Figure I. Relationship of self and outer world. | I remember myself learning in psychology how to have a healthy relationship with my ‘self’ and outer world too establish a healthy human being experience in the life. We need healthy connection zone between outer world and inner world in order to regulate our thoughts and actions in the life as shown in Figure I. This leads us to construct our lives better, which is a fundamental learning for myself about how to raise myself as a scholar. |
I highlighted two concepts in the definition of identity of Holland & Lachicott (2007, p. 114) that are ‘mediating cultural resources’ and ‘to manage and organize our actions’ to create an identity. Balancing cultural resources are explaining massive knowledge that we got from our experiences, which is through our interpretations of what we have as our ‘background’, such as people in our lives, and cultures and cultural elements that we are exposed to. This balance creates different identities in our lives; being a student, friend, sister, daughter, worker, teacher, and/or a significant other. These two concepts are in a close relationship to create new identities in our lives according to my ‘interpretation’ of this definition.
Creating a new identity for one self is always a complex process, especially when we look to this creation from the lens of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). According to Erickson, there are two essential aspects of social interaction to create ZPD; namely, the dyadic and reciprocal (p. 30). It is important us to have meaningful social interactions with others to establish proper identities for ourselves, and vice versa as well for others.
While I was thinking myself about important elements of establishing my scholarly identity in the lens of ZPD, I remember Dr. Greg Chatham’s mechanical writing process figure. He was thinking whole process as ‘filtering’ ideas. I used this filter example to frame my thoughts about creation of my scholar identity (by courtesy of him).
Creating a new identity for one self is always a complex process, especially when we look to this creation from the lens of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). According to Erickson, there are two essential aspects of social interaction to create ZPD; namely, the dyadic and reciprocal (p. 30). It is important us to have meaningful social interactions with others to establish proper identities for ourselves, and vice versa as well for others.
While I was thinking myself about important elements of establishing my scholarly identity in the lens of ZPD, I remember Dr. Greg Chatham’s mechanical writing process figure. He was thinking whole process as ‘filtering’ ideas. I used this filter example to frame my thoughts about creation of my scholar identity (by courtesy of him).
Figure II. Essential elements of building a scholar identity | As seen in the Figure II, I think there are three main components of creating a scholar identity, specifically; (a) informal learning that we got from cultural aspects, knowledge from close environment, and information learned from hidden curricula in diverse areas of life, (b) formal learning that we got in institutes from experts and professionals, from practicing thought skills and from written, visual, and auditory professional materials, and lastly (c) bridging this new identity with other identities and titles. |
When I think my scholar identity, my undergraduate define how to be a productive teacher in a primary school, my two masters shaped my thoughts about how to narrow and categorize my knowledge on proper tables in order to use them effectively in practice and classes, and my doctoral program is guiding me to blend my previous knowledge with new ones and to fine-screen my thought to find my interest.
I have started to discover how to present a steady base for my thoughts and then go further analysis of thoughts to find research areas for myself in this doctoral process. The strategies and tools that I learned are including (but not limited to) following ones: framing my research interest in conceptual and theoretical areas, using formal techniques to determine their orders and relationship to each other, proper ways to present them to diverse population meaningfully are new areas that I have been exposed to during my classes and professional activities that I attended. While learning these strategies and tools to use, I also learned how to put ZPD in action for others and myself. By having one to one and group discussions with cohort to discover different perspectives of a particular topic, and with professionals of specific areas and professors to learn how to structure and scaffold my knowledge and tie them to each other.
I used to be an introverted person and defined myself an introverted learner as well. However, using ZPD by hearing diverse voices, and learning to enhance knowledge by questioning what I hear and what it is really meant to me have lead me to broaden my horizons. I wish to learn time management quicker to create more opportunities to use ZPD more effectively by attending diverse panels and discussions for diverse academic purposes. I aware of that have this challenge due to my cultural background, which I need to find the proper solution for it by using my contact with ZPD. Hopefully, this will help to others to find a way for their similar challenges as well to built on our scholar identity together step by step.
References
Erickson, F. (1996). Going for the zone: the social and cognitive ecology of student-teacher interaction in classroom conversations. In D. Hicks (Ed.) Discourse Learning and Schools (p 29-62). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Holland, D. & Lachicotte Jr., W. (2007). Vygotsky, Mead, and the new sociocultural studies of identity. In H. Daniels, M. Cole & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 102-135). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
I have started to discover how to present a steady base for my thoughts and then go further analysis of thoughts to find research areas for myself in this doctoral process. The strategies and tools that I learned are including (but not limited to) following ones: framing my research interest in conceptual and theoretical areas, using formal techniques to determine their orders and relationship to each other, proper ways to present them to diverse population meaningfully are new areas that I have been exposed to during my classes and professional activities that I attended. While learning these strategies and tools to use, I also learned how to put ZPD in action for others and myself. By having one to one and group discussions with cohort to discover different perspectives of a particular topic, and with professionals of specific areas and professors to learn how to structure and scaffold my knowledge and tie them to each other.
I used to be an introverted person and defined myself an introverted learner as well. However, using ZPD by hearing diverse voices, and learning to enhance knowledge by questioning what I hear and what it is really meant to me have lead me to broaden my horizons. I wish to learn time management quicker to create more opportunities to use ZPD more effectively by attending diverse panels and discussions for diverse academic purposes. I aware of that have this challenge due to my cultural background, which I need to find the proper solution for it by using my contact with ZPD. Hopefully, this will help to others to find a way for their similar challenges as well to built on our scholar identity together step by step.
References
Erickson, F. (1996). Going for the zone: the social and cognitive ecology of student-teacher interaction in classroom conversations. In D. Hicks (Ed.) Discourse Learning and Schools (p 29-62). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Holland, D. & Lachicotte Jr., W. (2007). Vygotsky, Mead, and the new sociocultural studies of identity. In H. Daniels, M. Cole & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 102-135). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.