Using Formal Operations
Posted: Monday, January 09, 2012
by Michael Eza
Adolescent individuals can over come psychosocial and cognitive barriers to their development by adhering to classroom management rules and paying attention to the assignments and subject matters being presented by their instructor. Throughout childhood and into adulthood most theorists agree that there are a series of developmental stages. Of those stages one of the most crucial developmental periods begins to occur between eleven and thirteen years of age. At this point in a human’s development the person is expected to have, according to Jean Piaget, mastered the cognitive abilities of concrete operations and have begun, if given the opportunity, to learn formal operations, the basis for abstract thought. Also, as theorized by Erik Erikson, this person is simultaneously experiencing a psychosocial change. According to Erikson the North American or Western European adolescent has now (at about age twelve) achieved an understanding of their own self concept and through that understanding they are faced with a new challenge of discovering their own role within society. This stage of development is known as identity versus role confusion or fidelity. During this stage of development the person is confronted with a choice of according to James Marcia’s Identity Status Theory one of the following four options; 1) Identity Achieved, 2) Identity Diffused, 3) Moratorium or 4) Foreclosed Identity. To better understand these concepts classroom procedures and activities were observed at a seventh grade classroom. Through these observations adolescents were seen discovering their identities while experiencing a process designed to teach them how to learn formal operations. The type of management used by the instructor included a majority of positive reinforcements with logical consequences, followed by punishments in the form of five formal consequences (these are listed above the white board and include; change of seating, lunch detention, phone call home, after-school detention, or an office referral) and the use of this management style encouraged learning and classroom discipline
A barrier of development that seventh grade adolescents face is a psychosocial one; that being the discovery of their own identity within society. Typically the instructor greeted all the students by the door and encouraged them to take their assigned seats. After everyone had assembled in the classroom, she began her lesson, but not without having to remind the students a number of times to listen, stop talking and code switch from the weekend to class. Without proper classroom management the students decibel level continued to rise and eventually the order of the classroom would break down and the students would sit wherever they choose while continuing social interactions with their peers. This happened a couple of times during the observations and consequences were formalized to the most disruptive of the group. The type of thoughts the students engaged in while they were socializing with each other were limited to concrete thoughts which depicted specific events like football or something that happened on the bus. These students did not elaborate in their conversations to question the what-ifs of the scenarios, nor did they create new possibilities or use symbolism in their expressions. During these discussions the students’ cognitive development was impaired, but the students were discovering their own identities, and thus improving their psychosocial advancement, by expressing themselves to each other. By doing so they were learning the important values, religions and political views of those they interact with. One student verbalized that she found that the views and values of a person greatly affect the choices she might make during this developmental period. The instructor was able to use her lesson to tease the students out of their private conversations while connecting these conversations to the topics she planned to present in her lesson, thus effectively turning social learning into an act of formal operations.
Some of these observed students were still in the fourth stage of development Industry versus Inferiority during this study. One of them expressed her opinion of class by stating “Why do we even have to do anything if we’re all going to be dead in two years anyway.” Here the student is expressing that she clearly feels inferiority, not just to her peers but to the forces around her as well, due to this as well as other factors, the student has been unable to become industrious and maintains a negative self-image and is therefore still in Erikson’s fourth stage of development. Most of the students, however, are now seeking role identification. Some have already achieved the making of an identity decision. One of the conversations the students became involved in during the beginning of the lesson described how a pair on the back of the bus was having sex. The student who depicted this event gave little more detail than the statement and they were reluctant to discuss it further when confronted. This type of action could be considered a foreclosed identity (Marcia) decision. The students on the bus without considering the consequences, had chosen to engage in the act of creating a child because the society around them has led them to believe this is an acceptable social practice.
To inform and activate the students’ skills abilities and experiences, which are key components to discovering and achieving Erikson’s fifth stage of Identity versus Role Confusion, the instructor asked one of them to come to the front of class and show everyone a magic trick he had been working on. The act of creating a magic performance is a process of abstract thought, because the performer is expecting a limited number of reactions from their audience, of which they had previously anticipated. By using logic to determine the expected result of the audience rather than specifically relying on past experiences the student is demonstrating an independent use of formal operations (Piaget). The student mentioned that they learned how to perform the trick out of a book, which reduces the likelihood that they had remembered previous reactions to this trick on TV. This student also demonstrated the use of problem solving as the instructor noticed him practicing the trick before his presentation and this practice involved taking an abstract thought and applying it to a real world scenario by using trial and error to achieved a desired and expected result. The instructor used this student’s ability to process formal thought by having them perform the magic trick and then put that student into the position of performer or instructor, and then had this student interact with the rest of the class. Now the student will have the opportunity to hypothesize why his peers acted the way they did and why he did some of the things he did during his presentation. These inquiries will eventual form the basis of a decision he will make to determine his role in the world among his peers. By having the student engage in a performance such as this the instructor is gently releasing scaffolds previously required for learning. This release requires the student to act independently and therefore confronts their role within society. This confrontation leads the student to begin questioning their Identity versus Role Confusion or fidelity (Erikson).
During the lessons the instructor and the students were round robin reading from a text titled Miracle’s Boys. During the readings each student had a think-mark (like bookmark, but its for writing thoughts down), which they were occasionally instructed to write ideas down in and even more occasionally they wrote down ideas of their own in without being instructed. The instructor was able to inform their identity decisions by periodically asking the students if they had ever experienced something like someone close to them dieing suddenly or what would they would have done if they were one of the characters and why. As the students answered, some of them were able to connect to past experiences, such as one student who found a parent dead on the floor. By connecting past experiences the students were beginning to develop a value system. Additionally, they were able to determine if they had similar or differing values from those expressed by the narrator and through the class discussions they were able to determine if they do or do not like those values and why. Further, the instructor was able to activate the students’ abilities to think in formal operations by emphasizing that they answer the why, not only in class discussion, but on their think-marks as well. This instruction encourage both a movement into the thinking of formal operations (Piaget) and the understanding of ones role within society Identity versus Role Confusion (Erikson).
Students have a tendency to develop the ability to commit formal operations and often move from one stage of psychosocial development to another during the seventh grade period. They are able to express formal operations when instructed and can by make and inform decisions about the rest of their lives at will during this period of development. These observations have found that a key to experiencing this development is classroom management.
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