educational response paper

Maturity Benchmarks

Maturity benchmarks or also known as developmental benchmarks are considered as a significant tool to develop a student or even a person’s knowledge and his or her character as well. However, whenever people think of education, they only tend to think of information and knowledge and that it is the only aim of every student that they must gain. Some of the people who put their confidence on the inheritance of such knowledge tend to not consider anymore the maturity or developmental benchmarks. They only put their trust on the knowledge that it will bring a person to a higher spot which, however, will not be reliable to whether that person will remain firm on that higher spot when conflicts come.

A teacher’s highest aim is to nurture the students through knowledge and progress and as an evaluation of the task, they measure the student’s capability of learning or their intelligence and yet some tend to forget to measure the maturity as well which has a vital role of a person to have in order to be considered as one who truly does have wisdom. The teachers must be reminded that part of their task is for them to let their students display their maturity and apply it on class or out of the class in order for them to be truly considered as learners. Maturation must be given significance once more because of how it is considered as a “core part of teaching and learning.” It has been also discovered how students or even the non-students encounter various kinds of stress disorders which can be a result of how certain people fail to learn and develop maturity in their own self. For this reason, the teachers who has the greater access to how children first starts to learn must be very widely knowledgeable on how to apply these maturity benchmarks to their students. Some have been discovered to die early because of how they have failed to develop or learn maturity which is a trait that helps a person or a student to be fully aware of how this world functions and even though they know about it, because of maturity, they will be able to stand firm and can still pass through every situation which then will give them the chance to learn more about life.

Some of the benchmark systems about student learning and growth are Kohlberg’s “Sequence of Male Cognitive-Moral Maturation,” Gilligan’s “Sequence of Female Cognitive-Moral Maturation” and Piaget’s “Growth of Cognitive Schemas.” Kohlberg’s study has systematically removed the part of the females because of how he stated that they “muddied the waters.” On his study, he found that when moral development is being experienced by a person, cognitive development follows. However, he further stated that although cognitive development happens, moral development does not always comes after. On this study, he wanted to prove that morality helps a person to learn more unlike when one experiences cognitive development or just pure knowledge, there is no morality development or as we can say – maturity. The levels of Cognitive-Moral Development of Kohlberg’s study is classified as the “Pre-conventional [Ego-Centered],” the “Conventional [Group-Centered]” and the “Post-Conventional [Global Citizenship].”

On Gilligan’s study, she solely focused on the “cognitive-moral maturation” of the female participants. However, he also studied the male adolescent/s years after she has taken care of her teenage son. Gilligan found on her study how on the female perspective “nurture and care” are the essential things to further know the cognitive-moral development. Even though this study has been aimed for the female adolescents only, it was later on applied universally for males and females. Kohlberg and Gilligan’s study has its difference and it was this: “Kohlberg emphasized the self and its relationship with others, and Gilligan emphasized the relationship with others and the self.” However, the difference of their study have depicted a “historic, cultural biases toward men and women” wherein men stays on the high spot where they are the one who are able to lead while women are only expected to remain under them and do the duties inside a home, taking care of the infants and do the tasks as a wife.

On Piaget’s “Growth of Cognitive Schemas,” he found out that children tend to build their ideas about the actual world through their dynamic exploration of their surroundings. Piaget was a psychologist, yet a lot of the educationalists believe that his study supports with the essentials of the learners in learning. He states that “intelligence develops through a series of stages, characterized by the child’s set of mental structures and operations at a particular age.” One classified proof of this study is stated by Knefel wherein he found that “as student problem solving expands, disciplinary issues in the classroom, and in the school, diminish.”

These are just some of the maturity benchmarks that instructors – whether he or she is a teacher or not – can use to further know how they can develop a plan on how to help children to truly develop maturity and not just information. Another important role of the instructors is for them to never stop learning, too, and for them to see their selves as students as well in order for them to be more effective as a teacher of knowledge and maturity – most importantly.

Reference:

“Maturity Benchmarks”