Lakehead University
Currently I
am in my second year at Lakehead University. I am currently in Outdoor
Recreation, Parks, Tourism, as well as concurrent Education. In the future I
would like to get into the tourism industry and then become a high school
teacher. I would like to teach outdoor recreation as well as history and
geography.
In my first
year at Lakehead, I lived in residence and met some life long friends, as well
as my amazing girlfriend. I took various courses including group dynamics,
psychology, economics and geography. I am very interested in what is going on
around the world so I had a great interest in geography and economics. Currently
I am taking history, leadership, tourism, parks and outdoor skills and theory.
History is very interesting and I have decided I would like to make this a
teachable in high school. Tourism is also very appealing to me, so I plan on
specializing in tourism in upper years, as it relates back to my interests in
Economics. I have been adjusted well into University and maintained my grades
from high school. My lowest mark was a 70% in first year, but my goal is to
have all my grades in the 80’s.
Reflective Paper from OUTD 2210 (Leadership)
So how does conformity play a significant role in our human
development?
Conformity
is an important role in our human development. This is shown by Kohlberg’s
development theory where conformity comes third. I do believe that conformity
does play a huge role in which people become. For example if I chose to conform
to a certain group of people who were all doing drugs, this would affect who I
became as a person. If I chose to conform with a group of people who got
straight A’s, my life would be completely different from if I chose to conform
here instead of with the druggie group (just examples, I didn’t conform with
either groups). The need to conform will develop a person depending on the
persons choices, whether they decide to conform or not to certain groups.
How does knowing this affect our facilitation within groups?
Knowing
about how important conforming is could influence who a person becomes by the
choices people make. As I mentioned before, if a person chooses one group over
another, this will affect the outcome of who they become. Also if people can get over this need for
conformity, they can further develop as a person and get to further stages in
Kohlberg’s development stages. If people can figure this out I believe they
will be wiser in the choices they make concerning what they conform to do.
Do facilitators seek conformity? How? Why?
Facilitators
do seek conformity. (In the example of a school teacher). When in a school,
class facilitators expect for the class to act a certain way. Arrive on time,
do your homework, raise your hand when to talking and so on. Facilitators need
this to hold peace and make sure that people have a good learning environment. They
do this in an authoritative way for the most part. Most facilitators make sure
that students follow these rules and norms by setting out punishments to those
who do not follow, like sending a student to the office or sending someone
home. They do this to keep respect and keep people in line because if the
facilitators get walked all over by one student and nothing is done, the rest
of the class could follow.
What about diversity?
I think
that facilitators do seek diversity. Also in the school example, to have a
successful class I think that you need diversity. I think that you need some
people who are all of the different leadership styles (driver, relationship
master, spontaneous motivator etc.) so that the class together can thrive as a
group and learn the best ways possible. Even as far as interests go, it is good
to have some people skilled or interested in math, or science, or English, so
that everyone can help one another out. If everyone was the same this would
make the learning environment very dull and boring, and I know I wouldn’t enjoy
it myself. If I was a facilitator I would hope for diversity, but at the same
time for the class to conform to the rules and norms of the class.
