1.What principles are Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development grounded on?
2.What concepts and ideas of Erikson’s theory can you use for socio-emotional observation?
3.What could Erikson’s theory teach us about the experiences of the children from the Waco compound in Perry’s account? Which psychosocial crises might it have been difficult for these children to successfully resolve?
4.What questions did these texts raise for you in light of your own experience with students/children? What critical questions about this/these theories do these observations raise for you? Remember you can also google for critical questions of theories if you cite your source!
LINKS:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html
https://www.theclassroom.com/apply-eriksons-theory-instruction-8400675.html
https://www.theclassroom.com/apply-psychosocial-development-classroom-7566430.html.
Session #5 Reading Guide
This session’s reading guide is not extensive because Erikson is such fascinating reading on it’s own, but I’ll just share some of my own thoughts.
In my view, Erikson was principally a master humanitarian and observer of human action more than a researcher. He captured in his stages important tensions individuals face growing up in society and the corresponding ways in which adults can interact with their children or students to promote human thriving. Importantly, how societies organize themselves to support development makes for interesting experiments in human flourishing and limitations. Like any account, Erikson simplifies to pattern life in ways that will not be true of individuals, some try to universalize Erikson’s stages primarily Western patterns, and Erikson draws on biological connections that may or may not be important to appreciate his ideas.
Reading Guide
| Text | Notes |
| #1 Berk, L. (2005). Infants and Children: Prenatal Through Middle Childhood. NJ: Pearson, pp. 16-18, 250-251, 358, 470. | You can skim or skip this carefully – if you like to read the highlights then a fuller text, this provides nice highlights. Conversely the Miller text is quite rich. |
| #2 Miller, P. (1993). Erikson. In: Theories of developmental psychology.,3rd edition, New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, pp.154-175. | This is an excellent overview – take the time to read this article carefully. |
| #3 http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html (Links to an external site.) | This breaks down Erikson’s stages very nicely with excellent video examples. A good follow up to Miller. I think this describes stage 3 the best, but Miller nicely adds in society’s themes which is an interesting addition. Erikson put more weight on society than many psychologists were comfortable with. |
| 1. Read https://classroom.synonym.com/apply-eriksons-theory-instruction-8400675.html (Links to an external site.) | Great thoughts on how to apply Erikson’s theory in the classroom. |
|
Stairway to Heaven – Treating Children in the Crosshairs of Trauma.pdf |
Very interesting cases study on children’s lives being disrupted by trauma. |
Erikson’s stages through adolescence – what can caregivers learn from Erikson?
| Stage | Psychosocial Crisis | Caregiver’s role |
| 1 | Trust vs. mistrust (0-1.5 yr) | Responsive caregiving teaches the infant that their needs will be met – towards the end of a positive experience in this stage the infant learns it is safe to risk, support will be there. |
| 2 | Autonomy vs. shame (1.5-3 yr) | Children are supported in their quest for independence. Caregivers are encouraging when children insist “I do it myself”. Miller made an important quote on p.163 about children seeing themselves as rule makers or mastered by them. Play is vital to a healthy relationship with rules. |
| 3 | Initiative vs. guilt (3-5yr) | Child takes initiatives, asks questions, risk taking –the child needs safe boundaries but too much restriction can make the child feel guilty for taking initiative and retreat from being proactive. |
| 4 | Industry vs. inferiority (5-12 yr) | The child wants to demonstrate competence at school and experience social acceptance with peers. These two ideas don’t always go together well in school context! Teacher role centrally important in this stage. |
| 5 | Identify vs. diffusion (puberty) | The teen begins to develop identities as part of society – sexually, occupationally, politically etc. It is also a period where the individual accepts their own society as well as idealizes changes. May experiment with different ways to be. It can be maddening as a parent or teacher to both support and honestly respond to and reflect on the different roles teens take on. Too many occupational courses is seen as destabilizing – a problem for very gifted teens. |
Integration across the texts
These text all provide overlapping views of Erikson and begin to move towards a contextualist viewpoint of development, paving the way for us to understand the ideas of Vygotsky coming soon. This is a teacher’s explanation of Erikson which some of you might find useful: http://www.journal.kfionline.org/issue-6/erik-eriksons-theory-of-development-a-teachers-observations (Links to an external site.)
Erikson in the classroom
Erikson has made me think deeply about classroom behavior issues and their effect on the students sense of accomplishment vs. shame relevant to their stages based on age. Skinner never dealt with the socio-emotional consequences for students who have been subjected to behaviorism. I recently asked my 13yr old daughter if she remembers what it felt like to be put on “red” in kindergarten. She remembers hot shame and trying to sneak her name back to green. She says it is laughable now, but at the time it was incredibly important to her. She also said she did not feel that the threat of being on red did not change her behavior or teach her any valuable ethical lessons.
I also have had a concern about what “being on red” and its consequences to a child’s sense of efficacy and identity. Is it possible that these punitive methods are actually creating an identity of being a “red” student? I remember that I thought of myself as a “b” person after years of getting B’s even though, to be honest, I grew up in some personally difficult circumstances and B’s were probably a miracle. It took me a long time to realize how intellectually capable I am.
I’ve been wondering if 1) either punishment can be avoided, or 2) can be turned into negative reinforcement (something negative is taken away – as Skinner intended in the original term). Or 3) if being on red can be normalized – some version of “everybody is on red sometime” . Would it help students make productive sense of the experience and not simply be a source of shame and antithetical to the stage the child is in? For instance, have you ever put yourself on red? It would be a very interesting experiment to see how the students react, and for them to hear your self-talk about what it means for you to be on red in discussion with your class (or future class).
You could have conversations with students who have been on red about how they feel about it. Some group interview or story writing project perhaps? This would be a very interesting project.
I have tried an interesting alternative in my elementary classroom teaching experiences. I have found that having students discuss certain situations and come up with solutions is very effective in extinguishing the problem. I think the reason for this is that the children were not initially aware of how their actions affected others, and when the group discussed a typical classroom problem (without naming names) they heard students say why they didn’t like it, or what would be fair, or what alternatives a student might choose. For instance, we had some problems around how the class computers were being used. The students discussed the situation extensively over several lunch periods (we held a circle and ate together). These were 4th-6th graders. They decided to have a computer committee that would monitor use, and students who misused the computer would lose the privilege and have to earn it back. In other words, the students discussed and agreed to a form of policing but very little policing ultimately had to be done. I think the discussion made students more self aware of how their actions affected others. I’ve used this technique with much younger children pre 4-K with the same effect.
Developing Good Questions
Many of you are really having a hard time developing questions about the theories being discussed. Partly, as I discussed in the class forum – the constraint of creating a question can be the problem. We can question a theorist without having to formulate a question! A good example of questioning on Erikson is here: http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/ERIK/crit.HTML (Links to an external site.)
References – please note that I have formatted the video references for you but you must insert YOUR access dates!
Berk, L. (2005). Infants and Children: Prenatal Through Middle Childhood. NJ: Pearson.
McLeod, S. (2008). Erik Erikson. Retrieved April 30, 2016, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html
Miller, P. (1993). Erikson. In: Theories of developmental psychology.,3rd edition, New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
Sharkey, W. (1997, May). Erik Erikson. Retrieved April 30, 2016, from http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/erikson.htm (Links to an external site.)
Perry, B. Szalavitz, M. (2007) Stairway to heaven: Treating children in the crosshairs of trauma. Psychotherapy Networker, 31, 2, 56-64.
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