GRACE MISSION COLLEGE

Catiningan, Socorro, Oriental Mindoro

e-Mail: [email protected]

Module 3
MODULE
MODULE 2
2 Subject: The Child and Adolescent Learners and Learning Principles

Issues on Human Development

At the end of this Module, you should be able to:

 take a research-based position on the three (3) issues on development.

INTRODUCTION
Each of us has his/her own informal way of looking at our own and other people’s development. These
paradigms of human development while obviously lacking in scholastic vigor, provide us with a conceptual framework
for understanding ourselves and others. Scholars have come up with their own models of human development. Back up
by solid research, they take stand on issues on human development.

Three (3) Issues in Development

1. Nature versus Nurture
2. Continuity versus Discontinuity
3. Stability versus change
1.
 GRACE MISSION COLLEGE
Catiningan, Socorro, Oriental Mindoro
e-Mail: [email protected]

2.

3.

Stability
 GRACE MISSION COLLEGE
Catiningan, Socorro, Oriental Mindoro
e-Mail: [email protected]

Human development involves studies of the human condition with its core being the capability approach.
Human development is defined as the process of enlarging people's freedoms and opportunities and improving
their well-being. Human development is about the real freedom ordinary people have to decide who to be, what to
do, and how to live.

Development is the pattern of movement or change that begins at conception and continues through the life span. It
consists of a combination of biological, cognitive and socio-emotional processes.Biological processes…processes that involve
changes in an individual’s physical nature.Cognitive processes…processes that involve changes in an individual’s thought,
intelligence, and language.Socio-emotional processes…processes that involve changes in an individual’s relationships with
other people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality.Do people develop because of their genes (nature) or their
environment (nurture)? As discussed in the previous lesson on twin studies, each plays a role, neither is 100%. Maturation
is the term used to refer to the orderly sequence of changes dictated by each person’s genetic blueprint.
Activity No. 1
Make your own stand regarding the three issues of Human Development. Elaborate your insight.
1. Nature versus Nature – Which has a more significant influence on human development?

2. Continuity versus Discontinuity – Does development involve gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct
changes (discontinuity). To make it concrete, here is a question: is our development like that of a seedling
growing into an acacia tree? Or is it more like that of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly?

3. Stability versus Change - Is development best described as involving stability or as involving change? Are we
what our first experiences have made of us or do we develop into someone different from who we were at an
earlier point in development?
 GRACE MISSION COLLEGE
Catiningan, Socorro, Oriental Mindoro
e-Mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACTION
The issues presented can be translated into questions that have sparked animated debate among
developmentalists.
Based on your insights in Activity No. 1, each one has his/her own explanations for his/her stand on the
developmental issues. What do you think is the best answer? Up to this time, the debate or discussion continues.
Researches are on-going. But let me you the most life-span, developmentalists recognize that extreme positions on
these issues are unwise. Development is not all nature or nurture, not all continuity or discontinuity and not all stability
or all change (Lerner 1998 as quoted by Santrock, 2002). Both nature and nurture, continuity and discontinuity , stability
and change characterize our life-span development. The key to development is the interaction of nature and nurture
rather than either factor alone (Rutter, 2001 as quoted by Santrock, 2002). In other words, it is a matter of “both-and”
not “either-or.”
To summarize, both genes and environment are necessary for a person even to exist. Without genes, there is no
person; without environment, there is no person (Scarr and Weinberg, 1980, as quoted by Santrock, 2002). Hereditary
and environment operate together or cooperate and interact – to produce a person’s intelligence, temperament, height,
weight… ability to read and so on.
If hereditary and environment interact, which one has a greater influence or contribution, heredity or
environment? The relative contributions of heredity and environment are not additive. So we can’t say 50% of
environment. Neither is it correct to say that full genetic expression happens once, around conception of birth, after
which we take our genetic legacy into the world to see how far it gets us. Genes produce proteins throughout the life
span, in many different environments? Or they don’t produce these proteins, depending on how harsh or nourishing
those environments are (Santrock, 2002).
 GRACE MISSION COLLEGE
Catiningan, Socorro, Oriental Mindoro
e-Mail: [email protected]

ACTIVITY No. 2
Read and analyze the article titled “How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life” from the October 4,
2010 Issue of Time Magazine. Then answer the following questions:
1. Does the article agree that heredity, environment and individual’s choice are the factors that contribute to what
a person may become?

2. Read the 4th paragraph again. Focus your attention on the encircled word, PERMANENTLY.

Relate this to the issue on stability versus change. Does the word PERMANENTLY convince you that we are what
our first experiences have made of us (stability)? Explain your answer.

ACTIVITY No. 3
Complete the sentence:
1. With regard to the nurture –nature, continuity-discontinuity and change-stability controversies, the wiser
stand is
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2. As far as our discussions are concerned, which statement is correct and which one is wrong? Put a check (/)
before the correct statement and mark (x) the wrong one. If you mark a statement (x) explain why.
______________1. Heredity exerts a greater influence on human development than environment.
______________2. What has been experienced in the earlier stages of development can no longer be changed.
______________3. From the perspective of life-span developmentalist, later experiences are the key determinants of a
person’s development.
 GRACE MISSION COLLEGE
Catiningan, Socorro, Oriental Mindoro
e-Mail: [email protected]

3. Relate what you learned here to your personal development. Reflect on your personal development.
What has helped you become the person that you are now? Is what you have become a product of the mere interaction
of heredity and environment? Or is what you have become a product of both heredity and environment interacting and
what you have decided or determined yourself to become? (Self-determination or freedom is a third factor.) 4
Write your reflections.

Activity No. 4
Read a research related to issues on human development. Fill out the matrix below.
Problem: Research Methodology:

Source: (bibliographical/ link entry

Findings: format) Concusions:

How are the findings of this research useful to teachers?

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Prepared by:

ROSWELL O. TOLENTINO, EdD

Instructor
 GRACE MISSION COLLEGE
Catiningan, Socorro, Oriental Mindoro
e-Mail: [email protected]

Be a factor for INNOVATIONS! Continue doing good! Good

luck!