult)

Me and the product of meditating my Psychology book

[and20yearslater]

Between the Sword and The Wall

My life from 15 to 18 years old was a little bit different than everybody else’s, I was studying at a boarding school, in which teamwork was strictly enforced. It has been one of the best experiences of my life, and even though it limited my development somehow, it also kept me from many dangers and helped me develop other aspects of my life like the intellectual aspect, or my emotional intelligence as well as my academic and artistic curiosity; I think it also nurtured my creativity. It was during this time that I can’t for the first time to The United States, so my friends noticed that I was gone and after I went back to school, they asked me a lot of questions and things like that. Many of their questions helped me realize about all the possibilities that I had by coming to America to study, which I believe fulfills that trait mentioned by Arnett (Santrock, 2018) when he claims that young adults experience an age of possibilities being optimistic about the future, and with all sincerity, I can say that even though I didn’t plan it all out, I ended up living in this country, which was one of those dreams of mine from that age.

Furthermore, I also had that feeling of being in between (Santrock, 2018), because every time I visited my family, my parents would tell me my brothers’ misbehaving and they would ask me what I thought they should do about it; and honestly, it was weird at the beginning because I felt like I was still one of them, but as I grew older, I started to feel more like an adult so that I fit better in adult conversations whenever my family gathers together.

In addition, I can say that I still am somewhat self-focused. The most notorious trait in me right now is that identity exploration in love and at work: while I was in boarding school, any kind of relationship was forbidden, we didn’t have access to our cellphones and having “exclusive friends” was also highly forbidden, to the extent that if you were constantly seen with some classmate the teachers would ask both of you to stop being so close. In regards to instability, I can say that I haven’t suffered it that much, as most of the instability that I experience is the one that happens when I don’t have enough time to eat in between my class and work schedule. In my case, I can say that Arnett’s key features of emerging adulthood presented by Santrock (2018) apply to me for the most part, with the exception of the instability and maybe the exploratory stage of love and work.

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

[and20yearslater]

About Origins and Destinations... (Well, this is honestly just about My Origin)

I am Mexican. I can luckily say that I have never been stereotyped because of that, and even though I could elaborate on a lot of different aspects about how my cultural identity differs from the mainstream culture, I will only talk about a few things. As Mexicans, we are very family oriented, so it is very common to see big Mexicans families living together (a while ago I read a joke about how we, as Mexicans, tend to house a large group of people in very tiny spaces); I can put my family as an example: for any holiday we all get together and celebrate, and that mmeans a 20+ people celebration, so if you ever invite my whole family to a party… plan accordingly.

Education is another key point in traditional Mexicans. Most of the people in Mexico barely finished High School, and even though this is partly due to the fact that finishing high school was not legally mandated until recently, it is also due to the socioeconomic conditions in Mexico: in certain town it is still believed that women should not go to school and the males are the ones who go to school, if the family has enough resources, if not, then the boys also have to go to school. This is important because research has shown that a low education level is a predictor of delinquency (Santrock, 2018)

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

[and20yearslater]

A pea in a pot

Growing up in a school district in which my uncle and my aunt were regarded as very talented instructors set the bar high for me, since I spent an important part of my childhood with them. Some of their coworker teachers thought that I was their child, so my teachers always expected me to master the materials, work ahead, turn everything in on time, and things like that. Truth is, before that I used to be a naughty kid, I remember that I almost got in trouble once because I threatened a classmate with a knife, and that’s when my aunt and uncle decided to step in and take me to school with them. I remember that I would go to my kindergarten classes in the morning and then my aunt would pick me up from school and take me with her to her school. I had to spent so many boring hours at her office that after a few weeks she agreed to let me go out and play with the older kids at her school (since it was an elementary school and I was a kindergarten student). A few months went by, and she decided to let me go with her to her classroom visits, and sometimes when teachers were sick, she would let me go with her when she had to watch a class due to an absence. Being so close to her, her coworkers started noticing about me more and more, to the point that they started inviting me to go to their classroom with them, to which I gladly agreed. I remember that by that time I had started my first year in elementary school, and the sixth-grade teacher of my aunt’s school invited me to her class, so there was I, a six-year-old, in a classroom full of thirteen-year old’s, which I thought was cool. I spent about a month in her class just sitting and doing nothing, when one day the topics she was explaining to her students started to sound appealing to me. After that day I started bringing a notebook with me to the classroom and I started to take notes, she realized about it and she agreed to let me turn in my work and give me feedback on it. I remember that she really took the time to make corrections to my notes and homework, and soon I started to learn more things that any kind my age in my school. I was in second grade when I was already able to do long division of multiple digits and calculate areas and volumes of solids and explaining the water cycle to my peers in my regular classroom. I believe that elementary school was an inspiring experience. That teacher that was willing to receive me really shaped my mindset, since she helped me see myself in the world as someone capable of making great contributions to it (Santrock, 2018). Furthermore, as I grew up, I engaged in more activities with instructors to the point that I was asked to prepare a presentation for all the teachers in my State on how to use technology in the classroom to improve learning outcomes. I believe that my public education was of the highest quality I can think of, since all the skills that my teacher taught me in elementary school are the very ones that I still use to study and prepare for tests. When it comes to describing the way in which I was taught, I would call it, under Santrock’ (2018) terminology, a direct instruction approach, because my teachers always set the bar high for me, and even a little higher when they though I may fall in temptation of being lazy. I don’t think this approach has made me a passive learner, like many experts affirm (Santrock, 2018), but I see what experts are concerned about given that I was given everything to study under this model, without the need to reach out for more information (unless I wanted to).

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

[and20yearslater]

Si quieren vender tienen que hablar Espanol

My mom

[and20yearslater]

I do not /spico panish/

I was born and raised in Mexico, so I never had that much of interaction with a non-Spanish speaker as a kid. However, I remember that my cousins would visit me every Christmas and that sometimes, when they were planning something against me, they would speak in English, so I usually say that natural selection did its wonders on me, the more we interacted growing up, the more words I was picking up from English, but those were just words, not actual sentences. One of the earliest memories that I have about speaking English goes back to my third grade in Mexico, when I grabbed a notebook and started writing the words that I knew in English and started writing sentences with them, so one of my sentences read “The dog is blue” and then the following one would read “The dog is crazy”, given that dog was pretty much the only animal I knew how to say and write in English, the poor canine was the victim of all sorts of adjectives and grammatical errors, from writing “The dog is ugly” to affirming “The dog is dead”. After that I didn’t really had contact with any other language until 10th grade, when I had to fulfill the foreign language requirements for my school; then I really applied myself to English and tried, to the best of my ability, to learn as much as I could. Later on in my education, I took Latin and ancient Greek, and after moving here to America, I can tell that it was worth it. I spent most of my day at school and work, and I speak English almost all day. It is happened to me that sometimes, when I am doing homework, my parents ask me something and I answer in English without realizing, and then I correct and translate myself. As I get more used to speaking mostly English I have noticed that some very peculiar or very technical words in Spanish have vanished, or that sometimes when I am trying to translate something for my parents I can’t remember the exact translation of a word in Spanish for them; this is what Santrock (2018) mentions to be called subtractive bilingualism, in which I am deteriorating my Spanish while learning English. But I have also noticed that when I go to Mexico, I tend to struggle to express myself during the first days, but after that transitory period passes I somewhat regain my fluency, and same with English. It is also mentioned in the book that bilingual people find it easier to identify grammar or spelling mistakes (Santrock, 2018), and that holds true for myself, to a certain extent. Knowing a little bit of Latin, Greek, French and English and Spanish, I usually find myself comparing the grammar between those three languages, and sometimes trying to translate as I read helps me remember, for example: a year ago, I was taking a Biology class, and I couldn’t remember the name of a disease that caused children to make a noise like a cat crying, until I realized that the disease was directly translated to French and it was called Criduchat or something like that, which meaning cat’s crying, in French. I have also noticed that it is particularly easy for me to stop paying attention to people speaking in one language when I want to concentrate in the other, for example: when I am at home doing homework, my parents try to keep it quiet, but I usually tell them that as long as they speak Spanish they don’t bother me, but when my brothers or my cousins come home and start speaking in English I have more difficulty concentrating. This also backs up what Santrock (2018) mentions about bilingual people having a better ability to control their attention.

[and20yearslater]

Also,

No, the plus one in the photos is not me (even though I was I was that handsome). He is my youngest brother who is now 7!

These are my Uncle Amadeus (White T Shirt) and my Dad (T shirt with squares), As you may know after reading my last post, they are pretty much two of the main pillars of my life. I am very proud of living up to their legacy.

[and20yearslater]

These are my Uncle Amadeus (White T Shirt) and my Dad (T shirt with squares), As you may know after reading my last post, they are pretty much two of the main pillars of my life. I am very proud of living up to their legacy.

[and20yearslater]

About a child…

Growing up I have many figures of authority around me, and I believe that a handful of people had an impact on growing up. I can tell with security that my dad and my aunt were always strict with me, they had a set of rules that could never be broken and I was rarely given a reason why; they always held me to high standards and expected a good performance on everything I did. I remember that my dad had to check my homework every night, if it was writing he was checking for spelling and grammar errors, if it was math he would look for computational  errors, and every time I made a mistake I had to write repetitions of the correct way of doing it so that I wouldn’t forget. I was usually afraid of asking for permission to go out and play with friends, to have a sleep over, or to even get something from the store; his punishments tended to be very lengthy and sophisticated, since he was very meticulous at everything he did. He would make me shine shoes, arrange his tool box or things like that; I can say that due to his methodic punishments, his imposition of rules, and his restrictions over my liberty, he can be catalogued as an authoritarian parent (Santrock, 2018). And now come my mom and my uncle, my uncle was the easy going and calm guy, he always had a smile on his face and I remember that he was always willing to help me with my homework; during finals week I would go to his house and he would seat with me and review all the material for my classes, then he would take my notes and ask me questions to test my knowledge, at the end he would always give me feedback on what to study more (I guess he was my LearnSmart since we didn’t have that in Mexico). He also taught me to play chess and was always encouraging me to read more to defeat him playing it. He always encouraged me to get better grades and learn new things as well. My mom was also very easy going while I was growing up, she was the one I’d go to whenever I wanted to sleep over a friend’s house, wanted to go out and play, or simply wanted to get something from the store; she was always very attentive of my needs and responsive whenever I had a problem and wanted to talk to her; due to my mom’s and my uncle’s quest for helping me be more independent, nurturing my security, self-esteem, and encouraging me to always have new and better goals, while helping me cope with my stress and my failure, I can classify them as authoritative (Santrock, 2018).

The two dominant parenting styles that I was raised with have helped me develop a balance of values. I have a good self-esteem and strong ethic values, I hold people accountable for their acts, but I also understand when someone makes a mistake. I say things that I am sure I’m right about, but I also know to acknowledge when I’m wrong. I believe that the parenting styles that I grew up with shaped most of my personality, and even though I highlighted the positive things about them, there are also a few things that I don’t like about me that may be the product of my process of growing up.

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

[and20yearslater]

I also wanted to seize this opportunity to show off my nephew, he will go to school in a few years and guess who will be rooting for a child-centered kindergarten? His happy uncle!

[and20yearslater]

Standing on the shoulders of giants.

Education is highly valued in most modern societies, and as the access to education becomes a possibility for more people, new methods have been developed through history with the aim of helping students and individuals fully develop to the best of their ability. The American model of education commonly starts at an early age, and for those pursuing more scientific careers, education is the work of a lifetime. Education can have such a great impact in the life of a person that every parent is concerned about giving the best education to their children since the early stages of their lives. Santrock (2018) exposes three different educative models for kids in their early childhood: The first model that Santrock (2018) presents is a model that emphasizes on the importance of self-discovery on behalf of the kid; in this educative model the main purpose is to help the kid become aware of his needs, his interests, and learning the way in which he learns rather than acquiring academic knowledge (Santrock, 2018), in more simple words, the child-centered kindergarten centers the whole purpose of this early stage off education in helping the kid learn how he learns, discover himself as a learner and learn from himself, rather than learning academic curricula. In this model of education each child is treated as a unique individual who learns through hands on experiments and interactions and plays in his environment (Santrock 2018).

The second kind of early educative intervention is based on the exercise of freedom, as children under this approach are allowed to stay in one task as long as they want with the option of changing to a different task that fulfills their interests better; in this educative model the teachers act more as  facilitators of material, giving assistance to kids whenever they request it and displaying how to use the tools that the kids feel interested in, rather than doing the regular teacher role (Santrock, 2018). This model called the Montessori approach supposes independence and enhances more of a personal engagement with knowledge and discovery rather than a collective and more social way of schooling, which is where some critics believe this approach should be improved (Santrock, 2018).

The third model of education for kids in early childhood stresses the importance of having an adapted environment for a kids age and particular interests and needs; this model called Developmentally Appropriate Practice or DAP, makes emphasis on the importance of preparing classrooms and schools as true learning environments in which kids can learn through experimentally active engagement with the topics that are aimed to be learned (Santrock, 2018). In a way, this model also enhances the concept of uniqueness since it makes allusion to the needs of particular students combined with the needs of their biological age to achieve the goal of actively acquiring knowledge, these settings and adjustments are also meant to draw the attention of kids and reflect their interests (Santrock, 2018).

If I had to choose one model of education for my child, I would pick the child-centered kindergarten, because I believe that knowing one’s own process of learning can bring more benefits to the future than simply acquiring knowledge. Also, one of the pillars of these models is the social play, which would help my kid develop the tools to be an active member of society and would help him develop a sense of belonging in his environment. I must say that I have always been attracted to the Montessori approach, but after reading about it, I decided not to choose it because it would only be beneficial while the curriculum that schools ask from my kid can be malleable, meaning that if my kid decided not to pay attention to a certain area of knowledge then he might struggle in the future when he has to satisfy such area for core requirements. In regards to the Developmentally Appropriate practice, I saw that my son would be used to learn in classroom adapted for his learning, but if he was ever to go to a “normal” school then he would have to face the challenges of seating in a classroom that is not necessarily adapted to his needs, which could be a setback in his academic achievement. If my kid were to spend his entire life within the same education system I would still choose a child-centered environment, because he would learn to engage with peers and once he joined the workforce in the future he would have the skills of knowing himself to succeed in his job.

Works Cited

Santrock, J. W. (2018). Essentials of lifespan development (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.