Life Span Development

The Capital Building in Washington DC will never be the same. The 6'2 Senator from Massachusetts' voice will never ring through the halls hustling for votes in an upcoming debate. His beloved dogs Sunny and Splash are not sitting in the front seat of his SUV. Mya, his lovely sail yacht will be never captained by someone who loved the seas more than he did. Senator Edward Moore Kennedy was raised Irish Catholic and was the youngest of nine of Joe and Rose Kennedy. While he was the youngest, he always seemed to be seeking acceptance from his family.

Early life for Senator Kennedy was uprooted often as a child. He spent time in Palm Beach, Florida, Bronxville, New York, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and even abroad in the Court of St. James in London. Senator Kennedy was in ten different schools by the time he was eleven. This played a major role in his association skills. He often was favored because he was the youngest child, but also was equated with his other brothers; Joe Jr, Jack and Bobby.

Early on in life Ted Kennedy saw grief, from the failed lobotomy of his sister Rosemary to his brother, Joseph Kennedy' s World War II plane crash, and Kathleen Kennedy' s death also due to a plane accident. Later in his life the untimely death of his brothers John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy also shaped him into who he became.

Kennedy's father pushed him into politics at an early age, even though he chose to join the Armed Forces in 1951. He chose to go into the Army Intelligence field, but was dropped after only a few weeks of training. He went to train in the Military Police Corps. In June of 1952 Kennedy was assigned to the honor guard at SHAPE headquarters in Paris, France. Thanks in part to his father’s political connections; it ensured he would not have to go to the Korean War.

Under the direction of his father after an honorable discharge in 1953, Ted resumed Harvard and worked diligently at keeping his grades to where he could play on Harvard's elite football team as a second string two way ends. He continued to play and study and his senior year was honored as the only one who caught a touchdown pass against Yale in 1955. After graduating he chose to continue his degree in Law at the University of Virginia. He graduated from there in 1959.

Ten years later after he his first Senate seat election in 1962; standing on the Senate floor that fateful day in 1963 he raced out of the room down the hall to his office where he called his other brother Robert who confirmed the horrific news. A short seven months later, flying as a passenger in a Commander 680 the crew ran into horrible weather where they made an emergency landing in an apple orchard in which his top aide Edward Moss was killed. Senator Kennedy spent months recovering from a punctured lung and a broken back. He still ran for office and won the seat in 1964. Kennedy soon found himself aiding in the presidential election of his brother Robert for the big seat in 1968. Suddenly tragedy befell him again when his brother was shot in Los Angeles on June 4. After the deaths of Robert, Jack and Joe Sr., Ted became surrogate father to thirteen nieces and nephews. Many thought that Kennedy would be the next in line for the role of President of the United States in 1972. This dream was short lived. While on Martha's Vineyard in 1969, there was a celebration that had gathered thanking all those who worked on Robert's presidential campaign, a young lady named Mary Jo Kopechne was witnessed leaving the party with Ted crossing the Dike Bridge. A sudden turn plunged Ted's 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont into the river where it flipped over. Ted escaped diving back into the murky waters to see if he could locate her to no avail. Kennedy made a choice to swim to shore and leave the scene and report the accident to the authorities the next morning. Again it seemed that Sen. Kennedy escaped this one with relative ease as he was only charged with leaving the scene of an accident. In 1970 he won re-election by 62% of the vote.

Chappaquiddick greatly damaged his presidential career. Senator Kennedy chose in 1972 to resend from the presidential candidacy. Even when the poles suggested he could win he chose to back away and as he said he needed "breathing time" to gain experience and take care of his family (Kennedy, 2009). Even after Ted decided not to run, Governor McGovern knew what it would mean to have a Kennedy as his right hand man, so he repeatedly asked him to do so, to no avail.

After discussing who Ted Kennedy was, look at how he was raised, and his choices he made will allow us to determine the following. Ted Kennedy got his never ending spirit from his mother and father who were icons in their own generation. He was babied because he was the baby, and because of the continual moving from school to school, it showed that he could just escape the problems he was having. Even when Ted Kennedy joined the United States Army, his father pulled strings to keep him from participating in a dangerous encounter. Again it happened when his infamous Chappaquiddick incident occurred the average person would be charged with some degree of murder. Senator Kennedy was only charged with leaving the scene of the accident. The psychological development that was used in Senator Kennedys up bringing was social.

Just hearing the name Kennedy commands great presence in any room. Especially when referring to being related in any way to Camelot, as some have named their dynasty. Ted's father and his connections kept things from being worse than they were form the Senator. Thus Ted in his own way relayed on his name to get him out of many altercations. All the while his environment molded him into the man he became.

The personality that made Senator Kennedy who he was come from his family upbringing. His family sat at the dinner table and Rose Kennedy quizzed each one of the boys about the events going on in the world (Kennedy, 2009). This kept their minds active and aware of the many trials around the world. Another thought that could have made him who he was his sincere compassion for the American People. If one took some time to really study the things Senator Kennedy pushed for during his forty seven years three months and eighteen days. He fought for immigration, health care; education and disability discrimination just to name a few. This is who Senator Edward Moore Kennedy is inside, the true man, a legend in his own time.

Forever the intrapersonal intelligent man, if one looks hard enough at the former Senator of Massachusetts; one can really say that "A well-developed interpersonal intelligence plays a substantial role in such success. From a psychological and neurological point of view, the connection between interpersonal intelligence and the brain has been explored for generations; damage the frontal lobe, as was once done in the case of lobotomy patients, and you damage that person's personality and her ability to interact well with others. Interpersonal intelligence allows us to affect others by understanding others; without it, we lose the ability to exist socially" (Carvin).

References

Carvin, A. (n.d.). Interpersonal Intelligence. Retrieved January 17, 2011, from Exploring Technology and School Reform: http://www.edwebproject.org/edref.mi.th6.html

Committee for a Demorctatic Party. (2009). Senator Edward M Kennedy. Retrieved January 15, 2011, from Senetor Edward M Kennedy: http://tedkennedy.org/

Kennedy, S. E. (2009). True Compass A Memoir. New York: Twelve.

Howard Garder

Howard Gardner realized he hit on something when he sat in a room full of administrators and principals in the early 80’s.  Gardner’s Quote “Stories are the single most powerful tool in a leader's toolkit (Howard Gardner Quotes, 2010). ”  Since then, multiple intelligence has gone from an extensively unclear topic to a cry for help in many schools, and almost ordinary in everyday life.  Taking a room full of young adolescent children and saying they all learn the same way is completely wrong.  Gardner once said that “We know that kids who do well on tests are smart, but we also know that a lot of kids who don't do well on tests are getting it. The question is not how smart people are but in what ways people are smart” (Traub, 1998). When one thinks of intelligence, the first thing that comes to mind is the standard IQ test. Gardner has counted nine aptitudes thus far.  He chose to approach this subject differently by combining research and personal experience.  His nine include:

1. Bodily kinesthetic which are mostly athletes, firefighters and actors. 
2. Musical/Rhythmic which are musicians composers and radio announcers. 
3. Verbal/ Lingustic who consisit of journalists, teachers and lawyers. 
4. Logical/Mathmatical are those who are engineers programmers and accoutants. 
5. Naturalists are farmers botanists and evnrionmental. 
6. Visual/Spacial are navigators, sculptors and arcitects
7. Existentialist are philosophers and theorists
8. Interpersonal intelligence deals with those who can become counselors politicians and sales people.
9. Intrapersonal intellgence people are mostly researchers novelists and those who are entrpeneurs.

Verbal Lingusitic learners have the ability to “think in words” and express meanings very clearly.  Many who are intelligent in this pie, tend to understand the meaning and order of words and have the ability to reflect on their own words and meaning of those words.  Many public speakers, Maya Angelou comes to mindwhile she can cross over into a few of the pieces of pie.  Maya has written many poems, plays and been guest speakers on several different talk shows.  When one has the opportunity to just listen to her, things come to mind that one may not normally think of.  Her words are elligent, sophisticated and well thought out.  Maya once said, “A bird does not sing because it has in answer, it sings because it has a song” (Angelou, 2011).  If the words are really studied, that sentence is very profound.  One may have to just take a moment and really think what Dr. Angelou is trying to convay.  Verbal Lingusitic people can learn from materials supplied with them in the classroom or in the library, They can learn in small groups, but they need to be taught how to take good notes before they reach college or they will be very confused.  They will need someone who is an auditory learner to aid them in studies. 

      Another unique idea of intelligence from Howard Gardner is musical.  Musical intelligence involves people who are always moving in some way.  Think of someone who is a musical artist, for me the first person who comes to mind is Liza Minnelli.  She her songs off the top of her head, she puts herself into the flow of the song, Ms. Minnelli certainly surrounds herself with various musical artist.  Her mother was one of the most famous women when it comes to ones she surrounded herself with.  Imagine someone who is not even close to being an extravert as Ms. Minnelli getting out on stage and belt out Cabaret.  Someone different singing something as beautiful as Cabaret would not be as beautiful. 

            Bodily Kinesthetic intelligence would certainlly impact one’s life.  Being of Kinesthetic intelligence, one must have the potenital of using one’s entire body to solve problmes.  One uses mental to coordinate bodily movements Mr. Gardner says that mentand and physical activity are very highly related.  (Smith, 2008) A kinesthetic learner would be someone like Lance Armstrong.  Lance has to prepaire by using both mental and physical things he has learned over the course of his training in order to win the next Tour De France.  Lacking any one of these there is no possible way that he could even come close to winning a race. 

            While each one of Howard Gardners models of intelligent bring to light mixtures of every human being to some degree, taking the time to sit down and really study each of his nice models, a person can see just where they come from and possibly where the best career path would be.  Each level, bodily kinisthetic, one can see a peer or firend being one of those, and possibly one way or another the one taking the test.  A good example of a famous person one would recognize as a music can be Jay-Z or someone else that is popular such as Bach or Beethoven.  A verbal linguistic will use their mind verbally to express their thoughts in a very diplomatic way.  Think of someone like Diane Sawyer or Tom Brokaw. Would one believe that Henry Ford is an example of an engineer?  He logical and imagine how well he did on anything dealing with math or calculations.  We all recognize Ed Begley Jr. from the very 1980’s show where St. Elsewhere, many would place him in the Kinesthetic category, but actually over the past few years he has become very famous in the “green” community.  Someone such as Auguste Rodin who created the “the thinker statue” is certainly someone who is uses visual intelligence when creating something as beautiful as that particular statue.  Philosophers and Theorists fall into Howard Gardner’s Existentialist intelligence catgory.  Many of theose are who are studied in psychology courses around the wold.  Interpersonal intelligence is someone who is seeking a degree in psychology, they have strong desire to help others.  A intrapersonal intelligent person seeks to hide in a way from reality by writing books. 

            Seeking to find one’s own self in what Howard Gardner has laid down as forms of intelligence is pretty easy.  Look at what one likes to do.  Never chose to be someone because the family wants a Doctor or a Lawyer in the family; do it because it is a passion and a part of the gentetic makeup of who you are.  Each can take a little away from Gardner, he once said, I believe that the brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to different kinds of content in the world; Language content, musical content, spatial content, numerical content, etc.”  (Howard Gardner Quotes, 2010).

References

Howard Gardner Quotes. (2010, December 1). Retrieved January 8, 2011, from ThinkExist.com Quotations: http://thinkexist.com/common/cite.asp?dir=http://einstein/quotes/Howard_Gardner/&name=Howard Gardner quotes

Angelou, M. (2011, January). Maya Angelou. Retrieved January 9, 2011, from Maya Angelou: http://mayaangelou.com/

Garner, H. (n.d.). The Nine Types of Intelligence. Retrieved January 9, 2011, from Overview of the Multiple Intelligance Theory: http://skyview.vansd.org/lschmidt/Projects/The%20Nine%20Types%20of%20Intelligence.htm

Miheim, S. O. (2001). Multiple Intelligene and the design of web based instruction. International Journal of Intrstructional Media, 355.

Smith, M. K. (2008). Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences and Education. Retrieved January 9, 2011, from infed website: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm

Traub, J. (1998). Multiple Intelligence Disorder. New Republic, 20-23.

Fundamentals in Psychology

When one thinks of psychology the mind first goes to Sigmund Freud.  Some consider Ivan Pavlov and his study on condition reflex.  Chapter one gives the reader an introductory look at how women developed the psychology field.  Mary Calkins was born in 1863 back then, psychologists were men, and thus Mary was refused to be able to finish her degree strictly because she was a woman (Bumb).  A fellow psychologist named William James allowed her to continue her desire to become a psychologist by administering tests and take some of his graduate classes so she was better able to understand her chosen field.  One of her most outstanding achievements, Mary was honored as the first woman president of the American Psychological Association.  In 1906 she was listed as the twelfth leading psychologist in the United States (APA , 2001).  While psychology has seemed to come to the forefront in recent years, truth is, attempts to understand the human mind and its actions have been around since the early 1800’s.  Since then, there have been major advances in the field of psychology. 

            Brain and behavior connections became clearer during the nineteenth century.  Physicians chose to notice their patient’s actions who suffered bad head injuries.  Many showed lowered language and memory retention as well as having traumatic changes in personality.  Phineas Gage was a foreman in a rail yard.  He was accidentally injured during an exposition.  A tamping iron went straight though his head.  Observing his actions and creating experiments, teach researchers and scientists (Westen, 2005).

            Marc Dax reported in 1836, he diagnosed patients with speech problems or loss of speech. When he examined their brains after their deaths, he saw that all of these patients have damage to the left side of their brain (Okrzesik, 2001).  Based on all of the recent research, it is a fact that the left side of the brain does in fact deal with speech.  Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict were two theorists who were inquisitive when it came to the relation between culture and personality.  Their expertise was not in psychology but in anthropology (Flatherty).  Their argument was that psychology was molded by values, ideals and ways of thinking.  As children grow and learn in ways that conform to cultural standards.  Freud was very instramental in understanding this through his works.  During the 1950’s a new push begain in behaviorism and psychoanalytic theories.  This type of movement took its name from humanism.  People’s emotions and own free will are the key to this type research.

 Mental processes begain in the 1970’s.  It is called the cognitive throery.  The key to this movement is humans soak up information from their environment and process the information mentally.  Patients begain wanting to understand what dreams meant why they would remember some and not all, what the brain was doing during sleep.  Chapter three deals with the biological factors that interfear with the brain. 

When a patient suffers a taumatic brain injury such as Larry Flynt, or James Brady effect how they think and act. Larry Flynt was shot after an assaination attempt, and James Brady was the Press Secretary of President Regan and took a bullet and to this day is partially paralized and is left imoble for the duration of his life (Neurobehavioral Health, 2001).  Stress is another factor that will affect how one feels and thinks.  A person suffering from stress can have a nervous breakdown because of a trauma from their past.  It is key to our success as long as we watch our stress levels, focus on the things that need to be addressed.  Stress can lead to heart attacks and break ups in relationships if one does not seek medical attention via family physician, or even beginning some kind of conseling.

In summary, from the beginning of the study of psychology where women were not allowed to preform, to today where psychology is wildly growing into the most needed medical profession; the big picture is we as students will always be learning and growing.  The study of psychology is an ever growing educational profession.  The career playmakers such as Ivan Pavlov, Mary Calkins, and Sigmund Freud will forever shape our profession and allow us to grow and be more educated.

Reference

APA . (2001). Monitor. Honored for their vision, 80.

Bumb, J. (n.d.). Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study of the Mind and Society. Retrieved December 13, 2010, from Mary Whiton Calkins: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/calkins.html

Flatherty, T. (n.d.). Webster Edu. Retrieved December 13, 2010, from Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society: http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/margaretmead.html

Neurobehavioral Health. (2001). 10 Famous People with Brain Impairments. Retrieved December 13, 2010, from Center for Neurobehavioral Health, Ltd.: http://www.neurohealth.org/articles/10famouspeople.htm

Okrzesik, E. H. (2001). How does the human brain create language? . Retrieved December 13, 2010, from The Brain An Owner's Manual: http://library.thinkquest.org/C0114820/logical/language.php3

Westen, R. M. (2005). PSYCHOLOGY: THE STUDY OF MENTAL PROCESSES AND BEHAVIOR. Hobken: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.