I have selected
several topics for my reflections in this area:
Work life:
Employment becomes more and more uncertain and unstable,
one should rather develop a set of generic skills than specifically train for
one job in one career; I refer here again to a study I recorded in my blog: http://pblmpop.blogspot.fi/2016/08/pbl-study-blog.html
. One saying was given as a reflection study: ”Jobs litter the landscape, careers are hard to find”. A plastic
reflection of reality in the job market, there could be more ways to read this
saying:
- Junk jobs are everywhere, it takes some time to select the proper
job that would start a career
- If career would be a path to personal achievement in work life, it
takes time and experience to find the right path which would worth walk on
- Be prepared to use the accumulated experience in various jobs and
be adaptive; the career path will be laying behind you; if
there was commitment and proven good results in your previous jobs, the CV
will light the way forward, however don’t expect the light to cover the
road to the end, but just until the next crossroads
- Be open to embrace changes
Personality types:
According to John Holland's theory, most people
are one of six personality types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social,
Enterprising, and Conventional. On purpose I have only listed the types and
have not gone into very depths of analyzing each, still I am convinced one or
more would apply to me just well. I understand their relevance especially
towards the type of work one person would best fit according to his/her
personality. However, when it comes to human personality types my criteria is
based exclusively on the following types (and as my mind has no acceptance for
other criteria, also my memory does not serve me well by remembering where have
I learn about it) – there are only four personality types:
1. Authoritative
2. Supportive
3. Conservative
4. Adaptive
The types are self-descriptive
and it is easy to see how from simple concepts everybody could identify himself
or herself. One comment is that in crisis situations one could react as
belonging to a different type.
How are the learners I have observed different than me, from a psycho-social perspective?
(I use for this
comparison the class I am attending as part of a degree program - Bachelor in
International Business Administration, evening studies, in Haaga-Helia)
- From stage perspective -
according to Erikson – I belong to Middle
adulthood and the other learners belong to Young adulthood
- From cognitive development
perspective, some of my colleagues only aim to obtain the degree – of course,
for various reasons – however I am also interested to get the knowledge in
the respective area and to be able to apply the learnings in practice at
work
- Some of my colleagues are paying attention to details, and have a
better capacity to assimilate a large amount of information; as part of
the older age generation my cognitive
functionality is not so good anymore and I need structure and
simplicity in order to be able to assimilate new knowledge.
I am a supporter of
education throughout the entire life course and I strongly believe in the power
and importance of older adults education – I see in this area a potential
teaching opportunity in the future, however the focus will always be – as remarked
in the materials I have studied and reflected by the amount of relevant
researches – on children and young adults education.
Sources:
- Jordon, et al. (2008) ”Approaches to Learning: A guide for
teachers.” NY: Open University Press. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/haagahelia/detail.action?docID=10256405
- Holland’s Six Personality Types - https://www.careerkey.org/choose-a-career/holland-personality-types.html#.V_GCtv77XDc
I quite like the metaphor of the path lying behind us! It is very true with me: during the twenty years, when I jumped from one temporary teaching job to another I never saw a path in front of me, but in retrospect it all looks like a continuous path aiming just to what I ended up doing :) Based on my own experience of "pätkätyö" from the time the word didn't even exist, I try to tell my student teachers that life carries even when the jobs one has sometimes look like plastic junk!
ReplyDeleteHuh, you use quite strict language when it come to personality types! It may be that the four categories are just the right ones from your point of view, but I for one would find it hard to categorize myself using them. Then again, the six types you mention here would not help much: the only one I could rule out in my case is conventional :). I am a product of the Finnish educational system, after all, I have spent more than 50 years in it! And the educational tradition in this country is not so much in psychological characteristics and personality types (makes me think that this might have something to do with the fact that we are a small population, and there is not as much inherent need for categorization as in bigger nations?) I am more interested in actions than traits.
I have spent my professional life with adult learners, and it is likely this makes me somewhat biased! Anyways, I started to think about the last sentence, where you mention that the focus will be in children and young adults. When people live longer and healthier lives and stay in the workforce much longer, and the world of work at the same time undergoes rapid changes, this increases the need for older adults education. I'm not trying to say that the basis, which is built during our early years is not important, but when childhood and young adulthood only account for one fifth (or something like that) of the human life, it implies to me that there really is a need to support older adult learning.
A request
Could you, please, add me (with sunaitis email) to recipient of the blog entries and these comments in the settings of your blog (instructions on how to do this are in the blogging instructions manual, which I shared on Moodle). This is important so that I can keep up with entries you make, and the eventual comment box discussion. As long as the entries are your submission for Susan's course, and you submit the link to Moodle, I get a reminder to my mail, but if you write on other topics, I don't get any reminder -> I don't know that there is something new and as a result, I don't come for a commenting tour :) You might also consider adding "Follow by email gadget to your blog margin, so that your peers can choose to follow you, or share your posts in your Google Community.