Reflections on Chapters 1 and 2

To me, a good teacher is one who has a good rapport with his students, one who cares for the student as an individual. In my classroom, I think it's important to understand the differences between students so that I can teach effectively.  That's where I think understanding Piaget's developmental stages comes in.  I have students that think more concretely than others, so I know that I need to teach abstract concepts in a way that will reach those students. I can know everything about a topic, like WWI, but if I don't know how to get through to all my students, and how to use teaching effective teaching strategies, it doesn't matter how much I know.

Working with high school students, you would think that I would be dealing with students who have progressed through most of Piaget's moral developmental and Vygotsky's cognitive development stages, but I have found that I deal with a wide range of stages.  It is really obvious in my freshman classes.  I see students that are still in stages 1 and 2--only obeying the rules that serve them best, and ignoring the rules that I set to help the classroom run more smoothly as a whole. I know that puberty and peer pressure contribute a lot to this as well. In my more advanced upper level classes, some of my students have reached stages 5 and 6--having developed their own ideas of ethics, and performing the way they should with little need for my intervention. In those upper level classes, I am able to allow more group work, and can depend on students to help each other and stay on task.

With regards to Erikson's ideas of social and personal development, I think puberty plays a huge role in the characteristics my students display. Some of my freshmen seem to be stuck in stage 4, where they are still discovering where they rank academically in their peer group, but most of my students seem to be firmly planted in stage 5, where their biggest concern and need is to be accepted by their friends. I have seen so many bright students fail because of this concern, especially when all of the couple drama takes over their lives.

Understanding all of these theories makes it easier to help accommodate my students' needs in my classroom, as well as their needs as individuals.