Pyramid

This past Friday evening I went and listened and met the author of the Freedom Writers Erin Gruwell. She talked about teaching in a very poor and dangerous inner high school in California about 12 years ago. She talked about her classroom with a room full of students who found the stages of Maslow challenging and nearly impossible to achieve. They strove for basic needs, safety and some kind of feeling of belonging. She found it challenging to teach students who struggled with daily basic needs. They had no desire or interest in going up the pyramid of needs. Therefore they were stagnated and unable to be taught the desire to learn and achieve.

The first step in the pyramid of need is hunger, thirst, and fatigue. When Erin Gruwell first met the class, she realized that many of them came from single mother homes, lived in poverty and were starved, and thirsty. Most of them had eaten little for days.

The second stage in the pyramid is safety. None of the students in the class felt safe. They walked the streets outside their homes and on their way to school in fear everyday that they would get shot down and die at a young age. Many had already buried many close friends and relatives due to gang fighting.

The third stage in the pyramid is belonging. These kids would join gangs, even though they knew that illegal activities could get them arrested or worse killed. Their desire to belong was so great it over rode their judgment because it gave them a sense of belonging to a group. Any group would make them feel like they belonged somewhere. Many of them were gang members and actively participated in gang warfare..

The fourth stage is esteem. These students had never reached this level of Maslow. They were striving so hard to get the lowest levels met that self esteem and self respect were alien concepts for them. They felt worthless and not worthy and felt that an early death would not be a bad outcome. They had no constructive chances for recognition in achievement, feeling valued, or gaining respect from others.

The fifth stage is cognitive. Her class had never read a complete book and some of them even had difficulty reading at all. They did not see the value in such activities and it made no sense to them to value learning activities. Their learning consisted of street life and learning street wise techniques.

The sixth step is appreciating order and beauty. Their lives had no order or beauty. They had constant discord in every aspect of their lives and finding beauty living in development housing of an inner city can make it difficult to see or be able to recognize any beauty.

These students had no change to achieve the last step of the pyramid unless something drastic changed in their lives. Self actualization to find self fullment and realizing their potential were totally unreachable for them. The transcendence need of helping others to achieve was impossible for them to obtain. They were unable to achieve themselves let a lone help others or recognize that there may even be any possibilities.

After listening to Ms. Gruwell it came obvious to me that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has been a successful step process for me. I have always had basic needs met and never have felt hunger or cold. I have been raised in a rural and safe home environment. I have always felt loved by my family and friends. I have been able to join many clubs and go to social events at school that make me feel connected socially. I feel self esteem through achievement in awana club by being a member and than a leader for others, high school, and my work study job. I have a strong sense of accomplishment. I feel that I have self respect and respect from others in my daily life by being able to do community service and attend college. I am able to appreciate beauty on a daily basis. I have been taught to observe nature and appreciate the four seasons. I enjoy my digital art class that I am taking with the creativity of projects and being able to express my self. The last stage of self actualization and transcendence which is helping others to achieve their full potential is a stage that I have not yet achieved. This will come with more life experience and maturity. All of the steps of the hierarchy I strive to succeed at each day.

3 Types of Needs

McClelland states that there are 3 different types of need. The first one is the need for achievement. This involves a very strong desire to excel in careers, hobbies, education, and the quality for production, doing it right the first time. They like to have feedback on their performance. They don’t care about wealth or money they just want the challenge. If Jamie is failing her math class she will do everything she can to improve her grade so she can pass so that she can achieve success.

The second need is affiliation. This may involve having lots of friends, belonging to a lot of clubs, or going out frequently. They are very social beings and like to be popular with others, and be held in high regard by others. Sophie likes to go dancing, chatting on Facebook, and belongs to many community clubs.

The third type is the need for power. This involves wanting to have influence over other people and having an impact on them. Status and prestige is very important to them and are perceived by them as making them powerful. Don is a politician and he likes to influence other people by having all of his ideas utilized. He lives in a mansion, and has lots of money and owns many materialistic things. Money and prestige are very important to him.

I consider that I fall in the category of achievement. The one thought about Maslow’s theory that one needs to keep in mind is that even though a person is high in the pyramid that can change at any time through life situations and a person could find themselves on step one again at anytime.

Erickson's 8 Stages

Erickson is well known for his 8 stages of life development. The first stage of Erickson’s 8 stages of psychosocial development is trust vs. mistrust. This applies to children ages 12-18 months. If the child is properly fed, and changed they will trust their parents. But if the parents fail to provide the basic food, comfort, affection, and secure environment then the child will learn to mistrust their parents. For example if Joe is fed, and changed on a regular basis he will trust his parents, but if he is not fed or changed for a few days he will learn to mistrust his parents.

The second stage is autonomy vs. shame and doubt. This applies to children ages 18 months to 3 years. The child begins to get control of their motor abilities and they will want to venture out to explore the world. Their parents will have to teach them right from wrong but if they demand too much from them or refuse to let them perform tasks there are capable of they may start to doubt themselves.

The third stage initiative vs. guilt. This applies to children ages 3 to 6 years. The child wants to start to do risky things like cross the street alone, or ride a bike without a helmet. If their parents encourage their activities but help them to make responsible decisions they will not develop guilt feelings. Justin learns how to ride a bike and he wants to try it without a helmet. His parents need to teach him that going without a helmet is very dangerous.

The fourth stage is industry vs. inferiority. This applies to children ages 6 to 12 years. This is the time for the development of self confidence. If the child is encouraged they will develop diligence. But if they are punished they will develop inferiority about their capabilities.

The fifth stage of psychosocial intelligence is identity vs. role confusion. This applies to young adult’s ages 12 to 18. This is the time when they are concerned with their appearance and trying to figure out what their role is in society. They will try new experiments and activities.

The six stage is intimacy vs. isolation. This is adults ages 19 to 40. This is the time in a person start to think about if they will get married. For example Joe and Maria decide to get married, and have kids.

The seventh stage is generativity versus stagnation. This is for 40-50 year old adults. If they are successful in this stage they feel that they have contributed to society and to future generations. If they have stagnation they feel that they have not contributed.

The eighth stage is ego integrity vs. despair. This is adult ages 65 years or older. This is when we think about if we have lived a successful life, retire, think about our accomplishments and feel satisfaction. Kate thinks about how a she got married at a young age, had kids, and fulfilled her dreams. She believes she has led a successful life. If the adult has large amounts of regrets or feel like they did not succeed than they will develop despair. Many times they will be irritable and generally unhappy with life as a whole.

5 Stages of Death and Dying

There are many death and dying theories. One well recognized is the theory by Kubler-Ross where she outlines five different stages. The first stage is denial. This is when the dying person refuses to believe that their diagnosis is real. They say that the doctor is wrong and it’s a misdiagnosis and many will ignore symptoms or seek second opinions. The second stage is anger. They become angry because they fell helpless and therefore hopeless due to the fact that there is nothing they can do to prevent the dying process. They ask themselves why me? Why now? They think it’s unjust and unfair. The third stage is bargaining. Bargaining is when they try to make deals with the doctors and God. The dying person wants to try and make a deal with anyone who has control of their lives in an attempt to be able to survive. They want the best treatments and pray to God asking that if he would just let them live to see their child married or graduated from college than they will than agree to die. The fourth stage is depression. They have realized for sure that they are going to die. They begin to mourn the loss of their health, ability to enjoy life normally and the adjustments in their life style necessary to accommodate the dying process and the effect this has on their loved ones. The fifth stage is acceptance when the dying person finally accepts that they are dying. They generally try to live out their final days to the fullest and spend time with the people they love the most. People as they experience the dying process may move back and forth between the different stages. The stages of death and dying don’t necessarily occur in order because death is a very difficult thing to deal with and vary in different cultures.

DISC personality test

DISC personality test

Agatha

A heuristic device is an educated guess based on prior experience that helps to narrow down the possible solutions to a problem. Agatha has the idea to use newspaper articles to defend her proposition about guns but just using information from newspapers is not a good idea. Journalism can be slanted in opinion and her use of heuristic representative grouping about guns can give rise to bias. Agatha needs to get information from many different sources. A better idea would be to use an algorithm which is a step by step procedure to solve a problem. She needs to start by stating what the issue is. She then needs to make observations about gun use. She needs to do research by using information from books, the internet, and newspapers. She could gather more information about guns by sending out surveys to people about the issue. She than would need to develop a hypothesis that is realistic. She would need to test her stated hypothesis and then after all of these steps she can come to a conclusion. The more information she has the better chances she may have to test her claim against guns. She will have more support in her argument if she had more than just one source. She can’t expect to go and try and ban guns if she doesn’t have a very good problem solving technique to reach a conclusion about her claim. After she has followed all the steps in algorithm style of problem solving she possibly could have people sign a petition for the banishment of guns, or she can write a letter to her governor explaining her ideas.

Solve a Problem

There are many ways to solve a problem. One way might be to try the trial and error method. The trial and error method is when a person tries something over and over until they come to a solution. An example of this method is when a person can’t remember which key is the right one to their house. They can keep attempting each key in the eyelet until they find the right key. An algorithm is when a person has a specific step by step way to solve a problem. A very good example of this is the scientific method. Step 1 what is the problem? Step 2 make observations. Steps 3 do research on the problem. Steps 4 make a hypothesis. Step 5 do experiments on the hypothesis and step 6 come to a conclusion. Heuristics is an educated guess based on prior experience that helps narrow down the possible solutions to the problem. Heuristics have many subcategories like representative heuristics, availability heuristics, and means-end analysis. Representative heuristics is categorizing objects into groups that assume that all the objects have the same characteristics. A great example of this is classifying animals into mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. The availability heuristics estimation is the frequency of a given event.An example might be that one takes a walk for three mikes, but does not count the number of vehicles that pass them by during the walk. Upon completion of the walk the person would estimate the number of vehicles they thought they had observed. The means-end analysis is when a person finds difference between what the problem is and the end result. Then they will take steps to reduce the difference. An excellent example of this is when someone goes to high school. The end result is graduating with a advanced regents high school degree. The difference is the hard work that goes into high school courses to get good grades. A person might be blocked in finding a solution after applying all the techniques of problem solving when they come across a situation that every style fails them. A good example of this might be attempting to do a calculus math problem with no previous knowledge of that level of math ability. The person would become blocked no matter what technique they attempt and no solution to the problem could be reached.

Flashbulb Memory

A flashbulb memory is a memory that takes place when an unexpected event occurs with a very strong emotional connection occurs and the person remembers the event vividly. Some characteristics of flashbulb memories include place, ongoing activity, informant, own effect, other effect, and aftermath. One very excellent example of a flashbulb memory is Hurricane Katrina. A lot of people remember the effects of Hurricane Katrina. This hurricane was very powerful and created a lot of damage. It was one of the five most deadly hurricanes of all time. 1,836 thousand people died. The damage was a near $108 billion dollars. Katrina destroyed the oil supply, the Gulf Coast highway infrastructure, exports of commodities; 1.3 million acres of forest, caused beach erosion, oil spills, and thousands of animals were left homeless. Critics say that flashbulb memories are no more likely to be remembered than ordinary memories. The only difference between ordinary memories and flashbulb memories is that they are remembered more accurately and vividly. These significant memories are frequently discussed therefore this can actually alter or modify what people believe they remember about the event.

The Baron Issue 1

The Baron newpapaper published my first article Bystander Effect in the 1st issue. I am so excited! I am so glad. Congrats to me.