A positive and healthy school environment forces us to do the best of our ability, help us develop a positive attitude that lasts lifelong. In the school, we learn to compete and co-operate, we learn to appreciate, we learn to make decisions, and we learn values, beliefs, and morals. We are taught that cheating is wrong, breaking rules is punishable. We are given opportunities to improve and develop our personality and behavior. Here, we also observe how authority enforces rules to ensure a better, fair environment and thus, we realize the importance of the rules in our life. Sometimes, we also observe such situations in which life is not so fair and we learn to cope up with that too. All these experiences, opportunities, and teachings help us build a foundation for our life. "Where are you from?", "where do you live", the most common question we have ever asked and answered. It is because we consciously or unconsciously believe that it matters where we live. Our neighborhood, our location influences our thoughts, actions, likings, behaviors and lifestyles. It indicates the human nature of to fit in and to be accepted. We are social being and we have to live in the society, so we prefer to follow the crowd. Then, the question is, would I be a different person if I raised somewhere else? Yes, it matters whether someone lives in a peaceful, healthy neighborhood or in a polluted, unsafe neighborhood. Those differences in environment might transform their lives in positive and negative directions. A nice, peaceful neighborhood makes us to support the right and hate the wrong. We can't support wrong there, because we have the fear that our society might banish us. In contrast, if we live in a place with a high crime rate, it would be ... ... middle of paper ... ...ges and unreal standards also increase the rate of depression, materialism, corruption, and other violence among us; thus shape our personality. Parents, peers, school, neighborhood, and the media; all these factors work simultaneously throughout our life to shape our development, behavior, and personality. We, at the end, become the person who is constructed, structured and influenced by all these factors. On the other hand, the nature debate is only credible because of the genetic factors that support how we are connected with our parents. However, ultimately, the nurture of a person overshadows the nature debate because the environmental factors can clearly explain the overall shape of a person and as "scientists now think, is epigenetics -- how nurture shapes nature" ( Powledge 588). So, the time has come for us to agree on that our nurture is our nature.
--Noah webster also known as the "School Master of America", published the blue back speller to teach students about the U.S becoming America's textbook. Thomas Jefferson believed the survival of the democracy depended on the education of U.S citizens, no education for slaves, only three years for women, and only focused on finding smart white men. His ideas were considered radical. His bill for the education was defeated every time and he created the University of Virginia. His biggest belief was that public education was essential to a democracy. Horace Mann 1830-1840s, in Massuchusetts state senate, first secretary of education, and visited over 1000 schools reporting on their conditions resulting in him wanting to change public schools. He said governments have to make the changes. Through lectures and conventions he created the common schools which included everyone and was supported through taxes. He standardized al...
Are we as citizens considered free? Are all of the amendments that are stated in the Bill of Rights met? The world may ask, “ What freedom would you like to be expressed or expanded?” The freedom that should be expanded is the freedom to educate. The freedom to educate should be expanded because, as you should know slaves were not allowed to educate themselves. I know this because when reading an earlier document, “ History is a Weapon,” which states, “Knowledge was power, and virtually all slave codes established in the United States set restrictions making it illegal to teach slaves to read or write.” Also, you have people who are over our education like Betsy DeVos. She is taking a lot of money out of title one schools. Abraham’s speech also had a role in education.
The argument of nature vs. nurture is a long-standing one in the psychological and social worlds. It is the argument about whether we are ruled by our genes or our upbringing. It is my thought that neither is true. It is nature working with nurture which determines our personality and our lifestyle.
The nature vs. nurture controversy is an age old question in the scientific and psychological world with both camps having evidence to support their theories. The controversy lies in which is more influential in the development of human beings. While there is no definitive answer for this, it is interesting to look at each of them separately.
The nature vs. nurture debate: the nature side, are those such as biologists, psychologists and others in the natural sciences, argue that behavioral traits can be explained by genetics. Those taking the nurture side are sociologists and others in the social sciences, they argue that human behavior is learned and shaped through social interaction. This argument should be dismissed because you don’t have to look far to see that both genetics and our environment, plays a role in who we are and our behaviors. (Glass). The point is there is a complex relationship between nature and nurture, either one alone is insufficient to explain what makes us human. (Colt). Our heredity gives us a basic potential,...
...s may never agree on a conclusive degree to which both nature and nurture play roles in human development, but over the years, more improved studies have shown that both are crucial aspects. With all the knowledge we are gaining from these studies, it would be quite limiting to believe that a criminal and his actions are the sole result of heredity. Even in people who do not commit crimes, genes themselves are affected by the prenatal environment. Undoubtedly, the fetus experiences changes in environment, forcing possible changes in heredity and reactionary response. We are likely to never find the answer to how much or how little either, nature or nurture, impacts our lives, but at least we can agree that they both do, in fact, have major roles. Our development is not the culmination of heredity alone, but of a tangled web of experiences and genetics entwined.
The Battle of Nature vs. Nurture In Nancy Kress' "In Memoriam", the philosophical issue of identity becomes apparent. As a son pleads to his mother to take part in a medical procedure, which wipes your mind clear of memories, the question of "what makes me'me'?" arises. Set in the future, the mother is faced with a decision: whether or not she wants to die as a result of having too many memories, or as a result of having none at all. The son, Aaron, takes quite a different approach however as he feels that it is not a question of death, rather a question of life.
In the well-received novel “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” Mark Twain skillfully addresses the ancient argument about the origin of one’s character and whether it’s derived from his nature or his surroundings. We can best see this battle between nature versus nurture by inspecting the plot lines that follow the characters Thomas a Becket Driscoll, Valet de Chambre, and Roxana the slave. Thomas was born into a wealthy white family while Roxy birthed Chambers into a life of slavery. It seemed as though each would have gone their separate ways into opposite walks of life, but Roxy secretly swapped the children, which destined each to their counterintuitive fates. Through their words and actions, Tom, Chambers, and Roxy have proven the idea that one’s behaviors and desires are a result of his upbringings and the environment he lives in rather than by his innate nature.
Dr. Mason said that it is the states that provide for education. He said, “In the first state constitution of Massachusetts, past revolution in 1780, John Adams wanted in the state constitution a provision which you would create mandatory public education for our children” (NWOSU, 2010). The constitution over in Costa Rica has several areas that deal with public education. It establishes that public education is a function and at least six percent of the nation’s growth has to be devoted to the public education system of primary and secondary schools, said Dr. Carvajal, (NWOSU, 2010). This means that all of the funding and decisions in regards to public education come from the national government. The U.S. is different, because the states and local have a large
SEPARATED TWINS The nature vs. nurture debate is the philosophical and scientific argument about whether human behavior and personality is a product of nature or nurture. In this debate, nature is often referred to as hereditary or hormone-based behaviors, while nurture is defined in terms of environment and experience. Twin studies have been a vital part of this debate because of the exceptional genetic similarities between twin siblings. It has been proven that nature and genetics plays an important role in development of some mental health conditions, such as bipolar, major depression and schizophrenia.
Nature refers to genes and biological factors that contribute to our physical appearance or our personality’s. While nurture refers to how one’s environment or upbringing influences their personality. Psychologists that side with nature, debate the influence of hereditary and maturational processes guided by genes (Sigelman & Rider, 2014). Psychologists that adhere more to the nurture debate, feel as if humans change due to environmental factors. Development plays a huge role in the nature vs nurture debate, because development has been proven to stem from biological factors as well as environmental factors. The nature aspect proves the development begins with fetus and really is never ending until death. The nurture aspect proves that we develop
The quote from the famous psychologist John B. Watson essentially sums up behaviourism. Behaviourism refers to the school of psychology founded by Watson, established on the fact that behaviours can be measured and observed (Watson, 1993). In behaviourism, there is a strong emphasis that the acquisition of learning, or permanent change in behaviour, is by external manifestation. Thus, any individual differences in behaviours observed was more likely due to experiences, and not by the working of genes. As the quote suggest, any individuals can be potentially trained to perform any tasks through the right conditioning. There are two major types of conditioning, classical and operant conditioning (Cacioppo & Freberg, 2012).
Development across the lifespan is one of the most interesting areas of psychology. The word development refers to human development which can be defined as “the scientific study of changes that occur in people as they age from conception until death.” (Ciccarelli, & White, 2009)Psychologists study this developmental change over time through several different methods. The book highlights three: Longitudinal design, cross-sectional design and cross-sequential design. Longitudinal design is a research design “in which one participant or group of participants is studied over a long period of time.” Cross sectional design differs from longitudinal design because cross-sectional designed research studies “several different age-groups of participants are studied at one particular time.” (Ciccarelli, & White)Cross-sequential designed research is a combination of the other two types; the cross-sequential research design studies participants by means of a cross-sequential design but they are also followed and assessed for a period of time no more than six years. A controversial topic associated with development across the lifespan is the theory of “Nature versus Nurture”. Nature versus nurture refers to the relationship between development and heredity and environmental factors. The answer lies on a spectrum between environmental factors and heredity. Psychologists on the environmental side are called empiricists. Empiricists believe that human development is fully influenced by a person’s environment. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the nativists. Nativists are psychologists that believe a person’s development is based completely on genetic factors. The facts are divided in relation to the two theor...
School, in essence, functions as a ladder to the future. The farther up the ladder a person goes, the more prepared for real life he will find himself. Respect is one of the keys to getting up the ladder and succeeding in many aspects of life. I grew up respecting my elders: whether it was my grandparents or the librarian, I have always had respect. The regard I have developed for teachers has come from knowing that I will need their help to make it through school and I can only get it by being respectful and polite.
Nature vs. nurture has been discussed by philosophers in the past and by scientists more recently. Philosophers such as Plato argued that all knowledge was inherited from your parents and when you were told something you didn’t learn it you were just reminded of it. Aristotle however argued that all humans were born with a blank slate and built on it with influence from there environment. In the 1700’s the empiricists and the internalists took over the argument. They fought through letters explaining there point of views and denouncing the others. This leads to Pavlov coming up with the idea of behaviorism in the early 1900‘s. Behaviorism became the new wave of Psychology and influenced a lean towards the nurture side. It was not effectively argued against until 1928 when Watson published his book. This opened up the floodgates for environmental influences studies. Soon the idea of nurture was the popular excuse for behavior. Studies using animals were the most popular was in which scientists used to prove a theory, or disprove a theory. The newest studies use human twins to prove nature vs. nurture.