Robert J. Havighurst

Developmental Tasks

His life..

(June 5, 1900 in De Pere, Wisconsin – January 31, 1991 in Richmond, Indiana) was a professor, physicist, educator, and aging expert.

Educational theory before Havighurst was basically old school where children learned by rote and little concern was given to how children developed. From 1948 to 1953 he developed his highly influential theory of human development and education. The crown jewel of his research was on developmental task.

Havighurst identified Six Major Stages in human life covering birth to old age:

Infancy & early childhood (Birth - 6 years old)

Middle childhood (6–13 years old)

Adolescence (13–18 years old)

Early Adulthood (19–30 years old)

Middle Age (30-60years old)

Later maturity (60 years old and over)

From there, Havighurst recognized that each human has three sources for developmental tasks. Which are:

Tasks that arise from physical maturation: Learning to walk, talk, control of bowel and urine, behaving in an acceptable manner to opposite sex, adjusting to menopause.

Tasks that arise from personal values: Choosing an occupation, figuring out ones philosophical outlook.

Tasks that have their source in the pressures of society: Learning to read, learning to be responsible citizen.

Developmental tasks

(Ages 0–6) Learning to: - Walk- Crawl- Take solid food- Talk- Control the elimination of body wastes- Learning sex differences and sexual modesty- Getting ready to read - Forming concepts - Learning language to describe social and

physical reality.

(Ages 6–18)

Learning:- Get along with age mates.- Physical skills necessary for ordinary games- Building wholesome attitudes toward oneself as a

growing organism. - Appropriate masculine or feminine social role- Developing concepts necessary for everyday living- Developing conscience, morality and a scale of values- Achieving personal independence.- Developing attitudes toward social groups and institutions.

(Ages 18–30)

- Achieving a masculine or feminine social role- Accepting one’s physique and using the body

effectively- Achieving new and more mature relations with age

mates of both sex- Achieving emotional independence of parents and

other adults- Preparing for marriage and family life- Acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behavior- Desiring and achieving socially responsible behavior- Selecting an occupation

(Ages 30–40)

- Selecting a mate - Learning to live with a partner- Starting family- Rearing children- Managing home- Getting started in occupation- Taking on civic responsibility- Finding a congenial social group.

Marriage??

(Ages 40–60)- Assisting teenage children to become responsible

and happy adults- Achieving adult social and civic responsibility- Reaching and maintaining satisfactory

performance in one’s occupational career- Developing adult leisure time activities- Relating oneself to one’s spouse as a person- To accept and adjust to the physiological changes

of middle age- Adjusting to aging parents.

(60 and over)

- Adjusting to decreasing physical strength and health

- Adjusting to retirement and reduced income

- Adjusting to death of a spouse- Establishing an explicit affiliation with

one’s age group- Adopting and adapting social roles in a flexible way- Establishing satisfactory physical living arrangements

Examples: In this eight tasks of which Robert Havighurst speaks it is

important to know how to recognize what have we done as persons, we know that for all us it can happen in different ages or circumstances in life.

In the age when is found that you have already made three tasks that are: accepting your own body and learn to use it, we think that since children we have already accept us as we are, and without any complex, the second one is to train new and mature relationships with peers of both sex that have developed it at the time we started to interact with others and usually occurs when we already entered to a classroom to interact with people and you have to adapt and learn to live with your colleagues. Third task is to adopt a male or female sexual role, here usually everyone have already defined their role and at the same time they took the role given by society.

We as teachers must identify which students have already begin to accomplish these tasks from those who are more advanced and if we don’t help them is gonna be like Havighurst says: there will be some people who failed that could not develop these tasks and their life will not have this security to resolve it.

In these times we as teachers must be counselors and a guide in the life of the student.

Bibliography

Adolescencia [On line] Available at: http://ktadol.blogspot.com/2009/06/robert-havighurst-plantea-la-teoria-de.html

[Consulted on Wednesday June 1st 2011] Robert J. Havighurst [On line] Available at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Havighurst [Consulted on Wednesday June 1st 2011]