My Identity

Identity

I made my chart in a word document because I was not sure if it could be done in a blog format. I will have it up once I figure out how to post it.

Stages of Life: Birth To Death

Erickson became fascinated with the social psychology and individual development.
Due to his excitement, he created a cycle of development throughout a person's life; birth to living to death. The first stage is Basic Trust vs. Mistrust is one of the stages of development that a child will face through their life along with contexts, such as the community they live in. I find this level task in infancy of developing a sense of basic trust that one's parent or primary will be adequately nurturing. In reading the stages, the initial level of basic trust and mistrust is quite captivating. In the first few days of a baby's life there are drastic changes. For example, the day my niece Sloan was born. Her eyes were closed and the next day when I came to see her and my sister in the hospital her eyes began to open. Sloan peeked over through the hospital bed with such furious curiosity, simply looking at anything. It was so fascinating observing her in initial days  I remembered discussing with my sister, Sarah about seeing surroundings as a baby. Everything is news, like sounds and colors and noises and peoples voices. One thing Sloan was acutely aware of was clapping, she would blink with a surprised expression. Erikson states that you cannot be in a social context without a sense of identity. From the minute you are born you are given a name, a gender, and physical attributes. For example, the color of your hair, the amount of hair on your head or the lack of hair.

Erickson states that in school we enter fractured landscape of context. I think that it is the same for young development, such as learned things as well as other innate abilities. For example, it was crazy to hold hands with Sloan. Her fingers grasped so strongly and her fingers were so small. While she knew how to grasp, she had to learn how to clap by watching people around her. When we sang songs, we would clap and Sloan would smile and make giggly coo sounds while watching. One day my mom was watching The Chew with Sloan. The show always begins with the boisterous audience clapping, once Sloan heard the upbeat tune and joyous clapping Sloan joined. It was so fascinating because she did not even realize she learned how to clap.

I think that Erickson is right when he says that during adolescence, youth go throw identity confusion. While youth deal with identity issues, babies also deal with identity. Babies are referenced to them by their name but their name is one tiny aspect, they have to sink into their surroundings and who lives around them, who is friendly, who is unkind and who are the people that I am told are family. For example Sloan only knew I was her "Auntie Em" because my sister told her. If Sarah did not tell Sloan her that I was her "Auntie Em", Sloan would not connect me to her mom and Grammie.

Event #1

Almost four years ago I would leave OASIS in tears  multiple times, wishing to be in the Elementary Education Program. Throughout many failed attempts and a mostly completed praxis entrance exam and fear for my future career I ended up declaring a major in Youth Development. Looking back at advising, it was so relaxing to walk into advising this past Wednesday during free period. I thought how I am done with advising for my undergraduate degree.

It is so surreal because I am so close to earning my degree. Its almost hard to believe since I never thought I could earn a college level degree. Looking back, I can see how the severely the repercussions of my disorder hurt me. I mean in the confidence kind of sense, knowing in myself that I could do it. Now a semester and a half away from my degree, its exhilarating and a little sad. Sad in a sense of how time flies so quickly when you in school and enjoying the time growing as a young person.

To tap back into the actual event of advising, I can say that I enjoyed being there. I felt that I was helpful to the younger youth development students. I felt good helping someone else, it seemed like I had not assisted someone in awhile. It made me sad, like when my niece Sloan is upset when she knows Grammie is leaving Sloan's house. However, it did enligten a feeling of want to help another group of people, a group of people that need other sorts of help. It always leaves me with a fuzzy warm feeling.

Week 6

Philosophy of Youth Work

I think that defining Youth Work into 3 subsystems is a positive aid in understanding the kind of ways to approach working with youth. Of the three kinds of youth work, Risk, Resiliency and Prevention, Positive Youth Development and Critical Youth Development there is much room for growth and assistance. However, I do find that there is much underneath all 3 subsystems. Each youth work holds an importance, such as Risk and Resiliency that is looking out to help a group of children that may need guidance to a positive path. While Critical Youth Development seems to look at how situations around us can be improved upon because there is awakes room for improvement.  As for the presence of Positive Youth Development, I am not entirely sure of its importance. 

With the subsystems, the Ideology Horoscope does seem to help a bit. I feel that I do fit under the Critical Youth Development umbrella as I am always thinking on how to work with others where a harmony can be located between all involved. The orientation of Critical youth work is about keeping your group of youth focused on how to make difference in the community. I find that because I like to think of the "why" the "how can this be done" is right behind in my toolbox. It reminds me of the saying "if there is a will, there is a way." This concept of work with youth reminds me the respect given by social work professors, we are allowed to refer to them by their first name. A professor I currently have stated that we are deserve a sense of respect no matter what our degree status is. My professor holds a sense of respect for the class as he can see we are invested in our learning so we can grow as learners. 

One section of the Ideology Inventory that stuck a chord was the part one, the purpose. It asked importance of a supportive space, significance of improvement to build upon skills and talents and how youth should cope to exterior and intrinsic occurrences. I thought of Maslow's hierarchy of needs because the first and most important needs that must be met are basic such as housing, clothing and food. If a group of youth want to make a difference they need a space to gather. Before youth learn to build upon their skills such as talents, they need to have the ability to formulate positive attitudes about themselves and others as well as their physical surroundings. I think that rings true to the maslow's hierarchy because feeling connected to yourself, people around you and your home is so important because it gives you a sense of belongingness.