Self-Authorship is an
interesting concept that up until now, with little background in psychology, I
would have just called one’s journey through life’s experiences. In a normal developmental process, this
journey should result in a mature, well-grounded individual capable of
balancing their own ideals, ethics and beliefs within the context of family,
vocational and interpersonal relationships.
Having now read a few works of Kegan, Baxter Magolda, King and
Pizzolato, I realize that this process defined as “self-authorship” encompasses
great depth and thought into personal development that is especially
appropriate for understanding overall development in the undergraduate student. “The degree to which students are
self-authored mediates what and how they learn from their experiences (King, 2011) .”
Pizzolato
developed an assessment of self-authorship which comprised of a Self-Authorship
Survey along with the Experience Survey comprising of four subscales to provide
an estimate of students’ developing self-authoring abilities. Pizzolato did find that “the SAS provides a reasonable
and statically sound measure of self-authorship and an identification of
strengths and weaknesses relative to skills underlying self-authorship (Pizzolato,
2007) .” She further discusses actions consistent with
reasoning where both action and reasoning evidence self-authorship. “If a student wants to do something because it
feels right, it is independent knowing.
If a student wants to do something because it is most consistent with
the internally defined goals, it is more likely to be self-authoring (Pizzolato,
2007, p.40).”
Kegan’s
dimensions of cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal capacity needed for
self-authorship make total sense by definition when examining developmental
stages. His transformational theory regarding
“subject” and “object”, on the other hand, was a bit harder to grasp. What I do understand of this theory is that
it is ever flowing. “When a way of
knowing moves from a place where we are “had by it” (captive of it) to a place where
we “have it, “and can be relationship to it, the form of our knowing has become
more complex, more expansive. This is
the real meaning of transformation” (Kegan, 2000) . I
equate this much like Chickering’s “crisis” that moves us through the various
vectors at different stages of our lives as we studied last week in our
readings.
Of
all the readings presented on self-authorship, I found “Nudging minds to life:
Self-authorship as a foundation for learning” (Baxter Magolda, 2012) to make the most
sense of transformation and meaning making.
The journey from external meaning making through crossroads where one starts
to construct and listen to the internal voice eventually building an internal
foundation leading to self-authorization was explained well in this
article. When looking back at my
undergraduate experience, I related best to this explanation of self –authorization.
Reliance
on external sources such as parents and musical instructors was a mainstay of
my college experience. After all, they
had successfully made it through college and on into successful careers;
therefore, why would I question their instruction and advice? For
the most part through college, I just kept doing the right thing – working hard
at my violin performance skills, making the grades in my non-music classes
while working part-time at The Alumni Association of The University of Michigan. After graduation I continued on at the Alumni
Association as a student advisor to the Student Alumni Council as full-time
temp employee. It was at that stage in
my life where I started to construct my identity aside from my musical persona
into the person I wanted to be instead of the person I thought my parents
wanted me to be. I was still playing my
violin, however branched back into singing and dancing by becoming involved in
community musical theater and eventually started taking dressage lessons—dancing
with horses.
I eventually left the Alumni Association to
pursue a career as a dressage trainer much to my parent’s dismay. I can still hear my mother saying “we didn’t
spend $40,000 on a college degree so you could shovel horse poop!” Taking that position broke every norm my
parents had instilled in me in regards to choosing a career path. I justified it by working hard and building a
solid business over the years. The interesting
part of the process is that by taking that job, I walked right back in to a
situation where external sources led the way as I learned to both ride and
teach dressage. As my skills improved, I
strove to be independent as a trainer. Balancing
my values and needs with those of my main instructor clashed and I eventually
left the business to pursue a more lucrative career in medicine. It was that disequilibrium in my life that
has finally allowed me to progress into self-authorship in my own life. Though gut-wrenching at the time to make such
big changes, I would not trade that time in my life for anything that may have
made things easier, as that path led me to find my husband, a new career which
I am very passionate about, and time to enjoy our growing family which includes
6 grandchildren.
If
we are true to ourselves, there will always be disequilibrium along the way
which will in turn, continue to improve our capacity for self-authorship.
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Works Cited
Baxter Magolda, M. K. (2012). Nudging minds to
life: Self-authorship as a foundation for learning. Assessing meaning making
and self-authorship: theory, research, and application. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Kegan, R. (2000). What "Form" Transforms? A
Constructive-Developmental Approach to Transformative Leraning. In J. M.
Associates, Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory
in progress (pp. 33-69). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
King, P. B. (2011). Maximizing Learning From Engaging
Across Difference: The Role of Anxiety and MEaning Making. Equity &
Excellence in Education, 468-487.
Pizzolato, J. (2007). Assessing Self-Authorship. New
Directions For Teaching and Learning, 31-42.
Marcia Baxter Magolda’s Theory of
Self-Authorship (AHE 552), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9wS1Ct88Qw
Looks like my attempt to embed the video may not have worked! please copy and paste the http url to watch the video!
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ReplyDeleteI, too, like Christine, when reading about self-authorship found myself thinking about how I would have just classified this as a journey through life’s experiences before taking this class. Now having read and reflected on Kegan’s orders of consciousness, I better understand the role that reflection and thought play into self-authorship. While I could follow the linear approach to the orders of consciousness with each having rough time frames, I found myself comparing this to the lesson we learned last week on Chickering’s vectors and how those are fluid and can occur continuously throughout your life. As much as I would like to think my personal development could be mapped out on a linear track, I understand now that it is a little messier than it is neatly described in the readings.
ReplyDeleteChristine shared a terrific example of her personal development when she wrote about taking the job as a dressage trainer. She reflected on her personal interests and followed her passions instead of allowing her family to dictate what the “right” job is. When I read this, a few memories surfaced from my undergraduate career, but I will share one of the more significant. Starting my first semester of college, I was dead set against joining a Greek organization because it was not something that my parents understood or accepted. After meeting people from those organizations throughout my first semester and into my second semester, I decided to at least participate in recruitment and see if I wanted to join. I met so many amazing people and ultimately decided to accept a bid to a house. My parents really did not understand this and ultimately said if this was something that I wanted to do I would need to pay my way. What my parents did not realize at the time, is that by pulling monetary support from me, they forced me to work harder and more independently. This wasn’t the first time in my life that my parents had pushed me to ‘pay my own way’; in fact, this lesson of independence was common throughout my childhood. This particular experience was different because it forced me to come into my own in a new environment. Reflecting back on it now, I really wrote my own story from that point on because I took ownership of all the decisions I made in my undergraduate career.
It was really interesting to see how so many of us have had these moments in our lives where we made these drastic choices that in the end taught us so many valuable lessons. How though can we distinguish, in our own development and those of the people we work with, which developmental theory someone is going through since so many seem to be fluid and similar in terms of stages of time and growth?