Erik Erikson

            Erik Erikson is best known for his theory of psychological development.  He believed that people face eight major crises and that each crisis must be resolved successfully to prepare for a satisfactory resolution of the next life crisis, he labeled them psychosocial stages.  An example of psychological development is trust.  An infant must first gain trust in an adults.  If an infant has difficulties trusting adults in the trust versus mistrust stage, this can cause problems trusting people later on in life. If a child has problem trusting, he or she will really have problems trusting his or her teacher.  This will lead to weak relationship between the student and the teacher. Without trust the student just may perform poorly in class.  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.

B.F. Skinner

B.F. Skinner was one of the 20th century's most famous psychologists, known for his emphasis on behaviorism.  He was best known for his research in the learning process and his believed in a planned society.  He believed that rewards and punishments can influence behavior.  He discovered operant conditioning and articulated the now widely accepted term reinforcement as a scientific principle of behavior.

Jean Piaget

            I agree with Jean Piaget.  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.

John B. Watson

            I honestly agree and disagree with him. I agree with him because he viewed children as tabula rasa (just as John Locke), 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.

Lev Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky believed that children are active learners and that children’s intellectual development is closely tied to their culture.  I honestly don’t believe that.  Children come from many different homes and countries.  They can come from a very intelligent background and can be a child with learning disabilities.  He also believed that children were born with few elementary mental functions.  Once again, I disagree.  Children are born not knowing the common things in the world.  They learn many things by watching others.  If child see his or her parents doing something over and over again eventually he or she will try to do the same thing.  I do agree Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development which indicates the range of tasks that are too complex to be mastered alone but can be accomplished with guidance and encouragement from a more skillful partner.  Children understand quicker and easier with the help of someone on a higher level than they are.  Every day while doing my student teaching I observe my students.  When they work alone that have many difficulties, but when I help them they tend to ease through the work easily.