The school that I teach at is a magnet school with a Health Sciences theme, and our task is to tie our teaching into this theme when possible. I find that students are very interested in learning about some of the psychological principles behind Identity Development in children. The way I suggest integrating this topic into the unit is through focusing on two phases in the main character James McBride's development in his memoir
The Color of Water
. After reading the first 100 or so pages that recount McBride's early childhood experiences look at Socialization and discuss the difference between Primary and Secondary Socialization in children. I would then give students a challenging article describing these two modes of socialization to read and discuss as a class. Students can give examples from their own lives and then the class can analyze the stories of both James and his mother Ruth to look for examples of Primary and Secondary Socialization.
As the story moves on James goes through his teenage years and has a severe bout of rebellious teenage behavior. During this section I would focus on Erick Erickson's research on the stages of development and present the students with his theory on Stage 5 – Identity V. Role Confusion. Once again students would be given a challenging article to read and then as a class we would discuss this stage. The class will most likely have many personal examples to draw upon since this is the stage of development that they are currently experiencing, which will provide for positive student engagement. The class can first discuss their own experiences and challenges during this stage, and then dig into the literature to discuss both James's experiences and his mother Ruth's experiences.
Finally to address the complicating factors of race in identity development I suggest introducing an excerpt from the book
NurtureShock
called
See Baby Discriminate
. This article discusses how parents address questions of race with their children and makes the point that few families have completely open and honest communication about questions of race. This presents a nice compliment to the book
The Color of Water
since one of the main factors in James's identity development is his mother's unwillingness to address his questions of race due to his mixed race heritage. In my class of mostly African American students, this topic provids a very good vehicle for an interesting discussion on how race is addressed in their own families and how this has made them either more or less comfortable with their ethnicity.
Part 2 – Resources
I use the text
Child, Family, School, Community: Socialization and Support
to provide my students with a brief overview of Socialization. This text explains the basics of sociology in a way that my class can understand. Depending on how deeply you want to get into the topic the text provides chapters that lead through all of the different aspects of socialization and looks at the roles of parents, adults, peers, and teacher in a child's social development. Erick Erickson's research on the Stages of Development was also very helpful in crafting this part of my unit. I have included two books on my reading list
Identity and the Life Cycle
and
Childhood and Society
that proved helpful in understanding the link between childhood, adolescence, and the formulation of identity. Lev Vygotsky's work on Social Learning Theory was also very helpful in creating a link between identity, education and socialization. To provide articles that are accessible to students, I suggest
Theories of Childhood
, which gives an overview of the educational theories of many of the major psychologists working in this field. My purpose in introducing this was to make a link to Human Development and Psychology and to hone my students' skills in reading challenging non-fiction articles so, when giving students resources to read and research, I use excerpts that present an overview of the major topics.
Part 2 – Suggestions for Further Reading
I only used one chapter from
NurtureShock
in my unit; however, the book is filled with very compelling and research based studies of different aspects of childhood, adolescence and parenting and gives some eye-opening information about the effects of social and parental practices on identity development. Two chapters that related very closely to this unit were "The Science of Teen Rebellion" and "Plays Well With Others" which both discuss how peers and parents affect social development.
There are many cross-curricular connections that can be made through the genre of memoir which will allow the teacher to tailor the unit for the interests of the students, the magnet theme of the school, or the essential curriculum questions. One interesting direction that could be pursued in this part of the unit is to look at how culture and education affect social development. A text that presents a very interesting study of how culture affects the way a child is raised is
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
. In this book, the author couples research about the Hmong refugees from Laos with a story of a young Hmong child with epilepsy. The story follows the clash between the doctors' ideas about how to care for the girl, and the family's traditional Hmong beliefs.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
also places the story of a family at odds with the medical community in a way that brings up many questions of ethics as the family battles for recognition of their contribution to advances in scientific research.