Being a student of EDS 100 (Psychological Foundations of Education) for the past couple of months has been really mind-extending to me. Well, who wouldn’t have a wider perspective on life and how people grow and develop after tackling so many beautiful theories, ranging from Piaget’s very cognitive schema building, to Vygotsky’s scaffolding, alongside Erikson’s crises and how to resolve them. Throw in Maslow’s needs hierarchy paired with biocultural, and biophysical ways of looking at human development.

I have enjoyed this course so far. I myself have been immersed in an awesome kind of diversity. Diverse ideas from classmates, different opinions, different views, different experiences related to topics discussed in class.

Wow! In the eyes of Bronfenbrenner, whose ecological model happens to be my favorite already, I have been in such a great microsystem that number one, I have interacted well with classmates and groupmates over tasks that at first seemed daunting but eventually materialized by the power of group work. My professor has been very motivating, understanding, and very keen on how we as students who may be coming from different walks of life, and works in life, could apply our lessons in our respective settings- crystallizing intelligence, it is!

To top it all, I so loved the way the final examination was given. It was given as some kind of an applied exam. I had to write proposed solutions to certain educational issues in the Philippines, using the theories I had learned in class. Just perfect! Theory should always go hand in hand with practice.

So glad to have belonged in this class so far.

Diversity to me is key to creativity.
I remember a couple of years ago, I was speaking to a master jazz bassist at a jazz club in Quezon City. He was like, “Jazzy, in jazz, there should always be a black element.”

Earlier in college, I learned from an art professor that when all hues are combined together, that results in the color black. So black is basically the combination of beautiful, vibrant hues.

I feel so lucky that I have immersed myself in the jazz community, where as artists we are taught and obliged to be sensitive and creative about incorporating elements from such various traditions as European, African, Hispanic, world musical cultures.

When you listen to jazz, it truly sounds transcendental, spiritual, and oh well, sophisticated. There’s got to be an ear for jazz, just as there has to be an ear for the unheard, the marginalized and the those that are left behind in any case. Jazz is a music of inclusion and diversity.

In the freedom of jazz, one can enjoy playing a song differently all the time. It does not have to a composer’s music. One performance entails creativity, improvisation and inclusion of not only musical material but even the environment surrounding the stage.

I was very fortunate working on an assignment with a group that tried to contribute as much input as they can. I understand that probably, most of us have been very busy with so many things whether school-related or not, and thankfully, we were able to finish and submit our manuscript on human development observations on time.

What I loved about working on the said assignment with a group is diversity in the input itself. We made observations of different subjects from different places and age groups. Wow! When I was reading my group mates’ notes, I was like, “Yes, this is it! This is theory coming into life!”

As a jazz artist, I think I really have an inherent inkling for diversity and working with a group. A recent study has found that “Jazz musicians accomplish more creative musical activities and achievements” and are noted for their “divergent thinking”.

In piecing the whole assignment together, there were some challenges. Communication between me and my group members may have not been instant and as much real-time as we would have wanted it to be. But as a musician myself, I understand the concept of time and space, and the music makes silence come to life. So I always tried to check up on our work stations online at least every couple of days. Also, I had to volunteer. I volunteered to take on a certain task, like proofreading the grammar of our manuscript and submitting it all on schedule. I also put reminders in my phone, in my tumbler, on my cabinet wall, at our restroom, just so I would not forget my deadline for the assignment submission. That to me is divergent thinking. I knew there were challenges but I had to think non-linearly. At times, you have got to work around things. Or around people. If you can’t really work with them.

Reference:

Benedek, M et.al, 2014. Creativity and personality in classical, jazz and folk musicians. Personality and Individual Differences
Volume 63, June 2014, Pages 117-121
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.01.064

I’d like to think of it as divine intervention. Whatever has kept me motivated to keep studying and working at the same  time the past couple of months. Why am I saying that?

Let’s take a look at my microsystems for the past few weeks. I had given up my condominium unit near my work place in Ortigas Center simply because I couldn’t afford the monthly rent anymore. That means I have been forced to temporarily stay with my relatives in my aunt’s house which is a couple of hours away from my work place and I have to go  through a hell of commuting almost every day to get to work. Over the past few weeks, I have not been doing well at work. I have racked up a huge pile of online debt. Almost every week, I have had debt collectors calling me up and asking for my loan payments. In between, I have had to stay  motivated to do school work. I am thankful for very kind people in my microsystem. Who are those people? My siblings both based here in the Philippines and the United States. At my age, I have been hesitant in asking help from them. But what can I do? I have tried my best to earn or make money, to no avail. My siblings know that I have almost become bankrupt lately; and they have been helping me out one way or the other. Somebody’s helped me meet both ends.

Interestingly, I have been able to comply with my school requirements for the most part. I have been on the brink of depression, but I have been doing my school assignments!

What has  kept me motivated? Is it the jazz music I play when I do school stuff? Does the music distract me from feeling blue over my financial situation? Do the intricate and creative melodies of the  music inspire creativity in me too? Probably yes. Science has proved music to be motivating and therapeutic too. Let me quote some data from a recent research study on motivational music and soccer players:

” In recent years, music has been gaining increasing importance in the exercise and sports context [1]. Due to its ability to act as a stimulant and/or relaxant [2], this auditory stimulus can present several benefits. Firstly, listening to music can promote higher level of motivation, counteract the negative dimensions of mood (e.g., anxiety, depression, anger, tension) and further boost motor coordination [3]. Secondly, listening to music can reduce the perceived effort [4] and fatigue [5,6] in athletes. Thirdly, listening to music could optimize the period of consecutive recovery among physical efforts” (Belkir et al, 2019).

I am thankful for kind people, for jazz music, for God in my microsystem.

I get to eat for free almost every day too.

Looking at my situation right now, I guess I can ask myself what has become of me. I have been in the university since 2006 and up to now I haven’t finished my university work. Career-wise, I am not sure whether I have to keep or quit my sales job. Funny but while I’m writing these lines, I get a swinging, brassy and really happy tune from my jazz music background. Maybe I have to keep it going. Keep the music playing.

But it’s very important that I get to contemplate into what’s become of me. At 31, I am simply not financially stable. Yes, I have pursued what I have always wanted to pursue and that is jazz, but I haven’t really gotten the big break yet in the industry. I believe I am getting there.

For the sake of theorizing, I’d like to quote some scholarly material:

“According to Weiner, individuals are motivated to answer the questions: Why did I fail? Why did I succeed? Why didn’t I do better than I expected? In pursuit of answers, Weiner has proposed that individuals engage in an implicit analysis of the reason(s) for their performance outcomes” (Farenga et al, 2005).

Right now, I think my self-esteem, my self-worth has largely been compromised by being buried in debt, by being financially unstable, by being a bottom performer at work etc…

 “Nicholls and Dweck have argued that the prime motivator of achievement behavior is the desire to demonstrate high ability, or at the least, avoid negative evaluations of ability. Similarly, Covington has proposed the more ego-defensive notion that individuals are motivated by the desire to maintain their sense of self-worth”(Farenga et al, 2005).

Fortunately, through prayer and meditation, I guess I survive each emotionally tiring day. I still have that desire to regain and maintain my self-worth in every possible way. In a previous post of mine, I have provided evidence for the power of meditation.

In fact, I am in school so that someday I may have a stable job where I can apply my musical knowledge too, at least in the field of education.

It’s been a hell of challenges that I’ve been through lately. Thank God, I have stayed motivated through the fire.

References:

“Contemporary Theories of Achievement Motivation.” Encyclopedia of Education and Human Development, edited by Stephen J. Farenga and Daniel Ness, vol. 2, M.E. Sharpe, 2005, pp. 433-443. Gale Ebooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX2652800135/GVRL?u=phupou&sid=GVRL&xid=4b4d0ca5. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

Belkhir, Y et aln 2005. Listening to neutral or self-selected motivational music during warm-up to improve short-term maximal performance in soccer players: Effect of time of day. Physiology & Behavior
Volume 204, 15 May 2019, Pages 168-173
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2019.02.033

SEL. Social-Emotional Learning. Doesn’t it sound wonderful? I’d say it’s “SELegant”. Yes it is a wonderful, elegant educational innovation. Young pupils who have enrolled in social-emotional learning have been shown to do better in school. Children are basically taught to manage their  emotions, how not to be too emotional in dealing with other, how to be rightly empathetic and things like that. This sort of training helps children cope with different challenges in school and well in general, life. Humans are not only biological but of course, socio-emotional, socio-cultural beings. My readings on this subject tells me that in the US, children who had social-emotional learning classes have “stable jobs” in their mid-20s. Remember IQ is nothing without EQ.

Take for example what a very recent study has found out among young Chinese students. These Chinese students turn out to have done better in mathematics specifically pointing out that “emotion management had a more positive influence on subsequent emotion management, cognitive reappraisal, and homework completion…”(Xu, J et al, 2019).

Math is an essential and critical discipline needed for a country to progress. So our young children have to have a good grounding in math. Interesting, what seems to be an emotionless area of knowledge can be impacted by emotion regulation on the part of the learner.

In a study that involved Chinese Students in 8^th grade, “…results revealed that emotion management and math achievement were reciprocally related” (…”(Xu, J et al, 2019). The researchers studied over one thousand Chinese students and “student ratings [were] used to assess emotion regulation and homework completion.”

What anyone can glean from the said research study could be that if young students do not have much anxiety facing mathematics and studying it, then they can certainly achieve better.

Young children in school should be taught how to handle nervousness in terms of dealing with numbers. They should be taught to focus on how to solve math problems and realizing each time that math is needed to succeed in life and that they are learning math for the good of the country.

See? Emotional management and learning go hand in hand.

Reference:

JianzhongXu^aJianxiaDu^bFangtongLiu^bBosuHuang^b, 2019. Emotion Regulation, Homework Completion, and Math Achievement: Testing Models of Reciprocal Effects. Contemporary Educational Psychology Available online 24 October 2019, 101810. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101810

Module 1.3 SOCIO-EMOTIONAL PROCESSES. https://myportal.upou.edu.ph/mod/resource/view.php?id=143094

Look at me now. I am almost 31. And most of the time, I don’t get to sleep that much. That has probably impacted my brain as a student who has a full-time job at the same time. I am not quite sure I can still handle lots of memorizing but I still am pretty good at it when I have time and the alertness to do so—that means when I’m not thinking of my bed and my very soft pillows.

I have read that adult memory can be quite just as good as a young person’s memory. And a YouTube video attached to my readings on cognitive processes tells me that adults are great at crystallized intelligence. So that means, adult learners are good at providing examples to theories. Which is great! After all, what is the use of learning if it is not applied at all?

But people are biological beings too. We cannot deny the presence of certain genes that we may have inherited from our parents or grandparents. In fact, a recent study on cognitive decline as regards educational attainment says, and I directly quote:

“Genetic, socioeconomic and behavioural risk factors all make substantial contributions to the heterogeneity in individuals’ level of cognitive ability. Twin and family-based studies indicate that at least moderate proportion of the differences in most domains of cognitive ability is associated with genetic factors (Bouchard and McGue, 2003; Rietveld et al., 2014). Social scientists have shown that the relationship between education and cognition is in part due to the causal effect of schooling. This relationship can also be due to genetic confounding. Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) found that the genetic components of general cognitive functions are about 20–30% heritable (Davies et al., 2016). Higher educational attainment may allow individuals to cope more effectively with age-related brain deterioration, and thus perform better on cognitive tasks in later life (Lenehan et al., 2015; Rietveld et al., 2014; Scarmeas and Stern, 2004). Recent GWAS have discovered molecular genetic associations with education (Lee et al., 2018) and general cognition (Davies et al., 2018). The polygenic score of education constructed by Lee et al. (2018) explains 11–13% of the variance of educational attainment and 7–10% of the variance of cognitive performance, suggesting that the phenotypes have shared genetic basis (Marioni et al., 2014; Okbay et al., 2016; Rietveld et al., 2014). These findings suggest that common genetic effects may account for some of the observed association between education and cognitive ability” (Ding X, et al, 2019)

Effort. This is truly needed on my part. I can’t say that I was born to highly intelligent parents. My parents were very good cognitively speaking. My mother was an artist and could draft, sketch and paint very well, able to draw a  perfect line and circle without any drawing instrument. My father was a very logical and musical person. They were both professionals and had great jobs. They died kind of young due to cardiovascular ailments. So, doctors have  personally advised me to take care of my health as well, eat the right food, avoid too much stress because I might be prone to the same ailment as a I grow older.

Honestly, I lift it all to God. I believe in God. That is my culture. And I can feel that such faith heals. I know I am made up of genes. And I can’t do anything about it except maybe take care of my health and set myself worry-free by just trying to smile in the face of adversity, looking up to the heavens and knowing there’s hope and a new day is coming on. Has anyone heard of faith healing?

REFERENCE:

XuejieDing^abNicolaBarban^cFelix C.Tropf^dMelinda C.Mills, 2019. The relationship between cognitive decline and a genetic predictor of educational attainment. Social Science & Medicine Volume 239, October 2019, 112549. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112549

 

How children grow up to become beautiful adults is such a wonderful, awe-inspiring thing. I can imagine how parents are so happy seeing kids grow up and eventually becoming successful people in life. So what do I mean by success here?

Success can probably be defined as related to quality of life. Good quality of life means that you can live the way you want, buy what you need and want and travel to colorful, fancy places. That is at least how I would like to define quality of life. Successful people are to me people who are free.

There’s not a clear-cut process to achieving such freedom. Education is key I believe. I have been part of the working sector ever since I entered the University of the Philippines in 2006. I have been a working student. I would say it is quite hard to go up higher on the corporate ladder unless you have some great academic credentials behind you. And that is why I am endeavoring hard to obtain an academic degree from UPOU.

Education and how kids develop into adults are two interrelated aspects of quality of life in my opinion.

This is where I would be very thankful having been introduced into theories of human development. Which is a very multi-faceted subject.  There are different viewpoints or schools on human development. One can be quite cognitive, the other can be very socio-cultural. A more scientific way of looking at human development would tend to be biophysical in nature.  However, I have personally been drawn into one theory which to me is very holistic. That would be Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory. He posits that the environments surrounding a developing person is such a quintessential factor. And he means all types of environment- the physical, the social and the psychological or even culture itself. I like how he has defined such an environment as composed of the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem and the macrosystem. The microsystem is basically the physical surroundings and the people around an individual. The mesosystem refers to how the microsystem’s components interact and affect the individual. What about the exosystem? “Bronfenbrenner believes that the exosystem is a set of specific social structures that do not directly contain the individual, but still have an impact on the person’s development. These structures ‘influence, delimit, or even determine what goes on’ in the microsystem of the developing individual. The individual does not participate in these settings, but they do have a direct impact on his or her behavior. For example, an exosystem might be the doctor’s office, the teacher’s lounge, or grandma’s house. These are all places with an indirect impact on the person’s development” (Salkind, 2006).

In a nutshell, an individual can unleash his or her potential, by doing something about it. That is considering the available resources in the surrounding environment.

Relating that to my private studies as a vocal jazz student in the Philippines, I have had to improvise on things. No one school in the Philippines offers vocal jazz as a program. So I have had to research and tap into teachers who could personally teach me the art of vocal jazz. I have  also tapped into online, social media-based groups that can help further my vocal jazz studies.

I just wish that all kids could have a nurturing, friendly environment for their development.

REFERENCE

Salkind, Neil J. “Ecological Theory.” Encyclopedia of Human Development, edited by Neil J. Salkind, vol. 1, SAGE Reference, 2006, pp. 438-440. Gale Ebooks, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3466300227/GVRL?u=phupou&sid=GVRL&xid=6ad59e0c. Accessed 29 Oct. 2019.

I’m not entirely sure how to call myself yet. I mean do I call myself a young adult or an emerging adult? I mean a couple of theorists might disagree in this particular area. Jeffrey Arnett tells us that this particular stage of psycho-social development is somewhere in the 20s age bracket (lumenlearning.com). Another theorist tells you that in more recent times, the emerging adult could be someone in his/her 30s. I think I’d agree with either of the two scholars depending on the economic and social context surrounding the emerging adult. In Western countries like the US where children are encouraged to be independent from their families at age 18 already, adulthood might occur pretty earlier than in countries where interdependence is culture.

Let me state that maybe in my case I am a hodge-podge of this and that. I grew up with some kind of American mentality (probably due in large part to my listening to American music as a young kid). So I adulted rather early. And what I mean by that is I worked at age 18 already. That happened while I was a freshman in the University of the Philippines. So, it took a lot of convincing from me to get my parents to allow me to work and move out. My parents were in the province of Eastern Samar while I was in Cebu City working as a call center agent and studying in UP. Lots of reasons prompted me to move out to Cebu. I don’t want to dig into those reasons yet. But one thing was for sure, I think that at the age of 18, I was already trying my very best to be an adult.

Fast forward to now that I am already in my late 20s. My parents are both in heaven now. I have moved to Manila already. Oh dear, I am about 31 years old. I am now part of the hospitality industry, been freelancing as a jazz singer, and currently trying to finish school with the University of the Philippines, this time on a digital, distance-learning mode. Which is so very convenient by the way as I can do a lot of other things on top of schooling.

Levinson talks about a dream.

I’d like to quote Levinson:

“…young adults have an image of the future that motivates them. This image is called ‘the dream’ and for the men interviewed [that Levinson interviewed for his book], it was a dream of how their career paths would progress and where they would be at midlife. Dreams are very motivating. Dreams of a home bring excitement to couples as they look, save, and fantasize about how life will be. Dreams of careers motivate students to continue in school as they fantasize about how much their hard work will pay off. Dreams of playgrounds on a summer day inspire would-be parents. A dream is perfect and retains that perfection as long as it remains in the future. But as the realization of it moves closer, it may or may not measure up to its image…” (lumenlearning.com).

When I was in my early 20s, I was dreaming of becoming a music therapist. That’s why I shifted from biology to psychology earlier in my UP schooling. Then later on, I began concentrating on jazz music. As I started pursuing private jazz lessons and jazz performances on top of my on-going UP education, I began getting broke. Well, I had to spend on my jazz pursuits. Up to now I am broke. I have been buried in debt. That’s very sad. I am still trying to repay quite a number of loans at the moment. I am single. I had a romantic relationship years ago. That did not work. I was being insecure in every way- physically, socially, financially. Uh, talk about intimacy versus isolation. Hello, Erikson?

Now I am single and still dreaming to be a jazz singer who has produced, sold an album. I just recently gave up my condo unit because I couldn’t afford the rent of it any longer. So lately, I am able to live either with my closest family members or with my very charitable friends. Depends on where my feet take me on a given day. I have not been doing really well on my sales job in the hotel. Mostly, for the last 12 months, I have been dependent on financial support from family members and friends. I have been making loans too. And up to now, I am not debt-free yet. To top it all, I am trying to graduate. I am still singing jazz every now and then. I still have that dream. Meshed with my pressing priorities for the time being. I have really good friends. And really loving relatives. I have good social support. I even sing in church occasionally. That gives me spiritual fulfillment. And that makes me feel closer to my Maker. To my Jesus. To Yahweh, my God who I believe has something in store for me. Something really great. A men to that!!!

Indeed dreams can be quite motivating.

And with all the crazy financial entanglements I have been through so far, I can say that I’ve got to have to refocus. To re-discern. To take a different, more informed look at my choices so far. Money has been very elusive and important to me. I am probably in the age 30 transition phase already. I have to think about my attitude towards what allows me to live everyday, towards what allows me to eat, drink, travel, commute, and help my relatives. Does jazz afford me any one of those? I don’t know. For now, I need to have a lot of money. I need to have a very stable job.

I need to finish school. Maybe a degree can get me a really stable, financially rewarding career. Maybe I should immigrate to a first-world country soon. But certainly, I have to be humble and wait, wait, wait for my jazzy dreams to come true eventually.

What do I do for now? Well, maybe, I can go ahead and take care of myself biologically. To ensure that in my later adulthood years, I still have the stamina to perform jazz and enjoy what I love to do. Honestly, I am aware of a lot of artists especially jazz artists who are performing and are really having the prime of their careers in their late 40s or 50s or even 60s. Maybe they have been in the same vein as I have.

Let’s get scientific a bit. A study has found out that if we take care of our bodies in our early, young adulthood years, especially in terms of our cholesterol levels, all that will have a say as to whether someone is prone to cardiovascular ailment later in life. Let me quote the study directly:

” The authors pooled data from 6 U.S. cohorts with observations spanning the life course from young adulthood to later life, and imputed risk factor trajectories for low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterols, systolic and diastolic BP starting from age 18 years for every participant. Time-weighted average exposures to each risk factor during young (age 18 to 39 years) and later adulthood (age ≥40 years) were calculated and linked to subsequent risks of coronary heart disease (CHD), heart failure (HF), or stroke ” (Zhang, Y. et al, 2019).

Quoting the conclusion of the same study as well:

” Cumulative young adult exposures to elevated systolic BP, diastolic BP and LDL were associated with increased CVD risks in later life, independent of later adult exposures. “

So, I need to have a good heart (both emotionally and physiologically) by then. For now, what do I do? Maybe I’ll keep honing my jazz voice, try to build more and more connections in the music industry, and save, save, save a lot of mone. Of course, I have to keep physically fit. Keep working out in the gym every now and then. Walk everyday. Talk to people everyday. If I get luckier, I can probably have a career in jazz earlier than my middle or late adulthood stage. Who knows? What matters is that I am doing something in every stage of my adulthood transition.

Keep dreaming (and working) I will.

References:

Theories of Early Adult Psychosocial Development. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-lifespandevelopment/chapter/theories-of-psychosocial-development/

Zhang, Y. et al, 2019. Associations of Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Levels During Young Adulthood With Later Cardiovascular Events. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Volume 74, Issue 3, 23 July 2019, Pages 330-341 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc.2019.03.529

Feel at home. Make yourself comfortable. This is my writing kind of abode. Where I write, blog anything about my present course Psychological Foundations of Education as a UPOU student.

Let me tell you that I am also a freelance jazz singer, and a full-time luxury holiday consultant, selling hotel memberships.

You have got to expect that there will always be some or little jazziness to my writing.

Enjoy reading my stuff!

I know my name sounds a bit weird and a bit snobbish, but no!, I love making people feel at home. I like it when people get comfortable and positively intimate around each other. That’s in fact why I love jazz music so much. I want to make sure no one is being left out. And that everyone is going to be the best version of who they are. Just like how jazz allows each player to contribute creative ideas in a performance.