Alarcon, Junar Abio

MAEd-INM
EDU 201
Foundations of Education

MODULE 1

THE LEARNERS’ GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Activity 1: VIDEO ANALYSIS

“Time is the story and we are the characters.”

This is the statement that really stirred my mind and emotion as I watched the video. This
video follows the lives of ten males and four females in England beginning in 1964, when they were
just seven years old. The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic
backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the expectation that each child’s social class would
determine their future. It invites emotional identification as they go about exploring unique, shared
and fluctuating experiences of the self.
Carrying out the study on a child’s profile is very interesting to me. It has broadened my
understanding of different topics pertaining to development, ageing, cognitive thinking and
learning, etc., such as how the human body undergoes so many changes through the course of one’s
life. I find it exciting that we have come this far as a race, having gained the knowledge and science
to better understand how we work physically and mentally.
The concept that I have seen in this video is about the developmental stage that exists and
brings about more exciting growth and change in a person’s life. Humans, by nature, are continually
evolving and adapting to their surroundings and childhood development is no different. . It is
important to note that each stage brings about a more complex being in physical, cognitive and
social aspects. While, there are some milestones that occur by nature (these happen naturally),
there are others that occur by nurturing (how we are brought up and what we are exposed to); both
set the foundation for our lives and set us up to be rational and functional adults.
Based on my research, development in children is classified into five growth periods
accordingly: Infancy, Early Childhood, Middle Childhood, Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood. The
first stage of development is Infancy. It is the period from birth through year one and during this
time, many significant milestones are met. Significant physical, cognitive and social growth occurs
during a child’s first year and if natural markers are not met, a child could suffer severe
consequences. Looking back into my Infancy stage, there were specific milestones I faced like
weaning off from breast milk and transitioning to solid food. Physically, I grew at a gradual pace and
also gained weight equally. Cognitively, my brain could recognize my mother’s voice, and I could
even read her facial expressions. I began to smile and made my steps by crawling and pulling me up
to help me balanced myself. During Infancy, I also began linking actions like waving with their
symbolic meaning like hello and goodbye. Socially, I was exceedingly attached to my mother and
would cry if she left. For the most part, every milestone that I had attained was expected in normal
growth. I began to teethe and was always ahead of my weight and height goal in terms of months.
By the end of year one, I had begun to speak basic words like “mama and papa” and was on the
verge of walking on my own.
The next developmental phase laid out by psychologists is the Early Childhood. In this second
stage, development years are ages two through six. Early Childhood contains many important
milestones that build upon its forerunning stage of Infancy. Although physical growth slows
compared to Infancy, it does still occur; examples of physical growth in this stage are more stable
height growth patterns and learning how to walk. A few cognitive milestones that I encountered are
refined speech and more developed thought patterns. In Early Childhood, kids begin to go to school
and learn their ABC’s, numbers, colors and can even ask for what they want. This is a huge step
cognitively for development because previously, children were limited to basic words like “mama
and dada”.
The third developmental stage a child endures is Middle Childhood. During this stage,
children begin to discover who they are, who they want to be and who they intend to become.
During Middle Childhood, I encountered multiple physical, cognitive and social milestones.
Physically I went from being the tallest kid to the smallest in class, I began puberty stage towards
the later end of this stage and my entire body and voice changed, and I even began to thin out and
loose most of my childhood bulge. Cognitively, my memory improved, and I began linking thoughts
together and relating common ideas to better organize and understand them. Socially, I had my first
of many sleepovers and I started to come “out of my shell” towards new people. I realized it takes
hard work to earn what you desire and to stop at nothing until you arrive at that point. Some
developmental events I encountered that were expected were: beginning grade school, remaining
very active, more refined motor skills like balance and flexibility, I became more socially aware and
began to vale others opinions of me, I began to play with neighbourhood kids every day after school
and every day, I changed my self-perception.
Adolescence is the next and fourth developmental stage of a person. This stage was a fun
one…years eleven through eighteen brought about many firsts and constant changes in my life.
During Adolescence, I crossed many benchmarks off my list, including: finishing up puberty, reaching
my final height, starting to develop my own beliefs separate from my parents, having an exclusive
circle of close friends, beginning to think everyone had constant eyes on me (imaginary audience),
beginning to think outside of what I saw daily (space, morality, future plans), and even built my
vocabulary to be fluent and more refined. As usual, I hit most major expected developmental
milestones. Physically, I did nothing to remain healthy until my later adolescent years, I grew (and
had them removed) wisdom teeth, and my body continued to fill out. Cognitively, I was very
dramatic (personal fable), became very good at reading and writing, and was driven heavily by
emotion. Socially, I learned monetary responsibility by getting a job, experienced my first love as
well as heartbreak, encountered my first true bought of rejection, I related and identified myself to
my friends instead of parents and had low self-esteem.
I am still in the process of completing my last and final stage of development called Emerging
Adulthood. I teeter on a fine line between independent adult and dependent student. I have a job
but it is not a career, and financially with school, I am still heavily reliant on my parents. So far, I
have experienced a handful of physical, cognitive and social milestones. Physically, I began growing
out instead of upwards like my previous stages and I began to look more like an adult. Cognitively, I
realized my limits academically, I became more academically diverse with college and I began
making my own decisions concerning religion, morality and life.
As conclusion, carrying out the study on a child’s profile through this video has helped me a
lot in developing my own knowledge. I got to know different child’s development theories besides a
new experience on conducting such experiments. However, I think the premise of this video was
taken from the Jesuit motto “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”