When a person thinks about education, the mind begins to wonder about life. They think about all the weird and wonderful things that happen in our daily lives. When I think about education, my mind always puzzles on the fact of what is development and what causes us to develop, is it based on what we learn. Development is the systematic continuities and changes in the individual person over the course of life (Developmental Psychology). What causes development is based on two important processes: maturation and learning( education). To focus on the theory of human development and education, a person must first know the themes of life. The themes are nature versus nurture, active versus passive, the holistic theme, and continuous verses discontinuous.

            First, I will discuss nature versus nurture. I agree with both nature and nurture. The reason I agree with nurture is the fact that when a child sees something going on around them, eventually they will begin to join. Most young children are followers. They notice all habits or things they see others doing and try to do them. They learn from others. I also agree with nature because I know a young woman who was adopted by a rich family and still acts as her biological family. She has always been with her adoptive family; she never met her parent until she became a grown woman. She does not have any habits of her adoptive parents but have many of her biological parents. So therefore, I agree with both Watson and Wiggam.

            Next, I will discuss active versus passive. Truly and honestly, I believe that children are active. The reason I say this is that I grew up in a rough neighborhood where crime is a big problem, where the school system is going down and being destroyed. People labeled me because of where I am from. They would say that I would never become anything in life; they would say I‘d never succeed, but look at me now. I am a junior at Tougaloo College. I chose to go to school and better myself. I determined my own decision not my environment.

            The third theme that I will discuss is continuous versus discontinuous. I agree with discontinuity because children do go through sudden changes. As children mature their attitudes also changes. I disagree with continuity because a child goes through so much as they grow especially girls. Humans go through a progress of developmental stages, which are characterized by a particular set of abilities, emotions, motives or behavior, which all children go through, especially teens .

            The last theme is modular versus holistic. I agree with holistic. all areas of development are interdependent, and that one cannot truly understand development changes in one area without at least basing knowledge in other areas of life” sometimes we learn new things based on what we have already learned. There are many subjects and areas that are based on old things. I feel that children learn things by basing them upon old facts that they already know.

            Before I can develop a theory of education or human development, I must base my theory upon some of the world’s famous theories. Some of the people and theories had a major impact on my theory. Those that influenced my theory were great men, who worked hard on their discoveries. The great men that I am talking about are Erik Erikson, John B. Watson, and Jean Piaget. These three men were great standards, they have many wonderful accomplishments, which I agreed and disagreed with.

First I will discuss Erik Erikson. Just as I agree that children are active, so did he. He stressed that children are active curious explorers who seek to adapt to their environment. He also believed that people must cope with social realities, which is so true. In order for something or someone to become normal and develop, they must cope with their current situations. For example, if a child is being raised by both parents and all of a sudden the parents get a divorce, the child now must cope with the divorce or he or she will have a hard time adjusting. The child will probably think that it is his or her fault, when it is really not. I also agree with Erikson because he argued that people progress through a series of eight psychosocial conflicts. These conflicts begin with “trust versus mistrust” and ends with “integrity versus despair”. His eight psychosocial conflicts show that he was also a believer of discontinuity.

            Next, I will focus on John B. Watson. I honestly agree and disagree with him. I agree with him because he viewed children as tabula rasae, a blank slate, who develop habits from learning experiences. This is a true statement, children learn by watching others. Children do things they see their parents and friends do. They are followers. I disagree with him because he viewed development as a continuous process, and he also viewed the environment as the responsible party of individual’s development. I feel that people determine their own future. Just as I decided to go to college, others can also decide their own lives. People do the things they do, because they want to. Even though some parents try to make their children be more than what they really are, children still do what they want when the parent are not around.

            `The third and last person that I will discuss is Jean Piaget. I agree with him for every category that I have discussed. Jean Piaget was a Swiss scholar who began to study intellectual development during the 1920’s . He viewed children as active explorers who construct cognitive schemes. Children based everything on things they already know. They construct new understanding of the world based on their own experiences.

            In conclusion, my theory of education is, children are born mindless. They do not know how to do anything. As they grow they learn by watching others. As Piaget stated, “they are active explorers” who based things through experience. In the process of human development, nature and nurture is the chief maker of man. Sometimes children have traits of people they have never seen or known, you can take a child out of the ghetto, but you can not take the ghetto out of a child. When discussing nurture, children are followers. Everything parents do in front of their children, most likely their children will do it also. Also, during development each child goes through stages, that does have sudden changes.