DISCOVERING AUTONOMY: AN EXPLORATION IN CRITICAL THINKING AND CREATIVE THINKING
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
This is the paper written by Shemetra Owens for “Critical Thinking and Creating Thinking,
Biology in Society Class” course taken at the University of Massachusetts Boston, the fall
semester 2014.
Section 1.01 Introduction
As a human subject protection professional, I am charged with scrutinizing the research
proposals that land on my desk and ensuring that each adhere to the principles and guidelines
outlined in The Belmont Report. The Report, codified in 1978, was a reaction to the gross
misconduct of medical research in the United States. One of the most grievous examples of
misconduct occurred on Staten Island, New York at Willowbrook State School of the Retarded
where a research team studying the natural history of hepatitis deliberately injected residents of
the facility (nearly all of them profoundly retarded children) with hepatitis-infected serum, with
the expectation that the children would contract the disease.” (Gordon, 2000) After the Report
medical researchers were required to recognize the personal dignity and autonomy of individuals
in these studies and to provide special protections for those with diminished autonomy, like
children and those mentally incapacitated.
As a parent of a teenager and a preadolescent, I am faced with my children’s emerging
autonomy. Their personality and bodies are constantly in flux and I have grappled with how best
to set boundaries without stifling their individuality and their growing need to make decisions for
themselves by themselves. As a student in the Critical Thinking and Critical Thinking, Biology
in Society course, I have tried to merge the tenets of my professional life and my personal life
with the goal of engaging my audience as I journey toward understanding autonomy in children.
At the beginning of the semester, we were asked to develop a topic of interest and worked
toward understanding that interest through 1) research, 2) incorporating the techniques learned
through our weekly readings and participation, 3) implementation of critical and creative
thinking 4) and engaging an audience. I chose to focus on the development of children as
autonomous beings and when in their development should children be given broader latitude and
ability to make complex autonomous decisions for themselves. I really wanted to engage people
like myself – parents who might be struggling with similar issues as me.
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My initial subtopics morphed as I practiced the art of critical thinking, as I delved into
researching my main topic of autonomy and as I implemented the themes of class lectures.
Initial subtopics or Questions
1) Should children have the ability to vote earlier than 18 years of age?
2) Should children be given the power to refuse medical treatment?
3) Should children be given the choice to leave the family religion, and
4) How early should children be given the right to marry without the consent of a parent?
Final subtopics
1) Children connected to nature and distanced from nature
2) The stories we tell ourselves about childhood development
3) The varying views of great thinkers on childhood development
4) Should children’s autonomy be respected by telling them of their imminent death? A
study adapted for the case-based learning mode.
5) From Pong to Mad World: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Video gaming
6) You Are On Your Own Now! – Designing a Forum for the Emancipated Teen
Section 1.02 The Process
As part of an early activity, the class engaged in a freewriting exercise. We were instructed to put
pen to paper and without our pen leaving the paper expand upon an idea. The process lasted for
5 or 10 minutes, which I confess was initially very hard for me. I had to stop all urges to go back
and edit my thoughts, but by sticking with the process and continuing to ruminate on the
question [I would like my work on (topic X) to influence (group Y) to make changes in (situation
Z)] given by the professor, the process opened up new ideas and new areas of interests regarding
autonomy. (Taylor P. , Freewriting, n.d.) I went back to the technique many times during the
tenure of the class, especially when I felt stuck. To use a common metaphor, the process starts
with me figuratively at the base of tree where I could explore a new idea, expand on that idea
through freewriting, internet search, browsing through a magazine, reading a book or even
through conversation in and out of class. By the time I was completed, my ideas had expanded
from the base of the tree and now included branches, twigs and even fruit. I am still quite the
novice in this process, but at least I am moving toward a new frontier in thinking. As we take this
journey together, I encourage you to use this technique or one of your own in opening up your
mind and examining the preconceived notions you have about childhood autonomy.
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See a sample of my early thinking about autonomy:
Section 1.03 My Initial Proposal
I began my initial proposal trying to get a basic understanding the word autonomy. Merriam
Webster defines autonomy as “1) the quality or state of being independent, free, and selfdirecting and 2) independence from the organism as a whole in the capacity of a part for growth,
reactivity, or responsiveness.” (Merriam-Webster) In relations to medical care and research, the
dictionary defines autonomy as “The right of patients to make decisions about their medical care
without their health care provider trying to influence the decision. Patient autonomy does allow
for health care providers to educate the patient but does not allow the health care provider to
make the decision for the patient.” (Medicinenet) In psychological lexicon, it is referred to the
capacity to make decisions independently, to serve as one’s own source of emotional strength,
and to otherwise manage one’s life tasks without depending on others for assistance; an
important developmental task of adolescence.” (Psychology Glossary) In essence, each
definition expressed the ability or right of an autonomous person to behave and act
independently. I asked myself if I should assume that autonomy was a basic right and that all
human beings are born with this need. Also, I wondered when the need to be autonomous began.
At birth? During adolescence? Perhaps exploring the books of a few renowned child
psychologists would aid me in this search.
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In Erik Erikson books, he explores a theory Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development in which
a “healthy developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood. In each stage, the
person confronts, and hopefully masters, new challenges. Each stage builds upon the successful
completion of earlier stages.” (Wikipedia) The French historian Philippe Ariès, in his book
“Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life,” uses “well-known sources of
medieval paintings which show children as small adults. Ariès argues that childhood was not
understood as a separate stage of life until the 15th century, and children were seen as little
adults who shared the same traditions, games, and clothes.” (Wikipedia) I thought Sally
Shuttleworth’s child psychology book “The Mind of the Child, Child Development in Literature,
Science, and Medicine,” could inform me about the childhood development and the brain.
(Shuttleworth, 2010) There is so much rich text and unfortunately because I am not completely
familiar with child psychology I relied heavily on my understanding from found texts and the
suggestions of the professor and my classmates to steer me in the right direction. However, your
journey is bound to be different than mine. You may have other resources not available to me
and a better understanding of the topic at the beginning of your journey. Additionally, I realized
that my initial thoughts and preconceptions about the adolescent brain may change after I had
completed my research and that perhaps the idea of giving children more freedom is a
fundamentally precarious undertaking that requires a lot more research and time on my part.
To begin, let us look at the research of Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive neuroscientist, who
compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults in an effort to show how typical
teenage behaviors of being moody or oppositional is caused by the growing and developing
brain. Recent research by scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health who used magnetic
resonance imaging to examine the teen brain found it to be an “unfinished product or a work in
progress.” (NIMH) The MacArthur Research Network proposes that young adolescents are not
competent enough to be responsible for criminal acts, but instead we as parents must treat
children in a “developmentally appropriate way”. (MacArthur Foundation) These studies beg the
question, When is the teenage brain finished and what is developmentally appropriate?
Current media suggests that children in the western world have been gaining freedoms. Recently,
we saw in Scotland the voting age of eligibility lowered to let 16 and 17-year-olds vote on
independence from the United Kingdom. Scotland is not alone in giving 16 year olds the right to
vote. Austria was the first European Union country to lower the voting age in national elections
to 16. However, others like Saudi Arabia and Japan require voters to be 21 or 20 respectively. In
contrast, the legal marriageable age varies widely around the world, but is in general lower than
the age to vote. Some countries have no age limit (which may imply children can marry at any
age). I was surprise to find out that a girl (age 12) or a boy (age 14) could marry in
Massachusetts with parental consent and/or permission of a judge is required. In the US, the
ability for minors to consent to sexual and reproductive health care (to have an abortion, get
prenatal care, get contraceptives, and treatment for STDs), mental health services, and alcohol
and drug abuse treatment is pervasive. In all these instances, I do not know the norm outside of
the US.
In regards to religious freedom, we see in the news and from the pew research that Millennials
(aged 18-29) are considerably less religious than Generation X or Baby boomers. The Pew
Report implies that the opposition to religious dogma on homosexuality, abortion, and evolution
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were “crucial in their decision to be non-religious”. (Drake, 2014) I question whether current day
parents in the western world give their children more freedom earlier than in previous
generations and how do these attitudes differ around the world. Finally, it was important for me
to understand the effects of injury, malnutrition, poverty, and abuses in early fetal and childhood
development on childhood autonomy.
Section 1.04 Children connected to nature and distanced
from nature
As preparation for this class, we read an essay by Raymond Williams entitled "Ideas of Nature.”
The essay was dense and quite complicated. However, what little I could understand, it
challenged my ideas about the word “nature.” Being from Louisiana, nature to me are the
swamps, weeping willows, alligators, the winding Mississippi river, and “life in the country”
when I visited my paternal relatives during the hot, sticky summer months. Nature for me was
the feeling of oneness, taking in the sounds of rural life, but this changed once headed back to the
city in late August to attend school. I was still able to get outside but many hours were spent with
my feet planted seated in a tiny school desk waiting to be taught by Mrs. or Mr. So&So. How
was it for you?
Perhaps, the word “nature” conjures up images of the Garden of Eden, pictographs of primitive
man hunting for bison, single cell microbes, and sea creatures on the bottom of the ocean floor? I
have wondered if nature was only on earth or did it extend out into space? I am not sure how we
as humans are connected or disconnected from nature?
In 500 B.C.E. Heraclitus of Ephesus stated that “nature loves to hide.” (Merchant, 2003) A
Biblical verse in Romans 1:20 says that nature is transparent and it is this transparency that
draws us closer to the creator “since the creation of the world, God’s invisible attributes, His
nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” The author is
referring back to the natural world (the animals and the birds in the sky. (Romans1:20) The first
century Aryan race in Europe worshipped nature itself, specifically the “immense primeval
forests” that were crowded with “elms, chestnuts and oaks”. (Frazer, 1854-1941) Some believe
that indigenous Americans adopted a “moral and conservationist relationship with nature” by
recognizing the spiritual value of what they used in nature and the need to use it sustainably.
(Momaday, 1997) However, others think this is a myth; that Native Americas had a more violent
relationship with nature and provide evidence that native peoples carried out “large burnings and
fires in the savannah.” (Wikipedia, n.d.)
Some, however, blame the 17th century Age of Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason and
individualism for the West’s movement away from nature. (Vining, 2008) The Industrial
Revolution and the “transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to
sometime between 1820 and 1840” may have produced a chasm between man and nature.
(Wikipedia, n.d.) “Advances in scientific knowledge drove the twin forces of industrialization
and urbanization to further split humans from their environments (Vining, 2008) ” Up until the
mid-18th century, the vast majority of people worked in agriculture. (USHistory, n.d.) However,
as technology advanced in farming, the need for people to work on the farm decreased and many
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moved into the cities (away from nature) to find a job and a place to live. The result was an
increased population in the cities. Many worked long days and lived in dilapidated housing with
little time for play or recreation. Even children as young as seven-years-old could work in coal
mines and factories (think Oliver Twist). (BCP, n.d.) As laws changed, children were given
rights, notably the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1924), which “enunciated the
child’s right to receive the requirements for normal development, the right of the hungry child to
be fed, the right of the sick child to receive health care, the right of the backward child to be
reclaimed, the right of orphans to shelter, and the right to protection from exploitation.” (League
of Nations, 1926) Children were also afforded other special protections under the United Nations
Declaration of the Rights of the Child. (United Nations, 1959)
As we moved away from the Industrial Age, the Information Age or Digital Age ushered in a
new dependence on technology. (Wikipedia, n.d.) What do you see as a downside of our
dependence on technology? Are your children addicted to media? How did they spend their free
time, outdoors or in front of a screen? What are the differences in how you played as a kid and
how your children play now? How would you as a parent account for the change? Is it a big city
issue, a Western issue, a generational issue or something else? A fourth grader, in Richard
Louv’s book “Last in the Woods” confessed, “I like to play indoors better’ cause that’s where all
the electrical outlets are.” (Louv, 2005) Psychologists believe this type of play does not tap into
children’s creative and imaginary sides and could limit sensory and motor development, which in
turn results in “delays in attaining child developmental milestones, with subsequent negative
impact on basic foundation skills for achieving literacy. (Rowan, 2013) Peter Kahn, a Professor
in Department of Psychology at the University of Washington, states “the experience
of nature was, and still may be, a critical component of human physical, emotional, intellectual,
and even moral development. It seems that nature is becoming a remote experience for some
children.” (Kahn, 2002) Would you “unplug” your children from technology or limit access
based on this information or do you need more conclusive data to support this idea? Can you
find alternatives to this thinking? Some believe that the ease in which we can now access
information is quite beneficial? If you have a question nowadays, you can google it or even ask
your child to google the answers to the endless loop of questions they ask us?
This July 2014, Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, signed into law legislation allowing
children as young as 10 to legally work in his country. Critics say working children will “miss
out on school during the very formative years of their development and risk being trapped in
repetitive tasks, eroding their skills and prospective employability in the future.” (Paz, 2014)
“Children are working in the countryside working on family farms, herding sheep, herding
llamas, and sugar cane harvest.” (Krishnan, 2014) The children cannot work alone, but this may
not ensure safety. “Underage work can lead to devastating consequences for children as they are
introduced to slavery, drug trafficking, prostitution, and armed conflict.” (Ward, 2014) However,
Bolivia is one the poorest countries in Latin America and its children are hungry. Does the risks
outweigh the benefits in this case or is this a necessary “evil” for a country whose children are
hungry? For all practical purposes, however, these children are “back to nature” and now have a
means to eradicate their personal hunger and that of their families.
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Section 1.05 Origin Stories
In the mini lecture introducing the concepts of this class, we were asked a series of questions by
the professor: “Why tell stories? How do stories get to be memorable and persuasive? Why are
origins important? Why do we tell stories to explain origins?” “Anthropologists tell us that
storytelling is central to human existence, and that it is common to every known culture; that
storytelling involves a symbiotic exchange between teller and listener — an exchange we learn
to negotiate in infancy.” (Rose, 2011) Stories can be told in a variety of ways through words,
images, music and various other mediums. As parents, we may tell stories to teach a moral
lesson, to cherish a shared memory or to deepen a family bond.
The authors of classics like Dracula and Frankenstein chose letter writing as their vehicle to tell
stories. Modern classics like the Alice Walker’s Color Purple, which is set in the Jim Crow
South, used diaries and letters to tell a painful tale of sexual violence and racism. Today, letter
writing is a lost art which has given way to texts, email, skype and other modern inventions of
the digital age. For our ancestors, storytelling and letter writing, in particular, was the way to
pass along important information, history, town news, and even gossip (handwrittenletters, n.d.).
Renowned psychologists like Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky used
letter writing. A study of Freud’s letter describe them as sensitive and personal. (Grotjahn, 1967)
Piaget and Vygotsky wrote letters to one another to try to help each other understand their
theories. (Pass, 2007) How clever and open-minded? How do you tell the origin of your child’s
life to him or her?
As parents we are keen about the changes our children undergo. And, although many of us may
not know the scientific basis for the changes, it is clear from observations that there is a slow and
steady transformation. All of the psychologists mentioned above were married with children.
After the birth of his children, Piaget observed his children and used those observations for the
basis of formulating his birth to early adulthood theory (Presnell, 1999). Does your personal
theory of child’s development align with Piaget, Freud, Vygotsky or someone else? Have you
found any practical applications for theories you hear on the evening news? Perhaps you shrug
them off like most busy parents.
Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget, talked about the various elements of development,
while others, like Lev Vygotsky focused on a particular aspect of development, such as cognitive
or social milestones (Cherry, What is a Developmental Milestone, n.d.) (Wikipedia, n.d.) In
“Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” (Free Advice, n.d.), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
introduces the stages of sexual development from birth to adulthood: “oral” (categorized by an
infant feeding), “anal” (when potty training begins), “phallic” (when children become aware of
anatomical sex differences), “latency” (when libido is hidden and children focus on school,
hobbies and friends) and “genital” (when sexual intercourse begins). Freud believed that each of
these stages influences adult personality and behavior. (Cherry, About.com) (McLeod, 2008)
In his publication, Childhood and Society, Erikson coined the term “identity crisis” and
developed a theory of development expressed through “predetermined stages” (Erikson, 1950)
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(Keough, n.d.). Instead of focusing on psychosexual experiences like Freud, however, Erikson
developed his stages based on psychosocial experiences. “Erikson proposed a lifespan model of
development, taking in five stages up to the age of 18 years and three further stages into
adulthood.” (McLeod, 2008) Erikson developed eight stages: “trust or mistrust, autonomy and
independence versus doubt or shame, initiative versus guilt, competence versus inferiority,
identity versus role confusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity (looking outside of oneself)
versus stagnation and integrity versus despair.” (McLeod, 2008) (Erikson, 1950) For Erikson,
success or failure in dealing with the conflicts of each stage affects a person’s sense of self.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was the “first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive
development.” (McLeod, 2008) Piaget was interested in biological influences and developed
stages of cognitive development from birth to adulthood. (W. Huitt, n.d.) In 1952, Piaget
introduced the term “schema,” which he considered the “building blocks of knowledge”.
(McLeod, 2008) Piaget was equally interested in the process of acquiring that knowledge. As
experiences happen and new information is presented, new schemas are developed and old
schemas are changed or modified. Central to the theory is the idea that children actively acquire
knowledge through their own actions. Children “construct new knowledge through their
experiences.” (Wikipedia, n.d.) What happens when there is disconnect? Does knowledge stop?
Does the child stop maturing, stop gaining new information? Is this what happens when a child
experiences retardation? How would you go about handling this delay? Consult your physician?
A specialist?
Like Piaget, Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) believed that children were “active learners, but
differently from Piaget, Vygotsky believed that mental development occurred gradually through
social relationships. Also, important in his sociocultural theory, Vygotsky placed value on those
in the children’s environment, like parents, peers, teachers, and culture at large. Instead of a
schema or stage, Vygotsky introduced us to a concept called zone of proximal development or as
others called it – scaffolding. Scaffolding is a gradual release of responsibility to the child, as a
learner, which if done correctly, gradually and ultimately helps the child achieve independence.
(Differences between Piaget and Vygotsky's Cognitive Development Theories, n.d.). (Vygotsky,
1997)
In conclusion, we compare Freud and Erikson theories when considering the development of
personality. But in understanding the relationship of thinking and language learning, we look at
the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. Each of these thinkers used stages to simplify their theory.
Has any of your children missed any of the stages mentioned? What has been your reaction? Do
you know if the curriculum your child’s school is based on the work of any psychologist?
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Section 1.06 Who do you prefer:
Piaget…Chomsky…neither?
In our quest to raise children who are autonomous learners, it might be helpful to offer them
choices and alternatives to conventional thinking. In this way we not only challenge our children
but ourselves as well. I would like to offer you the views of Jean Piaget, an expert in child
development, and Noam Chomsky, an expert in language development. As you read below, see
if you agree with either of them or perhaps you think their views convergent and may offer your
own understanding of child development? Whatever, the case, let’s begin with the musings of
Piaget.
Before Jean Piaget, many educators believed that a child’s mind was a “blank slate” or an
“empty vessel.” (wikipedia, n.d.) Piaget sought to change this by calling children “little
scientists” as if they are constantly in search of knowledge. Piaget sought to persuade his
audience with metaphors just as Darwin had in the Origin of Species. Piaget believes “gadgets”
or toys allow the child to glean and extrapolate something from it. (McGill, n.d.) (Gruber, 1996)
Amanda Jacobs, educator, explains this concept more plainly in her blog, “A child uses a toy as a
metaphor to understand or construct knowledge. Abstract thoughts and ideas in formal
operations are the metaphors and adolescents might use these to dream about the future, or
associate a life circumstance to a pop song.” (Jacobs, 2012)
In his film Piaget on Piaget, the renowned psychologist discusses his work (Studio & Piaget,
1977). Piaget appears white haired, bespectacled and quite convincing as he explains his
constructivism theory. He introduces us to his classic experiments with children and addresses
critics, like Noam Chomsky.
Piaget says the central idea of his theory is often misunderstood. “Just because I talk about
objects does not make me an empiricist.” Piaget’s position is that human knowledge is built from
our interaction with objects and not objects themselves. He says some mislabel him as an
“innatist,” “a theory where the mind has knowledge at birth.” (wikepedia, n.d.) Piaget disagrees
with this as well as Chomsky’s theory that children are born with a” genetically preprogrammed
language organ.” (Chomsky, 1983) “On the contrary, he says, “we must construct our own
knowledge through a gradual process as we move through the different stages of development.”
(Studio & Piaget, 1977) This goes along with his metaphor that children are ‘little scientists’ who
experiment and explore.
Piaget describes himself a “constructivist.” Just like mathematics which is being constructed
continually, the child’s mind is being constructed. In the construction of mathematics, “negative
numbers and rational numbers were added over time.” (Studio & Piaget, 1977) Hieroglyphic
numerals in Egypt (3000 B.C.E), Moscow Papyrus arithmetic (1850), Thales of Miletus and
Deductive geometry (585 B.C.E.), Pythagorean arithmetic and geometry (518 B.C.E., Euclid’s
Elements (300 B.C.E.) and so on and so forth. (Richardson, n.d.) “We would have to go back to
the protozoa to find the source of mathematics.” (Studio & Piaget, 1977) Piaget believes that
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“knowledge is elaborated, constructed, and organized. The structure that the child has in mind is
directly related to what he or she knows how to do, not necessarily how to articulate. This means
that the child follows and organizes his knowledge not based on language but based on skills. If
otherwise, it would have to exist implicitly in babies and even in animals.” (Piaget & Inhelder,
The Psychology of the Child, 1969)
At this point, we may ask ourselves about the failings of innatist or we may challenge the views
of the constructivist. One thought I had was that we humans have evolved to have brains that
have a great capacity for learning, but we still need human touch and intervention for our brains
to mature. What is your thinking about this issue?
Piaget says the first sign of autonomy begins when your child is around two years of age. Do
you agree with him? What was the first sign of independence for your child? Did it begin when
your child was a toddler refusing to eat the second spoon of pureed peas? Was it sooner? Is
defiance the beginning of self-regulation? If you have more than one child, how does the
development of each child differ? Are there differences among male and female children? What
about the nonverbal cues of a newborn? At what age did your child become aware that she was
separate from you? Maybe this explains the dreaded terrible twos? What’s going on during the
separation anxiety phase?
Piaget believed that cognitive development was tied to moral development. In some religious
faiths, “moral responsibility or the age in which the child is responsible for following moral
commandments can begin as early as seven. (Catholic Answers, n.d.) Do you agree with this?
Chomsky claims that heredity plays a significant role in language learning. In an interview with
John Gliedman, Chomsky uses the same genetic arguments for language learning as we would
use for “embryological development.” (Chomsky, 1983) Moreover, instead of calling the process
of language learning “language development”, he calls it “language growth because the language
organ grows like any other body organ.” Chomsky uses an analogy of puberty to illustrate his
point. “If someone came along and said, ‘Kids are trained to undergo puberty because they see
other people,’ you would laugh, because we understand the gene mechanisms that determine
puberty.” However, the interviewer points out that there are environmental factors (diet,
sedentary lifestyle, synthetic chemicals) that affect puberty and physiological growth.
(Steingraber, 2007) Chomsky concedes slightly on this point, but believes that the fundamental
process of language and puberty are genetically programmed. “For example, there are other
examples that show that we humans have explicit and highly articulate linguistic knowledge that
simply has no basis in linguistic experience.” We learn language because “we are designed to
learn languages based upon a common set of principles”, which he calls “universal grammar”.
Universal grammar is an inherited genetic endowment that makes it possible for us to speak and
learn human languages.” (Cook, 2007)
In his interview, Chomsky opposes B. F. Skinner’s behaviorist theory calling it “too extreme.”
However, he believes that Piaget’s position is more complex than Skinner’s and gives Piaget
some credit. Ultimately, he is critical of Piaget’s theory in that Piaget does not provide the
reasoning behind what produces a new stage of cognitive development. Chomsky thinks Piaget’s
theory would have been simpler and stronger had he conceded that “cognitive development is a
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genetically determined maturational process”, very much like his puberty analogy. “Instead,
Piagetians have maintained that the mind develops as a whole rather than as a modular structure
with specific capacities developing in their own ways” Ultimately, Chomsky is quite humble
when he likens his contributions to linguistic developments back to pre-Galilean science.
(Chomsky, 1983)
In Piaget’s October 1975 debate with Chomsky, he seemed to yearn for some compromise and
asserted that there was some convergence in many of their ideas. Especially, “the potentially
divisive issue of innatism, Piaget believed this was a non-issue because he agreed that there is a
fixed nucleus underlying all mental activities, language included, and that this nucleus is
accounted for by human biology.” (Piattelli-Palmarini, 1980)
Who do you agree with - Piaget or Chomsky? What is the crux of their disagreement? Do they
have common beliefs? Does Chomsky have the benefit of having more scientific data available
to him? Can you add your own metaphors to this conversation about autonomy?
Section 1.07 Children’s autonomy study adapted for the
case-based learning mode.
In an early class section, we learned about problem-based learning and the ill-defined case. In
case based learning, the case is more structured and guides the audience through the inquiry
process. Below I presented a guided inquiry involving the case of a very ill child and his right to
autonomy. Warning, the story is very sensitive in nature.
“Should children’s autonomy be respected by telling them of their imminent death? (Vince,
2006)
“A 14 year old boy was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) with acute on
chronic respiratory failure and was mechanically ventilated. He was known to have obliterative
bronchiolitis secondary to an episode of Stevens‐Johnson syndrome. He also had a past history
of IgG2 subclass deficiency and phenylketonuria but was developmentally normal. He had
severely impaired lung function with both forced expiratory volume (FEV1) and forced vital
capacity (FVC) at around 20% of that predicted for his age and was receiving home oxygen. He
was being considered for lung transplantation.” (Vince, 2006)
Put yourself in the place of the parents of this child. You and your child have been rushed
through the busy emergency room and 12 hours later, your son is unstable in the PICU with
doctors are contemplating the need for a lung transplant. There are many questions that flood
your mind. Will my child make it? What can I do to get him the best medical help he requires?
In the past your child has had many health issues but nothing this potentially life threatening. In
the solitude of the PICU, you want to come up with a list of questions to ask the medical staff?
Is a social worker on staff to help you through these – and finally what are some of the potential
issues you foresee yourself facing through this process? What are issues your child may face?
What questions would you ask the medical staff about the risks of transplant?
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“Throughout the admission he was difficult to ventilate but five days after admission he was
extubated. He was, however, unable to maintain adequate spontaneous ventilation and rapidly
deteriorated, requiring reintubation under sedation and reventilation. It soon became apparent
that, rather than just an acute deterioration of respiratory function following a chest infection,
this was the presentation of terminal respiratory failure. A multidisciplinary discussion involving
the respiratory, transplant, and intensive care teams and the boy’s parents took place to review
the management options. The lung disease was felt to be irreversible and of such severity and
progression as to be rapidly terminal.” (Vince, 2006)
What are your options in regards to getting a second opinion? What are your options if the
doctors disagree? What happens if you and your loved ones disagree on the course of action?
“It was agreed by all that lung transplantation was not a viable option as transplantation in
children ill enough to need mechanical ventilation had previously been uniformly unsuccessful.
It was also unanimously agreed that to continue aggressive intensive therapy, including
tracheotomy and short term chronic ventilation, was futile in the face of deteriorating lung
function and inadequate gas exchange. There was uniform consensus that withdrawal of therapy
was the only option.” (Vince, 2006)
What are possible treatment options available at this time? What is palliative care or hospice
care? How do you advocate for yourself? For your child? Is he in pain? Do you have any
religious views? If so, how would this affect your decisions on medical care? Want are your
child wishes about death? What are the resources available to you?
“Having achieved unanimous agreement on this point, intense discussion took place regarding
how best to proceed. One view was that as the boy had been able to communicate and show
understanding immediately prior to this admission, sedation should be stopped, he should be
woken up fully, and given the opportunity to be aware of his terminal condition. Awakening him
would also allow him to express and exercise his choices around his death, in particular, the
chance to say goodbye to his family, and make his last wishes known. An opposing view felt,
however, that it was wrong to wake him up just to tell him he was going to die.” (Vince, 2006)
How do you talk to your son about his death? What are the questions to ask? Is there a social
worker that can help you through this process? What are the ethical or medical issues the medical
staff and parents should consider before making a decision to wake or not to wake the child? Are
there cases in literature, in law or the media that can guide you with this decision? Do you need
legal advice?
The Latin phrase “primum non nocere (“first do no harm”)” admonishes physicians to avoid
harming patients. (wikipedia, n.d.) “Nonmaleficence is a principle of bioethics that mirrors the
physician’s medical obligation not to inflict harm intentionally. (Farlex, n.d.) Given the
definition of primum non nocere, is it cruel and unusual punishment to wake the child only to tell
him he would die. Can you apply the principles under the Eighth Amendment the Constitution,
which speaks of cruel and unusual punishment?
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As mentioned in the introduction, the Belmont Report is a seminal document, which operates
under three principles (Congress 1974): “1) beneficence (or, do what benefits the subject or
patient), autonomy (or, let the subject or patient decide), and justice (or, treat everyone the same;
do not discriminate)”. (The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects, 1979)
The principle of autonomy gives patients the right to choose their medical care. What rights do
your child has not being an adult? Does the child have any rights to consent to the medical care
he will receive? Who has the final decision you, family, the medical staff or the child? How do
you find out the answer to this? What does the American Academy of Pediatrics say on the
matter? State or federal laws? Can the hospital provide guidelines? Are their limits to parental
rights? In what situation could the medical staff intervene or override parental decision? Can the
state interfere your decisions?
“There were also concerns about how competent the decision making of an adolescent with
respiratory failure and hypercapnia could be. The deciding factor was the boy's parents, who felt
strongly that it would be too distressing for their son to wake him and discuss his inevitable
death. A multidisciplinary ethical meeting was held to discuss the dilemma. It was ultimately
agreed that the parent's wishes should be respected. The boy was not woken up, all infusions
were maintained and he was extubated. He died comfortably in his sleep in the company of his
family.” (Vince, 2006)
It is an understatement to say the family’s life would be altered because of this experience. What
do you think could be learned from this experience? What are the changes do you see occurring
in their relationships and within their family? Could measures could you take for preparing your
family for such a difficult decision?
Section 1.08 From Pong to Mad World: Digesting the
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Video gaming?
Are you the parent of a pre-teen or teen? If so, then you might be familiar with the phenomenon
of your kid retreating to his or her room, doors closed to play music, roam the social media sites,
tweet, Snapchat, Instagram, or play the latest video games for hours. The negative opinions of
video gaming has been widely covered in the media, especially as school shootings have
increased. As parents we must wonder if there is a correlation between violent video gaming
and negative emotions, like depression and aggression. (Bushman & Anderson, 2012) According
to a Pew Internet Research study, almost “97% of all American teens” play video games and half
of them play quite frequently. Video gaming has become a “typical daily experience” for our
teens and “a major component of their overall social experience with only 24% truly playing
these games alone.” (Lenhart, 2008) Perhaps we should know more about this new world of our
teens. What does current literature tell us on the subject? Are there only negative effects? Is
gaming for entertainment purposes only or does gaming have educational benefits?
Video gaming today is a far cry from the 1972 Atari table tennis inspired Pong (McLemore,
2013) or even Gun Fight, released in 1975. Gun Fight was the first mainstream game to
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“introduce game characters, game violence, and human-to-human combat.” Death Race, released
in 1976, was the first video game to produce social outrage about gratuitous violence in video
gaming. (Kocurek, 2012) The most violent game of 2014, ranked by Complex Magazine, is
Madworld. (Complex, 2014) In MadWorld, “players make their way through the various levels
and environments in Varrigan City, crafting clever traps and using various weapons – chainsaws,
street signs, and daggers, to name a few – to destroy enemies who threaten their lives.” “Having
the option to choose many different paths and tactics through a level satisfies autonomy. In many
games you can even choose between different modes, modifiers, or maps, allowing you to satisfy
the need to play a game how you please.” (Madigan, 2013) “In games featuring avatars, the
gamer directly affects the outcome of the game, the direction the story takes, and the willingness
of others in the game to corporate with you.” (Draeger, 2014) Some games like Call of Duty are
set in WWII Europe and feature “solo campaigns” (McCarter, 2014) where the teen masters a
task before moving on to the next mission. (Yenigun, 2013) In this way, the gamer can practice
making autonomous decisions within the game.
The Good
Some researchers suggest using games “as metaphors or tools to support higher cognition in the
microworlds” of the game. In this way, children can “utilize role play and narrative forms to
imagine and empathize with other people, events from history or with potential scenarios from
the future and to experiment and rehearse skills in safe, protected environments.” (Freitas, 2006)
For example, a 2013 study concluded that children with dyslexia “drastically improve their
reading abilities” with “only 12 hours of playing action video games.” (Franceschini,
2013) Attention skills, which relates to better reading skills were also improved`. The
researchers “found that only playing action video games improved children's reading speed,
without any cost in accuracy, more so than 1 year of spontaneous reading development and more
than or equal to highly demanding traditional reading treatments.” The study was the “first
example of how action video game experience could potentially be useful in remediating
learning disabilities.” (Bavelier D, 2013) “Fast for Word” is gaming program produced by
Scientific Learning that provides “individualized cross-training across a large number of
attention, processing, cognitive, linguistic and reading skills. For example, in one of the games, a
child earns points by distinguishing the sounds "ba" from "pa." When a child masters the task,
the game adjusts its playing level so the child is challenged on a more advanced level the next
day, all while being monitored via the Internet by a professional. Other games are designed to
improve the speed of brain processing and also train children in the rules of English grammar.
The result is that treatment effects that formerly required years of intervention are reduced to a
few weeks.” (American Psychological Association, n.d.) The McKinley Children’s Center uses
the system with much success in a school populations that is racially diverse, economically
disadvantaged, and where many on non-proficient in English. (ScientificLearning, n.d.)
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The Bad
Child and adolescent psychiatrist, Victoria Dunckley, says that even if our kids are not addicted
to the internet or gaming “the risk that screen time is creating subtle damage even in children
with regular exposure.” (Dunckley, 2014) Studies have shown brain shrinkage in internet and
gaming addiction. (Zhou, Lin, & Du, 2011) (Weng, Qian, & Fu, 2012) This loss of brain white
brain matter, Dunckley says “translates into loss of communication within the brain, including
connections to and from various lobes of the same hemisphere, links between the right and left
hemispheres, and paths between higher cognitive and lower emotional and survival brain center.
These “interrupted connections” may slow down signals or “cause them to misfire.” (Dunckley,
2014) She goes on to conclude that “excessive screen-time appears impair brain function. Much
of it occurring “in the frontal lobe, which undergoes massive changes during puberty until the
mid-twenties.” (Dunckley, 2014)
Even with evidence that gaming can provide tangible benefits, we must still wish to “monitor our
child’s media diet” to one hour a day (American Academy of Pediatrics, n.d.). In addition,
studies have shown a direct association between screen time and obesity. (American Society for
Nutrition, 2011) Moderation instead of complete restriction is perhaps the key to success.
Perhaps you can poll some of your fellow parents to see how they have dealt with this issue and
how they have been successful in limiting screen time in the home. Also, there might be a
difference in type of screen time kids get, e.g. computers, T.V.s, handheld devices (iPad,
iPhones, Gameboys). Our pediatricians might be a valuable source about this.
The Ugly
After the Newton, Connecticut shooting where 20 children and six adults were killed, President
Obama “called for more research into how violent games may be influencing kids.” Even
without definitive evidence that violent games cause our children to act more aggressively or
more tragic outcomes like Columbine and Newton, “a journal in JAMA Pediatrics, scientists by
Craig Anderson, director of the center for the study of violence at Iowa State University, found
hints that violent video games may set kids up to react in more hostile and violent ways.” (Park,
2014)
You could review the benefits and the risks associated with video gaming and draw conclusions
about where you stand on this issues. It may spur you on to research more on the topic.
Section 1.09 The “Disease” of Poverty – What is the cause
of poverty in the African American community (circa 1960)
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In this class we read about pellagra, a nutritional deficiency disease that disappeared in the
United States when the diets of the poor improved (Chase, 1978) “Casimir Funk, who helped
elucidate the role of thiamin in the etiology of beriberi, was an early investigator of the problem
of pellagra. Funk suggested that a change in the method of milling corn was responsible for the
outbreak of pellagra, but no attention was paid to his article on this subject." (Funk, 1913) The
article by Chase “False Correlations = Real Deaths" and our class discussions informed us that
pellagra could have been “cured” but not for “scientific racism.” (Taylor P. , Summary of
Chase's account of Pellagra in the USA, n.d.) In this installment, I explored two different causes
or views on poverty and the social cost of poverty.
As parents we strive to create an environment in which our children have the best chance of
growing up in a home and within a society that contributes to their general health and wellbeing.
However, with at least “80% of humanity living on less than $10 a day, (Shah, 2013)” many
families do not have the proper resources to provide the basic needs for their children. It is clear
from research that poverty and lack of proper nourishment have adverse effects on our children
and on society at large. (Huston, 1991) Data collected from 1997-2008 National Health
Interview Survey found that family incomes below the federal poverty level were associated with
“high levels of developmental disabilities, learning disability and intellectual disabilities.”
(Boyle, Boulet, & Schieve, 2011) The American Psychological Association stated that “chronic
stress associated with poverty can significantly impact development of the prefrontal cortex. The
prefrontal cortex has been “extensively implicated on explaining deficits in executive
functioning, cognition, language, sociability and emotion.” (Marston, 2013) In regards to
psychological wellbeing, those in poorer neighborhoods “report lower levels of empowerment,
higher levels of inhibition and loss of autonomy than those in non-poor individuals.” All these
factors, and many more, affect families and the growing child within these families. (Online
Survey on Promoting Empowerment of People in achieving poverty eradication, social
integration and full employment integration and full employment and ecent work for all)
But who is responsible?
In 1965 there was a heated debate regarding the cause of poverty in the African American
community. Let’s look at two points of view.
Point of View #1 – Sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan
In 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sociologist and Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Johnson
administration, issued a Government paper entitled "The Negro Family: The Case for National
Action.” In the paper Moynihan “urged the Federal Government to adopt a national policy for
the reconstruction of the Negro family, arguing that the real cause of the American Negro's
troubles is not so much segregation, or a lack of voting power, but the circumstance that the
structure of the Negro family is highly unstable and in many urban centers approaching complete
breakdown." Moynihan believed the reason for this was due to “the increasingly matriarchal
character of American Negro society, a society in which a husband is absent from nearly 2
million of the nation's 5 million Negro families and in which, too, some 25 per cent of all births
are illegitimate.” The biggest issue he saw was that children, were growing up fatherless and that
with the eradication of the traditional family, as he saw it, boys were especially vulnerable. Boys
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in African American families were not adjusting to this country's essentially patriarchal society,
particularly when their problems are complicated by poverty and racial prejudice.” (Wikipedia,
1965) (Wikipedia, n.d.)
Moynihan stated that due to the history of the “horrible treatment” (slavery, Jim Crow, and
continued racism) of African American from whites in United States “as opposed to its Latin
American counterparts, had created a long series of chaotic disruptions within the black family
structure which, at the time of the report, manifested itself in high rates of unwed births, absent
fathers, and single mother households in black families. Moynihan then correlated these familial
outcomes, which he considered undesirable, to the relatively poorer rates of employment,
educational achievement, and financial success found among the black population.” For this
reason, “Moynihan advocated the implementation of government programs designed to
strengthen the black nuclear family.” (Wikipedia, n.d.) (Wikipedia, 1965) Ironically, Moynihan,
a liberal Democrat with a long, distinguished career as a policy intellectual and government
official, grew up in a poor "broken family" (Aigner, 2014)
Point of View #2 – Psychologist William Ryan
Civil right leaders and William Ryan, a Harvard psychologist denounced the Moynihan’s report
as proposing a “new ideology that depicted blacks as savages” and “blamed the victim” for his
condition. Ryan described victim blaming as an ideology used to “justify racism and social
injustice against black people in the United States.” Ryan believed that “Moynihan was
propagating the views of racists because much of the press coverage of the report focused on the
discussion of children being born out of wedlock.” (Wikipedia, n.d.) (Wikipedia, n.d.)
(Wikipedia, n.d.) Ryan rejected Moynihan’s view that the perceived breakup of the black family
or “the prevalence of a family structure in which the father was often sporadically, if at all,
present, and the mother was often dependent on government aid to feed, clothe, and provide
medical care for her children” was the cause of poverty in the African American community.
“Ryan's critique cast the Moynihan theories as attempts to divert responsibility for poverty from
social structural factors to the behaviors and cultural patterns of the poor.” The greatest impact in
Ryan view was the long history of slavery, racist and segregation. (Wikipedia, n.d.)
Even as we strive to mold our children in autonomous beings, to shield them from certain
environmental and social factors, there are so many things that influence how they turn out.
Attached is a side-by-side comparisons of Moynihan and Ryan and their beliefs on culture, family
structure, physical environment, governmental influences, etc. have influence the African
American family in the late 1960s. As an exercise, consider each contrast and the points made. For
each one you disagree with, explain how you would investigate further to support what you think.
A Comparison of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Report on the Negro family and Psychologist William
Ryan Response to the Moynihan Report
Selected excerpts and summarizations
from the “The Negro Family: The Case
For National Action Office of Policy
Planning and Research United States
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Selected excerpts and
summarizations from “The New
Genteel Racism” (Ryan W. , 1965)
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DISCOVERING AUTONOMY: AN EXPLORATION IN CRITICAL THINKING AND CREATIVE THINKING
Department of Labor” (Moynihan, 1965)
Also known as the Moynihan Report.
Primary
Arguments
The widely discussed “Moynihan
Report” on the Negro spawned a
“new ideology and a new racism by
liberal and conservative alike. In
view of the Civil right Conference
scheduled for the spring of 1966, I
have carefully reviewed the report.
In this review and evaluation three
major points will be made: 1) The
report is inadequate and naïve. It
draws dangerously inexact
conclusions from weak and
insufficient data. 2) The report (no
doubt unintentionally) encourages
the development of a burgeoning
form of subtle racism. 3)The report
The white family has achieved a high
can be read in which a way as to
degree of stability and is maintaining that imply that the present unequal status
stability. By contrast, the family structure of the Negro in America results, not
of lower class Negroes is highly unstable, from the obvious causes of
and in many urban centers is approaching discrimination and segregation, but
complete breakdown. The Breakdown is rather from the more basic cause, the
due the following reasons: 1) Divorce
“instability” of the Negro family. It
(Nearly a Quarter of Urban Negro
is further implied that corrective
Marriages are Dissolved); 2) Matriarchal measures should be focused on
family structure (Nearly a quarter of
increasing the stability of the Negro
Negro women living in cities who have
family, rather than merely on
ever married are divorced, separated, or
eliminating the discriminatory
are living apart from their husbands. 3)
patterns in American life.
Illegitimacy (Nearly One-Quarter of
Negro Births are now Illegitimate). As a The most significant shortcomings
direct result of this high rate of divorce,
of the Moynihan report is that it uses
separation, and desertion, a very large
census data that is illegitimate;
percent of Negro families are headed by
contains statements that are
females. While the percentage of such
manifestly untrue, and uses the error
families among whites has been dropping of interpreting a statistical
since 1940, it has been rising among
relationship in cause-and-effect
terms, that is, of stating that since A
Negroes.
is associated with B, it is also true
that A causes B. This is best shown
in main argument of the report
which says that the deterioration of
the Negro family is the major
The United States is approaching a new
crisis in race relations. In the decade that
began with the school desegregation
decision of the Supreme Court, and
ended with the passage of the Civil
Rights Acts of 1964, the demand of
Negro Americans for full recognition of
their civil rights was finally met. In this
new period the expectations of the Negro
Americans will go beyond civil rights.
Being American, they will now expect
that in the near future equal opportunities
for them as group will produce roughly
equal rights, as compared with other
groups.
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underlying cause of the Negro’s
failure to attain equal status in
education, employment and the
general community life. The authors
of the report fail to provide any
substantial data to support this
conclusion. It is important to
emphasize the extraordinary point
that has been made, a point that
would ordinarily be sufficient to
discredit this work as a scientific
document. The method of
argumentation used is, first to
present data about “family
breakdown” among Negroes –
separations, illegitimacy, broken
homes, female household heads, etc.
– and then to present data about the
“tangle of pathology” among
Negroes. With a few minor
exceptions, the connections between
the two sets of facts are not
documented.
The Roots of American slavery was profoundly
the Problem different from, and in its lasting effects
on individuals and their children,
indescribably worse than, any recorded
servitude, ancient or modern.
Psychologists point out that slavery in all
its forms sharply lowered the need for
achievement in slaves... Negroes in
bondage, stripped of their African
heritage, were placed in a completely
dependent role. All of their rewards
came, not from individual initiative and
enterprise, but from absolute obedience -a situation that severely depresses the
need for achievement among all peoples.
Most important of all, slavery vitiated
family life... Since many slave owners
neither fostered Christian marriage
among their slave couples nor hesitated
to separate them on the auction block, the
slave household often developed a
fatherless matrifocal (mother-centered)
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It is important to underline
separately the main point that has
been implicit in much said above:
that we are most in danger of being
seduced into deemphasizing
discrimination as the overriding
cause of the Negro’s current status
of inequality. It is tempting when
facing a complex problem, to
wallow in the very chaos of
complexity, rather than beginning
the tortuous task of unraveling and
analyzing and, ultimately, of acting.
It is obviously true that the Negro
suffers from never-ending cycle of
oppression, not only from generation
to generation, but, in the case of
many individuals, from uncared-for
birth to premature death. The double
jeopardy of caste and class is well
known.
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DISCOVERING AUTONOMY: AN EXPLORATION IN CRITICAL THINKING AND CREATIVE THINKING
pattern." With the emancipation of the
slaves, the Negro American family began
to form in the United States on a
widespread scale. But it did so in an
atmosphere markedly different from that
which has produced the white American
family.
The Negro was given liberty, but not
equality. Life remained hazardous and
marginal. Of the greatest importance, the
Negro male, particularly in the South,
became an object of intense hostility, an
attitude unquestionably based in some
measure of fear.
When Jim Crow made its appearance
towards the end of the 19th century, it
may be speculated that it was the Negro
male who was most humiliated thereby;
the male was more likely to use public
facilities, which rapidly became
segregated once the process began, and
just as important, segregation, and the
submissiveness it exacts, is surely more
destructive to the male than to the female
personality. Keeping the Negro "in his
place" can be translated as keeping the
Negro male in his place: the female was
not a threat to anyone.
Government The AFDC program, deriving from the
long established Mothers' Aid programs,
Assistance
was established in 1935 principally to
care for widows and orphans, although
the legislation covered all children in
homes deprived of parental support
because one or both of their parents are
absent or incapacitated. In the beginning,
the number of AFDC families in which
the father was absent because of
desertion was less than a third of the
total. Today it is two-thirds. HEW
estimates "that between two-thirds and
three-fourths of the 50 percent increase
from 1948 to 1955 in the number of
absent-father families receiving ADC
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We have officially proclaimed that
the Negro is no longer to be
considered an inferior being. We no
longer condone the inequality of his
status. But we seem to be spending
more energy on explaining this
inequality than in doing something
about it. The rush of popularizations
citing statistical facts about the
Negro family reflect current effects
of contemporaneous discrimination.
They are a result, not a cause. The
same point can be made about other
areas of concern – school dropout,
education level, type and quantity of
employment.
A more careful examination of the
illegitimacy rates, in the context of
other known or reasonably wellestimated data, would reveal, not so
much a careless acceptance of
promiscuity and illegitimacy, but
rather a systematic inequality of
access to a variety of services and
information. The one-parent Negro
family with illegitimate children
receiving AFDC support can be seen
not as symptom of the breakdown of
the Negro family life as a cultural
phenomenon, but of continuing and
blatant discrimination against the
Negro on the part of health and
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DISCOVERING AUTONOMY: AN EXPLORATION IN CRITICAL THINKING AND CREATIVE THINKING
may be explained by an increase in
broken homes in the population." he
steady expansion of this welfare
program, as of public assistance
programs in general, can be taken as a
measure of the steady disintegration of
the Negro family structure over the past
generation in the United States.
Crime
On the other hand Negroes represent a
third of all youth in training schools for
juvenile delinquents. It is probable that
at present, a majority of the crimes
against the person, such as rape, murder,
and aggravated assault are committed by
Negroes. There is, of course, no absolute
evidence; inference can only be made
from arrest and prison population
statistics. The data that follow [chart not
reproduced] unquestionably are biased
against Negroes, who are arraigned much
more casually than are whites, but it may
be doubted that the bias is great enough
to affect the general proportions. Again
on the urban frontier the ratio is worse: 3
out of every 5 arrests for these crimes
were of Negroes.
Unemploym
ent and
Poverty
The impact of unemployment on the
Negro family, and particularly on the
Negro male, is the least understood of all
the developments that have contributed
to the present crisis. There is little
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welfare interests of the community.
It is widely recognized that
illegitimate births are significantly
underreported but this is much more
the case for whites than for
nonwhites. Also, many Negro births
that are recorded as illegitimate are
functionally no different than from
white births recorded as legitimate.
The children of a white woman,
previously divorced and remarried,
are legitimate. The children of a
Negro woman, separated but not
divorced because divorce is
expensive, and now living in an
illegal common-law marriage are
illegitimate. What is the real
difference between these two
situations?
Another stupefying statement to be
found in this report is, “It is probable
that, at present, a majority of the
crimes against the person such as
rape, murder, and aggravated
assault, are committed by Negroes.”
It should be noted that this statement
is backed up by arrest rates and
conviction rates, which are
notoriously quite different from rates
of crime committed. One would
presume that the authors of this
report would have been aware of this
difference. It is well known that
Negroes – guilty and innocent alike
– are arrested and convicted with
great abandon. To draw from this
fact the conclusion that Negroes
commit the majority of major crimes
is a shockingly inept piece of
interpretation.
The Negro is more often
unemployed because he is last hired
and first fired, not because his
mother prefers a succession of
temporary lovers to a permanent
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analysis because there has been almost
no inquiry. During times when jobs were
reasonably plentiful (although at no time
during this period, save perhaps the first
2 years, did the unemployment rate for
Negro males drop to anything like a
reasonable level) the Negro family
became stronger and more stable. As jobs
became more and more difficult to find,
the stability of the family became more
and more difficult to maintain. Because
in general terms Negro families have the
largest number of children and the lowest
incomes, many Negro fathers literally
cannot support their families. Because
the father is either not present, is
unemployed, or makes such a low wage,
the Negro woman goes to work. Fifty-six
percent of Negro women, age 25 to 64,
are in the work force, against 42 percent
of white women. This dependence on the
mother's income undermines the position
of the father and deprives the children of
the kind of attention, particularly in
school maters, which is now a standard
feature of middle-class upbringing.
husband. As we move toward full
employment, the Negro, at a lesser
rate to be sure, is employed, usually
at the traditional bottom of the status
ladder. And when bodies are needed
badly enough to fill the jobs to be
done, even the supposed lack of
skills and inadequate education of
the Negro suddenly becomes less
important. This was shown during
the War, when it was important to
have someone operating the lathe,
even if he were Negro, than it was to
preserve our myths of Negro
inability. It has been shown again
many times in recent years when
employers, threatened with boycott
or other economic reprisal, who had
pleaded that they couldn’t find
“qualified” Negroes, suddenly found
that they could somehow make do
with “unqualified” Negroes rather
than jeopardize their own material
well-being.
Section 1.10 “You Are On Your Own” Now! – A Forum for
the Emancipated Teen
(Parenthood by Lawyers.com, n.d.)
In the final installment, I ventured on the web to find examples of forums designed to address
issues related to emancipated minors. The forums mainly provided answers to questions as those
listed below and gave state specific legal advice.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
“What is emancipation?”
“Who can be emancipated?
“How do I become emancipated?”
“What rights do I have as an emancipated teenager have?”
“How can I decide if emancipation is right for me? “
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6. “How will my parents react?”
7. “Can I support yourself?”
8. “What happens if I want to go back to your family?” (LARCC, 2011)
Below is a sample of the threads on free advice forums:
1. Georgia - Advice for Emancipation Minors (Free Advice, n.d.) Sample thread question:
“How long does it take to become emancipated in Georgia? What are the reasons to
become emancipated?
2. Virginia – Thread: Emancipated minors and firearms. Question: Can I buy a firearm if I
am an emancipated teen?
3. Georgia – Thread: Dating a Minor (Under 18). Question: I am above the age of 18 and
dating someone who is 16 years old (turns 17 in a couple of months). Is this something I
could get in trouble for?
4. Illinois - Thread: “Getting emancipated/married as a minor without a parents consent?
5. California - Thread: Emancipation of a Minor in California
6. West Virginia - Thread: Child Emancipation/Moving out laws in West Virginia
7. Thread: Pregnant minors and emancipation. Question: “I would like to confirm whether
a non-married pregnant minor is emancipated and, if so, could she refuse treatment?
(USMLE, n.d.)
8. Thread: Do you still need to pay medical insurance if my child is emancipated?
In designing a forum, I wished to lightening up the mood and provide a site modeled after the
“virtual teen” forum (Virtual Teen, n.d.). The new forum could be a place where emancipated
teens could just be teens. The site will feature safe chat rooms and topic threads divided by topics
and sub-topics. The primary goal is to provide a place where the emancipated teens could relax
and connect with their peers on topics like 1) relationship and dating, 2) family and friends, 3)
sexuality and gender, 4) education and careers, 5) entertainment, 6) sports and fitness, 7) fashion,
8) cooking and food, etc. The list could go on as volunteer moderators could start new topics
based on member interest. However, all members will be allowed to start thread within an
established topic.
Sample Threads:
1. Relationship and dating: I like my best friend’s boyfriend. Is this weird?
2. Family and friends: I don’t live with my mom and dad but we still fight every day.
3. Education and Careers: Today is my first day on the job and I had them set up direct
deposit. All day training today and tomorrow, which sucks – but I need this job.
4. Sexuality and gender: I’m transgender. My school just gave me permission to cross dress.
Guess who is going shopping.
5. Entertainment: Anyone interested in created a Star Wars fandom?
6. Cooking and Food: “Help! I need to make a vegan, gluten-free appetizer for my work
holiday party? Any ideas?
Rules:
1. The forum is free, but registration is required to post.
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2. Members should familiarized yourself with the circumstances that can make a minor
emancipated. The rules for emancipation vary by state. Refer to Cornel Law school chart
for general guidance: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/table_emancipation
3. No spam, harassment, and no adult or illegal content will be permitted.
4. Forum moderators will oversee the communication activity on the forum and direct the
threads.
Section 1.11 Conclusion
In the installment “Children connected to nature and distanced from nature”, I exposed my
audience to the “Last Child in the Woods” a work by Richard Louv who expresses concern over
the “nature-deficent” trend in the raising of the modern child. This is contrast with Juan Evo
Morales, the President of Bolivia who has promised to implement a socio-economic political
platform. His first initiative under this platform was signing into law children right to work
outdoors on farms and in other places. In the installment “The stories we tell ourselves about
childhood development” I asked parents to look at their children and think about the stories they
tell of their development. Piaget’s stories developed into a theory. In the installment “The
varying views of great thinkers on childhood development”, I introduced my audience to a
contrasting views of Chomsky vs. Piaget on childhood development. In the beriberi installment, I
adapted an autonomy study “Should children’s autonomy be respected by telling them of their
imminent death?” for the case-based learning mode.” Again, I struggled with trying not to have
my audience offer an opinion on the case, but providing them with enough evidence so they
could practice critical thinking from what I had provided. My future goal is as the professor
suggested, allow my audience gain the benefit of hearing a variety of perspectives other than
their own.” I struggled mightily in implementing the themes of the “Development metaphors”
class. In my revised installment “From Pong to Mad World: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of
Video gaming” included in this report, I tried to elucidate more clearly the varying views for and
against video gaming. In the previous version, I did not give my reader enough information and
the questions I gave my audience required too much independent research. Hopefully, the
revised installment corrects these earlier errors. In the pellagra installment “The Disease of
Poverty – Who is to blame? The victim or society at large?” I provided a chart of comparison on
the views of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Report on the Negro family and Psychologist William
Ryan response to the report. Finally, in designing a forum for emancipated teens, I hoped to
provide a chill spot for teens who were facing very difficult, autonomous adult choices.
Reflection
My eleven year old came home from school recently complaining about a conversation she had
had with two of her classmates each of different religious faiths, but each very devout. She had
been asked by them whether or not she believed in God, and she said she did not. In response,
each declared that she was destined for hell. She replied that the conversation was not
appropriate for school and that because we had evolved there couldn’t be a God. I was proud that
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she had the courage of her conviction, but wanted to engage her a little on critical thinking, so I
said, “you know sweetie there are people who believe in God and evolution.” In classic, pre-teen
voice, she said, “Mom” (sucked her teeth), and then said, “Well that’s stupid.” I realized at once
that I should avoid “parent-preacher-mode”, but would engage her another time on the same
issue. In the future however, I plan to plant the seeds of critical thinking so that my daughter will
be able to question even the established views of her teachers; and this will be difficult because
she idolizes her teachers and questions my knowledge because I’m just mom. For me, I will
continue on my path of enlightenment and I look forward to looking back at my former self in
amazement of how much I have grown. I hope you will continue your journey with me as I have
plans to create a blog to engage you more. In creating the blog, I would like to adapt a theme
from Darwin’s origin stories by “getting feedback from dominant social groups (in funding,
institutions, publicity, and public policy)” as well as in child psychology, teaching, and the
medical community. (Taylor P. , darwinorigin, n.d.) I would also like to strengthen my creative
skills and plan to take the creative thinking class next semester which I am sure will give me
additional tools.
Looking back, I believe I have already altered my approach to parenting. My tendency is to be a
“helicopter” parent nervous and micromanaging. This is especially true of my younger child
who has special needs. I can see that by relaxing my grip, she has become more convenient and
capable of taking care of herself or maybe she always has been capable and I did not give her
room to prove herself. I am also less anxious about my son in college. Where is he now? Did he
go to the downtown Boston rally protesting the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black
teenager shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri by a white police officer? Did he get arrested? I
have reframed my thinking around this and now, I see myself as a steward guiding them, instead
of being hawkish as they develop into independent beings.
Your journey may have begun with reading my paper or maybe you are a seasoned critical
thinker. Either way, I wonder how or if you have altered your way of thinking. I hope that this
paper has aided you in some way.
Future Challenges
There is a self-assessment exercise in the “Talking Yourself Seriously” book (Taylor & Szteiter,
2012), which I found helpful in evaluating how I did this semester. Below I have included
challenges that face in the future as I become a better critical thinker as well as areas of
improvement:
1. I found this statement on criticalthinking.org which was very apropos to the way I would
like to approach my topic, as well as how I would like to live my life. “According to the
Foundation for Critical Thinking, critical thinking is that mode of thinking—about any
subject, content, or problem—in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her
thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it.” (The Critical Thinking
Community, n.d.) This is a process that will allow me to judge the quality of my
arguments and to better examine various views before I make any assumptions. By
building my critical thinking muscle, I will be able to not only engage my audience in
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
critical thinking about autonomy, but in any topic of their choosing. In addition, I hope to
avoid making groundless conclusions, which I did in previous drafts, by being more
scientifically rigorous in my approach to research.
There are many influences on children’s health. According to National Academy of
Sciences, these are divided into biological, behavioral, and environmental influences. In
regards to children’s biology, there are several factors which could have a profound effect
on the child development, e.g. birth weight, prenatal exposures (radiation, occupational
chemicals, substance abuse, tobacco and alcohol use), heredity and the influence of genes
on behavior, how genes react in different physical environments (infectious agents, diet,
pollutants, ultraviolet light, etc.) or social environments (like abuse). (Academies, 2004)
I wish to continue studying these influences so I can be develop confidence in leading a
discussion about autonomy.
In the structure of origin stories, we read an article by Martin (1991). "The egg and the
sperm: How science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles"
and were instructed find example of gender biases in relationship to how textbooks or
articles describe the sperm and egg. Growing up in an English speaking western culture, I
think it would be useful to compare how non-western cultures view autonomy.
As an adult learner I have many set ideas that I will have to unearthed and reconstruct.
Consequently, when researching I gravitated toward articles that substantiated my belief
system instead of challenges my assumptions about the topic. I see now that this is
counterproductive to the process. In the future, I will seek out research and people who
think differently than me.
As a master’s student in CCT, I appreciate that I will have more than one semester to
develop a solid premise about autonomy. In the semester, I did not have time to fully
research and incorporate into my installment my initial concerns and questions. In the
future, I will continue to develop my ideas around the following:
a. Should children have the ability to vote earlier than 18 years of age?
b. Should children be given the choice to leave the family religion, and
c. How early should children be given the right to marry without the consent of a
parent?
In the future, I will begin to speak “to people involved in areas within my research”
(Taylor & Szteiter, 2012) and will consider forming a group (consisting of parents,
teachers) who are eager to learn more about autonomy in children.
I engaged with students in the Biology of Science course outside of class. In the future,
however, I will widen my CCT circle to include others. This will help me appreciate the
views of others while deepening my relationship with my peers.
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