Week 2, post #1, Chp. 2

Sociocultural learning active learning (p. 50). Learning styles vary dependent on the child passions and capabilities of processing information in terms of hearing or visualizing. The zone of  proximal Development is what the learner is capable of understanding with guidance. Overall, the following is important for teaching: Engagement, productivity, adaptation to the mentee's learning style.

There are four main developmental theories, pscyhoanalytic (animalistic, selfish, id), behaviorism, (ignores free will), and humanism (humans all share the same basic needs), and evolutionary (Berger, p.51). Carl Rogers, a contributing founder of Humanism who once had a goal of becoming a  prime minister until he switched to psychology, wrote a book called On Becoming a Person. He stressed "conditional positive regard" can be applied in all realms of life such as education and sports, where optimum body performance challenges and motivates the body to the best it can be.  Places of people care like hospitals, hospice it stresses that pain can physical. As a humanism theorist, Maslow developed a pyramid of resources and basic needs that every person needs to have met, in order to be a healthy individual. The first needs include basic resources like food, water, warmth, and air. Once those needs are met, a person needs safety and security followed by love and belonging, and after these needs at met, the person is able to gain respect and esteem, and finally self-actualization. After self actualization is met, Rogers believes that people can fully be themselves- creative, spiritual, appreciative of nature and respectable (Berger, p.52). The fact that everyone is able to achieve this peak experience or appreciation of life, is the "universality of humanism". Humanism became popular after World War II and held criticisms of being responsible for drugs, sexual liberation, and New Age philosophy. 

Another theory is the Evolutionary theory, are adaptations from millions of years ago that explain our current homestasis. We can manipulate or recognize impulses, innate reactions, and irrational fears (to this day and age), and rationalize through them by not getting worked up once we know they are irrational fears not pertaining to this day. This theory also maintains that the surviving population has gained adaptations like digestion that are relevant to food resources available, and environment present. The flaw with evolutionary theory is it undermines the efforts to change human actions, nature verses nurture interferes with the fact that genes are the result of all actions (mainly pertains to mate selection).