This case study examines various aspects of life experiences Luis Ramirez encountered from childhood to adulthood. The following theories of development, being examined, are known as cognitive development, social development, emotional development, behavioral development, moral development and student development. An explanation on how Luis Ramirez developed, within these theories and their implication to education, will be analyzed within this case study.
Physical Description
Luis Ramirez, Jr. is a 31-year-old Hispanic male about five feet eleven inches in height. The individual has black hair, dark-brown eyes and weighs 180 lbs. His family and close friends call him by his nickname, “Louie”. Luis is a first-generation student who obtained
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an Associate degree, in 2008, and a Bachelor degree, in 2011. Luis is currently attending Angelo State University, where he is majoring in Education. He resides in his own residence and currently works for Ranger College as the Assistant Registrar. Luis is the second to the oldest child. His two other siblings have Associate degrees. His parents are Catherine and Luis Ramirez, Sr. The individual’s father and mother have high school diplomas. His father is employed, as a welder, at Campbell Construction. His mother is a fulltime homemaker. He has strong family values, great respect for his parents. He also is very passionate about his religious beliefs and morals. Cognitive Development Piaget Piaget’s theory included four distinct stages of development in children (Maisto & Morris, 2016). In the sensorimotor stage (birth -2 years), Luis learned object permanency, when his parents played peek-a-boo with him. In the preoperational stage (ages 2-7), Luis described using his imagination by pretending to be a police officer. In the concrete operational stage (ages 7-11), Luis learned concrete ideas of good and bad behavior, while role playing as a police officer, with his siblings. Entering the formal operational stage (ages 12 and up), Luis started to learn and identify more abstract concepts, things like racial discrimination and assumed learning inequalities (Maisto & Morris, 2016). Learning these abstract ideas and seeing how they apply to the real world, helped him choose a career in academic advising. So, as to help minority populations overcome these stigmas and be successful. Vygotsky Vygotsky’s cognitive development theory suggest a child’s cognition is influenced by social interactions (Desai, 2014). Luis, a first-generation student, required extensive guidance from tutors, teachers and academic advisors. These people can be identified as the more knowledgeable other (McLeod, 2014). Luis incorporated his gained knowledge from his past college experience and utilized it at Tarleton State University (Scaffolding). Language, the final stage, is an accelerator to thinking and understanding (Desai, 2014). By taking these upper level courses, his development of language and understanding of concepts have been challenged. These courses are contributing to his future position as a more knowledgeable other to future students and has helped him to advance in his desire to become an academic advisor. Social Development Bandura Bandura’s Social Learning Theory primarily focused on a child’s behavior and how behavior was influenced by models or surrounding environments (McLeod, 2016).
Through attention, retention, reproduction and motivation, Luis stated he was able to develop and learn to become fluent in two different languages (McLeod, 2016). Also, his work environment has motivated him to obtain a higher degree. He believes that being an academic advisor can help contribute to student success. Also, he believes that keeping students engaged in the classroom will help improve student success rates. Improved student success rates can only help increase student …show more content…
retention. Erikson Erikson’s Social Learning Theory primarily focused on the caregiver/parent - child relationship (McLeod, 2013). Luis was very fortunate to have the most caring and supportive parents. As a child growing up, Luis indicated his parents have always made him and his siblings, a high priority and encouraged them to do their best. Reflecting on his personal life, Luis stated he gained hope, will, purpose, competency and fidelity (McLeod, 2013). He currently resides in stage 6, which consists of intimacy or isolation (McLeod, 2013). As a 32-year-old, Luis feels his early nurturing family environment has impacted where he currently is in life. He can initiate healthy relationships with friends and is open to letting people in his life without a problem. Emotional Development Sigmund Freud Luis states that he does not agree with Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages.
As a baby, Luis would put everything he encountered in his mouth. He did not associate it with sexual pleasure, but as a means of learning. When he entered the anal stage, Luis stated he began potty-training. Naturally, being praised for going to the bathroom encouraged him to be successful. He did not feel like this success influenced any aspect of his life. Luis also did not agree with Freud’s phallic stage, which says children, from the ages of 5 to 6, become sexually interested in their parents (McLeod, 2008). Luis stated, when he was that age, he did not know what sex entailed. He was too busy pretending to be a ninja turtle. Luis did agree with the Freud’s latency stage. Luis feels the time he spent with his father helped him learn his role of being a man, a father and the importance of being a good provider (McLeod, 2008). Luis stated his parent’s behaviors, norms and teachings, are what influenced his development from childhood to adulthood. He is currently in the adulthood stage known as the genital stage (McLeod, 2008). Luis confirms that he is not ready for a lifetime commitment, because he believes staying focused on obtaining an education will help him become a better provider, when a lifetime commitment is
obtained. Carl Jung Luis believes Jung’s theory applies to his overall development. Because of the personal and collective unconscious that he has acquired from childhood to adulthood, he refers to him-self as a healthy, well-adjusted and caring individual that can perform the daily functions of life (McLeod, 2014). As a teenager, Luis stated he worked at Dairy Queen to pay his own fees for sports. When he received his first pay check, based on $7.25 an hour, he realized that obtaining a college degree was necessary to better his life. He is currently working on a Master degree to obtain a new position at his current place of employment. Luis feels this opportunity, will empower his current knowledge and help him to live up to the values and norms he was taught from childhood. Behavior Development B.F. Skinner Skinner’s Behavioral Learning Theory demonstrates mastery in Luis personal development, because he experienced operant conditioning from his parents and employers. Due to his parent’s operant conditioning technique, of giving Luis twenty dollars for each “A” that he obtained on his report card, he was motivated to retain a high GPA (McLeod, 2015). Luis reported that the operant conditioning helped him become more goal oriented and made education a high priority in his life. Luis, also shared, that after he voluntarily started his master program, his supervisor provided positive reinforcement by offering him a higher position with several new benefits, once he graduated. The mechanism of change, Luis experienced, was the positive reinforcement he received, which also will lead to the promised offer of a new position as an advisor. Watson Watson’s Behavioral Learning Theory also demonstrates mastery in Luis’ personal development. Classical conditioning is, “they type of learning in which a response naturally elicited by one stimulus comes to be elicited by a different, formerly neutral, stimulus (McLeod, 2014, p. 1). As a child, his parents, as well as his instructors, utilized classical conditioning to teach him things. While in kindergarten, Luis recalls that he was told to line up and get ready to walk to the next class, after the bell rang. Over-time, he knew, at the sound of a bell, that it was time to change classes. The mechanism of change, was the sound of a bell, signaling it was time for something new. Luis stated, when he hears the bell go off outside his office, he sometimes catches himself preparing to leave. Also, he learned, from his parents the saying, that to be early is to be on time, and to be on time is to be late. To this day, he always arrives at-least 15 minutes early. He stated, he is always being conditioned in some form or fashion. This has made him a goal oriented, self-motivated individual. It will allow him to be a good example as an advisor.
In conclusion, Luis was not able to establish any confidence or self-esteem whatsoever. He was not able to develop a healthy sense of empathy. Moreover, he was not able to exhibit any meaningful activities because he was excluded from class. According to Erikson, he is very likely to have developed a profound sense of inferiority. As to substantiate that conclusion, Rodriguez describes himself as a bouncing ball during that time which fittingly illustrates the extent in which Luis is being pushed around by others and how serious his lack of initiative
Luis could not resist being influenced by many girls since his absolute weakness was due to feminine power. However, he lost his trust in many girls since many of his previous girlfriends were untrustworthy because they used their bodies materialistically to gain reputation and money. Due to this, he gained a different perspective of girls after having his heart broken several times from infidelity. He transformed emotionally, intellectually, and sexually, due to the encounterance of psychological and physiological life events. It is very difficult for any person to suppress this betrayal, so he turned to drugs and alcohol. In the following quote Rodriguez demonstrates that he tried to reach out to God for help,“God I wanted that light, this whore of a sun to blind me, to entice me to burn-to be sculptured marble in craftier hand” (pg. 105). There was a point in Rodriguez 's life where he felt the light at the end of the tunnel after overdosing on toxic, addictive drugs. His near-death experience from narcotizing himself to an extreme was one of the causes which made him change his perspective of the world at a faster
Schuster, C. S., and Ashburn, S. S., (1980). The Process of Human Development: A Holistic Approach. Boston: Little, Brown and Company Inc.
Even from an early age, Rodriguez is a successful student. Everyone is extremely proud of Rodriguez for earning awards and graduating to each subsequent level of his education. But all his success was not necessarily positive. In fact, we see that his education experience is a fairly negative one. One negative that Rodriguez endures is his solitude. Education compels him to distance himself from his family and heritage. According to Richard Hoggart, a British education theorist, this is a very natural process for a scholarship boy. Hoggart explains that the ?home and classroom are at cultural extremes,? (46). There is especially an opposition in Rodriguez?s home because his parents are poorly educated Mexicans. His home is filled with Spanish vernacular and English filled with many grammatical errors. Also, the home is filled with emotions and impetuosity, whereas the classroom lacks emotion and the teachers accentuate rational thinking and reflectiveness.
Education is a topic that can be explored in many ways. Education is looked at in depth by both Richard Rodriguez in his essay, “The Achievement of Desire”, and by Paulo Freire in his essay, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” After reading both essays, one can make some assumptions about different methods of education and exactly by which method Rodriguez was taught. The types of relationships Rodriguez had with his teachers, family and in life were affected by specific styles of education.
The importance put on education often comes from parental involvement. Many Latinos come to this country in hopes of giving the opportunity to their children to have more open more doors to success while enjoying freedom. The freedom that some possibly do not have at home. “A number of factors contribute to the translation of a family’s social capital to schools capital, including parental income and educational attainment, English language proficiency (ELP), parental beliefs and educational aspirations for their children, and parental involvement in schools (Zambrana 62).” The need to aspire is an individual motivation, however the family structure has much to do with the ambitions. The Latino community according to the book Latinos in American Society written by Ruth Zambrana ran a study on the Average SAT Scores for Twelfth Grade Test-Taking Population, by Race and Latino Subgroup, 1996-2006. In this study, it was found that the second-generation students that are of college-educated Latino families contributed the most to the rise in the total Latino student
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Sigmund Freud proposed a theory of psychoanalytic development; he stated that early childhood experiences and practices affect later development in adulthood. Freud’s stages of psychosexual development comprised of five stages: the oral stage (0 – 1 year), the anal stage (1 – 3 years), the phallic stage (3 – 6 years), the latency period (6 – puberty) and the genital stage (puberty –