Athletic Club Observation

For the observation project, I chose to do my research at Wisconsin Athletic Club daycare where I watched a 6-year old girl named Maya. Maya is in 5k and is a bright young girl with an outgoing personality. I observed Maya in a daycare setting with newborns to children 13 years of age. The daycare contained a large amount of toys and activities for the children to engage in. Maya was surrounded by children a few years younger than her, and only had a few other 6 year olds to play with. Over the course of the two hours I was there, I observed Maya transition from activity to activity while interacting with children of varied ages. As I observed Maya, it was clear that her actions correlated well with certain theories of development we have learned in class. For example, the first one I noticed was when Maya and her younger brother, lucas, were playing dress-up. The theory that came to mind was Lawrence Kohlberg 's cognitive developmental theory of gender-role development. Specifically, the third stage of his theory related best to the situation. The stage is described as gender constancy, which is when the child finally understands that gender is constant. …show more content…
The one that stuck out to me most prominently was his Mesosystem theory. This theory states that the interconnections between the individual’s family and their relationship with their teacher has an influence on their development. The way that Maya expressed this specific theory was when she was explaining what she has been learning in school. She discussed with me that she has been learning the alphabet, numbers, and how to count money. She also told me that these were skills she was not able to do the previous year when she was only in preschool. In addition, this situation correlates back to the theory because it proves that her kindergarten teacher had a significant influence on her cognitive