WEEK 8

Chapter 13:
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

As we are finishing this book, and starting to move forward with our education based in lifespan development I found this book very informative and would recommend this book to someone not even taking the course, but a future teacher.
The detail, and theories in this book have helped me understand a lot by putting things that we do and think of every day into words with theories behind them.

This chapter starts to talk about relating back to our second chapter we read in LIFESMART, Theories of Development.  This chapter gave us reasoning and logistics behind the way we think, and the formation of DNA that creates a human being.  This chapter basically gives you a thought of.. "now what?" now what happens, we just talked about death in our last chapter.. some thinking it was the last chapter.  This chapter gives a bigger picture on the lifespan of the business world/real world of working, and finding a place in a career direction.  I think that somewhere in this world, we are all share a common interest in a 'stakeholders' position/view on the global economy.

Being a changed agent and a leader is the school I currently work at's Modo.. So pages 303-306 cover the basics of what a changed agent is, and what you should and shouldn't do to be/become a leader.  Figure 13.2 on the top pf page 304 is pretty interesting to see the federal grants percentages given to certain categories.  I must say, I am glad to see that the biggest percentage on this pie chart goes to Health coming in at 49.5%.  It is good to see that our global economy is still worried about the populations health a majority of the time.  I think more people need to look into career's in Lifespan Development to help others, I believe this would be a strong start to making the world recover as a better place.  I have chosen to go into Elementary Education where I feel you are helping people everyday, and educating fresh minds that will hopefully follow into this direction of professionalism in having a career in Life Development.  In schools I believe this area of a career is a big BIG factor that is always taught.  Becoming a business man/women, going into criminal justice as a police officer etc., Senior living, Nursing home management, anything in the field of medicine/health, or into a public service.  These are all things that I believe start at a young age to teach children that helping people is something wonderful that this world strongly needs. Sadly, according to the chart on page 307 Figure 13.2 being a teacher in 2009 did not make the list for The Best Jobs in America.

I also think that it is great that the author included the term IDEA otherwise known as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  This act is the law that gives rights and highlights the students in the United States who need special attention in the classroom when given curriculum.  This law states that all schools must provide these services.    If you haven't heard of this law this is something I would definitely look into before entering the wonderful world of teaching (:  Like all the previous chapters I think this was very informative and a great way to close the book.

WEEK 7

WEEK 7:  Dying and Spirituality
According to Ecclesiastes there is plenty of time in both types of stages; spirit and death.  I think that you have your spirit the throughout the entire lifespan of your life, and death is the only time of life which is at the very end.  There are four types of death, clinical (when ones breathing or heart beat have stopped) this is typically at an older age.  Brain Death where the brain fails the human being and stops receiving oxygen for rather a long period of time 8-10 minutes where all electrical activity stops.  Biological death, which shares similarities to Clinical death, and brain death..  this occurs when the cells start dying from the lack of oxygen they are getting.  It is no longer than possible to get an electrical charge into the tissues of the heart and lungs and concludes a permanent end of all life functions to the body.  Social Death, this is simply where a person is treated as dead although the person is still biologically alive.  This usually happens to a patient that is sick or very much so near death.  

Reading about the four types of death were very interesting as I honestly thought that there was only one type of death.  Dead.  It does make a lot of sense to have an accurate name for each type of death after reading the description of each.

Grief is a big portion of this chapter because this is how one copes with death.  Grief includes the feelings of, "anxiety, despair, sadness, and loneliness." (page 284 LIFEMSART, Fiore)  There are different ways people deal with grief as discussed in this chapter.  I feel that these two were combined into one chapter before the simple cause and effect stages of death; someone passes away, and you find a way to cope with your feelings (grief).  This is something everyone should recognize when having a death that is/isn't close to them.

Like death there are various types of grief.  Unresolved grief, delayed, distorted, and complicated.  I think my stages of grief are very similar to Kubler-Ross's Stages also given a visual on page 288 of our text.  There are five stages of grief. 1.Denial 2. Anger 3. Bargaining 4. Depression 5. Acceptance.  Sadly everyone goes through a death in their life and all experience grief, but I don't think all go through these exact stages in this exact order.  Some may very experiencing some feelings before others. 

Spiritually includes all types of things into consideration one being he influence of gender.  I think I agree mostly with Jung's Theory because it makes all the sense how he views the spiritual concept.  According to age; The first half of life where you are developing, The second half of life where the goal of human development is the opposite of the first and turns to the middle of the stage.  

The last part I would like to discuss from this chapter was "If I had my life to live Over" basically do you have regrets and would you want to relive life, and do things over?  I wouldn't I would do things different but I wouldn't want to start over.  I think the choices I have made good or bad through out life have gotten me to where I am today.  I found the poems by the retired very deep and moving to living life to the fullest, so when death does come there are no regrets and you had much success in a long or short life.

Week 6

Chapters 9 and 10: Exploring Human Development; to me, I am already thinking of things that come next after the adolescence stages.   LIFESMART calls this “achieved identity”, this is where ones decisions determines the life they will carry on with.   Physical appearances are included in this stage that still continues to change, with physical fitness, use of different substances that could, or could not be bad for your body.   

When making good choices in this stage those are able to make their lives very successful or to start off not so successful.  I have experienced this stage not only myself, but have watched this stage develop in someone other than myself.  My sister is 18 years old and in this point in her life currently where she is exploring her human development.  I have watched her make good choices that include doing her homework, working out, being nice to others, and volunteering with Special Olympics at her school.   I have watched her heart grow to where her vision has changed to consider herself lucky for the life she lives.  To be thankful to be able to go through this stage developing her cardiovascular health, her vision, and hearing that is a big part in this developmental stage in her life.  She has been more thankful for the things life provides her with, and has made good choices to lead her to better opportunities turning towards her adulthood. 

As described in our book I have also noticed her make choices that she was not too sure of and thought were best for her.. turns out they were not in her best interest.   These include taking in illegal substances, or doing inappropriate actions that do not lead to good circumstances.  These have to do with topics of life, and questions on growing up to be unanswered for her and sometimes others that she associates herself to be around.  This is like the theories discussed in this chapter that we have read this week.  Some life choices are very clear, and some are very hazy that can occur to one’s bad decisions.

Some bad decisions I have noticed her make have to deal with the social development in her young adult life.  As I talked about in my last blog entry – identity crisis continues to occur.  This includes things as, homosexuality, heterosexuality, promiscuity, and abstinence.  Socially the young adult than starts to process where they belong to the social labels as; Whom is their lover?  Who are their real friends? Who am I working with that can be my friends, or Who do I hate?  These are all things as a young adult, and grown adult will go through throughout a human’s life span.  During ones middle-aged adulthood this appears to be most common according to this chapter, along with the previous.

After not only seeing these stages develop as talked about in our book, but seeing them in person develop in someone that I love very close to me… relates to a lot of what we have read about in this week’s chapter.  Pages 240-244 roughly go overs what I have talked about, and discuss how important and critical this stage is.  After reading this, I feel like I can relate more to helping my sister make the best choices to lead her to a successful adulthood.  Where I can now pretty much predict what is coming next for her mentally and physically in her adulthood as she continues to explore, and as I continue to pray. (: 

Week 5

In Chapter Eight of Adolescence/"The Education of Shelby Knox" these two parts of this weeks module discuss cognitive development, physical development, social development, sexual identity, identity in adolescence, as well as something as severe as mental health issues.   The chapter as always has done an excellent job with detailing the stages of life in general, followed up by a good movie advised to watch by our professor.   

Physical Development is a major part in a kids life, where I think it was very important for us to look on and read about.  The physical development in adolescence includes puberty, "hormonal balance is one of the triggers of puberty, but its beginning is difficult to pinpoint." found on page 187 of LIFESMART by Fiore.  Puberty not only includes hormonal changes, but body development that comes along with social development. The female, and Male Sexual system in their bodies change as well along with age changes from the age of 8-17.  Identity becomes a huge crisis for these ages of adolescence.  

I can relate to this from watching my younger siblings grow up, and also coaching.  I think the identity stage is something huge, and very important in a child's life where there should be extreme but not going over board of some parenting going on.  This is also a stage where the adolescence age learns a lot from the people they are around, which impacts the social stage of one.  Body image of what one is suppose to look like crosses the child's mind-eating disorders can occur, cognitive development can be a huge one as going through life not wanting to be noticed the brain tries not to make extreme changes in the teenagers thinking process.  The image of models in the female brain can really impact ones eating habits, exercise routine at a very young age that the body is not ready for, by not being fully developed.  I agree with Erikson's psychosocial theroy because it all makes to much sense not to.  I think that everyone in the adolescence stage, and even into the adult stage face identity crisis.  

Week 4

Chapter 6 goes over growth occurring in an infant from the ages of 2-6 years old.  The growth period is also graphed in figure 6.1 on the bottom of page 131.  This graph I found interesting because of how close the weight/height is and also how close the height starts, and then departs as the age increases.  As of weight at the younger age there is a gap, but as the child gets older and gets to the age of 6, the boys and girls weight almost meet at the same lbs.  I found that interesting only because in my eyes, boys would always be much taller than girls and weigh more than boys due to a boy’s body structure of muscle.  I can relate to his as remembering my size at the age of six (of course with the help of pictures) and then to look at my brother when he was six years old.  He was still taller than I was, and had a little more weight on him than I did as a female at the age of six.  These graphs are a clear image if you do not have someone of an infant to compare with. 

Gross moor skills and fine motor skills was something new that I learned in chapter 6.  This happens when the child is 2-6 years old, otherwise known as an important time for growing motor skills.   There is a lot that is developed over these years such as psychological, social behaviors, and biological these are some of many issues that can also include a child’s stress level, nutrition the child is getting, and disease.  Stress at this young age could be caused in school while away from their parents.  This worldwide problem is called bullying.  My opinion of bullying is that while away from home with other children learning social skills, and feeling the changes in their brains at the same exact time, is that the adults at school need to be able to handle these situations ASAP.  I think that if the bullying can stop at school when it first starts to occur both children will have more academic success, and more success developing their social skills.

Language development is a key milestone with children, and has no formal training.  I found it very interesting while working with young children that all of their skills such as, incorrect language models, children learn sounds, and then combine sounds into words, following that they put those words that are grammatically correct into sentences.  On page 142 in Chapter 7 of LIFESMART it is proven that when children move into the first grade they have a vocabulary range of up to 14,000 words.

Child development in a child begins in the early stages of their social life, also known as social development.  Social relationships are a big part in this transition of a child’s life.  A parent’s role in this time period of a child’s life is curtail the process of behavior learning also occurs, so if a child is bad they get a time out or even worse, a spanking.  On page 143 of LIFESKILLS, Figure 6.8 contains a chart on the effects of spanking a child on bad behavior.  This chart shows that you can avoid spanking a child and to just reprimand them on their bad behavior, this seems to be more accurate in improving a child’s behavior, as to spanking a child three times there is no change in cognitive ability.  I don’t think this is the answer to raising children in the social development time in their life because of the mental affect spanking also has on children.  While having a child develops a social mind, I would want that to be the only thing developing.  If a child is worried about why did mommy or daddy spank me, again after doing the same thing that might confuse the child if they are not presented the bad behavior and positive way to change the behavior at the time of spanking. 

Week 3

WEEK 3

While reading these chapters this week, a big part stuck out to me at the very beginning of chapter three was the chart at the top of page 58 in LIFESMART Figure 3.4.  I found it very interesting to see the Maternal age at birth and the prevalence of births that included Down Syndrome.

I knew this type of unfortunate type of disease occurring in some new born genes was something that was some what rare was a mix of bad genetics and chromosomes, but did not know exactly how it happened to the new born baby while in the females body during the pregnancy.  I also did not know there were different types of syndromes a child could be diagnosed with; Klinefelter syndrome, XYY syndrome, fragile X sydrome, Turner syndrome, and most common down syndrome.

This seemed most interesting to me for this week, even though the other topics were supper informative on topics I didn't know much about.  The types of common and least common syndrome's was most interesting to me to pick up more information on.

I currently work with students in high school with Special Needs.  These students have moderate to severe disabilities.  I have two scholars with Down Syndrome.  I have never seen so much willingness to learn and educate themselves from a student that can not only read, but verbally communicate clearly with pronunciation.  A student in particular that I have has such a sharp mind and very tentative to detail, she is 17 years old and has the IQ of a Kindergarten student.  It is so interesting to me how her mind functions daily and how highly intelligent she is in particular areas.  While reading this chapter and these informational blurbs and graphs it has truly helped me understand how the mind works, and how her mind has become the way it is.

Down Syndrome is caused by an extra copy of a chromosome.  "Under the age of 30 the ratio is 1,700 births; once the woman reaches the age of 45, the incidence increases to 1 in 30 (Watson, 2003.) pg. 57 LIFESMART.  There has been proven studies to avoid having a child's life effected by this disorder.  No matter how old the child, the sex, height, age or weight.  I think every child is different in their own way.  Not ever should a child be singled out by their disorder no matter what it may be.  When seeing a student with a strong case of Down syndrome interact with other students that don't quite understand but are willing to help her out in any way possible, it is the best comforting feeling as a future educator.

In a child's mind, each child will always be there for each other.  When being so young and innocent it is something that functions in a human beings young stages that will give you a warm feeling in your heart to know that no child will ever be left behind no matter of any condition they are in.


I myself as a female, have not had a child yet.  Reading on this subject is very informational that I think any female with or without a child would find very interesting.  I also think that this reading would also catch the attention of that females partner to get a better understanding of what their female is going through or what they could do to be mindful before any hormones change in the women's body, good or bad.  I am really enjoying the readings, and informational data with charts in this book.  Great readings thus far!

Week 2

After reading through the second chapter of LIFESMART, I found all the psychoanalytic theories very interesting.  Each one of these intelligent people had almost the same frame work of their theories. When beginning this course I honestly was not use to seeing the term psychoanalytic; which was the theory of Freud's development of personality.  On page 29 of LIFESMART we view the definition of this term as the following "Psychoanalytic theory Freud's theory of the development of personality; emphasis on the role of the unconscious" (Fiore).

I can relate which seems to be the most important theory in our foundation of life because it will be the same process for generations to come.  Sigmund's theory was one that we will explore and continue to do so, till the last human beginning on this earth is standing.

I can relate and also reflection majorly on one of the stages of the Freudian Development Stages which would be four, The Latency Stage.  The Latency Stage, shown in Figure 2.1 on page 30 of our chapter shows life in stages that breaks our personalities down in sections.  Sigmund's development starts at the age of one and goes until the age of 12.  Back to my reflection on Stage four,  the ages 5-12 were my prime years to me.. and my mother and father.  As to his figure I was put to the test of developing social skills at Elementary Dances where things started off really awkward but by the time your parents where at the front doors to pick you up... you were best friends with the people you just had met.  Developing sports was something huge to a large Irish Catholic family.  Between the ages of 5-12 we were in probably 5 sports each to figure out what best fit our physical needs as a child.  I was put into soccer for two years as my parents were hoping that I would enjoy the sport.. which I did, and began to play for another ten years.  The same goes for cheerleading.  This is something big to a lot of people I think because sports develop social skills, intellectual skills, along with a large stream of energy.

It is almost as our parents knew of this theory and knew that it would work on us as children.  If you were fortunate to be placed in activities/sports even just one.  This is the stage where being in that activity developed all those skills as Freudian predicted would happen while putting his thoughts into data in the 80's.

As I reflect on this reading, I picked up a lot of information from charts, and bold terms which as a future Elementary teacher, this has been drilled into my brain after some training.  I found this chapter very interesting not only with Freud's theory but the several other intelligent minds that decided to try their theories even on animals, let alone people.

Thus far, this book has me wanting to keep flipping due to the interesting readings that keep my mind going.