Last week, one thing I noted on Friday was that that class period was particularly talkative during the warm up section of the day, but I noticed how she would selectively respond to students, only answering those asking about their current work. At the same time those actions are further reinforcing classroom expectations, it is also helping them understand boundaries for themselves and others. I’ve also noticed Mrs. Hebz would ask the students questions about the clothes they were wearing (inquisitive questions to better understand their interests), or would ask them about current things going on in the school, and discuss their plans for the weekend if the students were comfortable divulging that information. I think that also plays into healthy identity development because the students are able to safely explore themselves and their interests, and they are in an environment – at least in that class – where someone is showing interest in it with them.

Part of their development in this stage has to do with opportunities for expression, choice, and acceptance in order to forge an identity. They express themselves through clothing, through the choice of friend groups, extracurriculars, even their hair (different styles and hair colors – though there’s only one who has an unnatural hair color like me and I love it) but at the same time, they just finished industry vs inferiority, so they’re all early in their identity development.

From the education implications handout, something I see in this class is “giving students many opportunities to succeed” and I think about the grading scale the teacher implements. It took me a bit of time to get used to, but essentially all homework grades are out of five, and for every three questions incorrect, they lose a point. This allows for a student to have a two-question buffer before they get less than a 100%. To me, this is a perfect example of giving them many opportunities to succeed. It widens the requirements for an A in the class, and I think gives the students a bit more confidence when completing work because they have a bit of room to mess up and not have that mess up be detrimental to their overall grade.

For myself, in Marcia’s extension, I would be a mix of moratorium and identity achievement. I feel as though I am identity achieved in some respects because I have gone through serious crises and made decisions that brought me out of crises. More concretely, I think about my religious beliefs. I grew up in a devoutly Christian household where everyone around me unyieldingly believed in god. The first time I was exposed to a person whom I respected and was close to whom had a differing religious opinion was my freshman year social studies teacher. He explained how he wasn’t attempting to influence us but wanted us to have an informed decision and talked about what agnosticism was and why he chose to identify with it. That was when my crisis began – I could see some people didn’t believe in the same religion I did – and that perspective expanded my world. I decided to explore different religions and come to my own understanding of what worked for and made sense to me, coming to a decision of my own.

In terms of other things I noted in the class, I’ve been looking at the formation of identity in general. I still feel as though the students have a stronger group identity than individual identities, so it’s easier for them to ask questions or speak freely in group settings than in individual contexts. This goes hand in hand with my evaluation of their positions in Marcia’s extension of Erikson’s theory because I think (even though I’ve had limited interactions with them) quite a few of them have moved into moratorium in regard to their identity. Perhaps some are still foreclosed because they’re at the age where strong ideological beliefs don’t really exist, and if they do they come from their parents. I imagine that many have not really had to question those beliefs.

• This topic was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Jalen Causey.