The growth and development of personality is described very differently by various researchers and psychological schools.
The concept of self-actualization from Carl Rogers describes the growth and development of a person through the metaphor of a kidney or a seed from which this or that tree grows, unfolds itself.
“Just as a plant strives to be a healthy plant, just as a seed contains the desire to become a tree, so a person is driven by an impulse to become a whole, complete, self-actualizing person.”
This metaphor implicitly establishes that personality development is determined by innate factors, and social factors play a secondary role: the sun and rains will not make a tree different, only the absence of water and sunlight affects development. Only a willow will grow from a willow bud, only an oak from an acorn. It is also important that in the structure of the personality in this way only one core is assumed, from which development can be initiated.
In contrast, the cultural-historical theory of L.S. Vygotsky proposes to consider the social environment not as one of the factors, but as the main source of personality development. In the development of a child, Vygotsky writes, there are, as it were, two intertwined lines. The first follows the path of natural maturation, the second consists in mastering the culture, ways of behaving and thinking. According to Vygotsky’s theory, the development of thinking and other mental functions occurs primarily not through their self-development, but through the use of «psychological tools» by the child: by mastering a system of sign-symbols, such as language, writing, counting system.
In our opinion, both descriptions are correct in their own way and one-sided in their own way: if K. Rogers absolutizes the inner beginning of the personality, then L.S. Vygotsky — the meaning of the social environment, speaking only about the maturation of mental functions, but not seeing in the personality itself a possible source of self-development. A broader and more voluminous picture of development gives an idea of the individual as an ecosystem.
The idea of personality as an ecosystem is based on the theory of ecological systems by Uri Bronfenbrenner. In accordance with this theory, a person (child, teenager, young person) in the process of his whole life is surrounded by wider ecosystems (family, school, social organizations, state institutions, values and norms of society), with which he is connected by flexible and rigid, direct and back interactions.
Turning to the metaphor, in this representation the child is not one seed from which everything grows in a given way, but rather a soil with various seeds. On this soil, with already existing seeds (congenital beginnings in the child), other seeds (cultural beginning) can also fall. Something comes by chance, something thanks to the efforts of gardeners: parents and teachers instill in the child the best seeds of human culture. The child does not grow alone, but in an ecosystem. In this view, the development of the child is set not only from the inside, it can also be launched from the outside, in the case of the natural introduction of seeds from the general cultural environment or the conscious work of the gardener: parents and teachers.
In such an ecosystem, smart parents and teachers do not suppress, but awaken courage and self-confidence in the child, develop both diligence and the ability to make friends, the ability to listen and hear others, use a spoon or the “Repeat-agree-add” algorithm …
The main elements of the ecosystem of growth and development of a child (and an adult) are soil, seeds, nutrition, gardening activities and the atmosphere surrounding all this. Let’s describe all these elements in more detail.
. The neighboring ecosystems surrounding a person (child, teenager, young person) influence the atmosphere of his growth and development.
The atmosphere of the family is different: it is bright, warm and sunny, it is dark, cold and alternating with heavy thunderstorms. The atmosphere of the yard and the school team can be both creating prospects for growth and forcing them to intense survival.
. For growth and development, in addition to air and light, the plant needs food: water and trace elements. The ecosystems surrounding man provide nourishment to his body, mind and senses, although in very different degrees and of different quality.
If a child has loving and friendly parents, caring and attentive teachers and teachers next to him, he receives high-quality physical, intellectual and spiritual development from childhood.
. On the other hand, any ecosystem has its original soil, soil of different quality. On one soil everything grows, on another almost nothing, on some soil only something specific grows.
Children are very capable and receptive, children are born oligophrenic, there are children who from childhood are drawn to everything good, there are children to whom everything bad sticks.
. As an ecosystem, a child from birth is no longer only soil, he carries some activity, some personal seeds: innate abilities, inclinations and desires, perhaps innate ideas. These seeds, under favorable conditions, germinate, grow, flourish, bear fruit, but can get sick, wither and die, turning into soil for other seeds of the ecosystem, when one period of a person’s life is replaced by another.
A conversation about the good or not nature of a person is a conversation, in particular, about this soil and the seeds that are already planted in it from birth, from the very beginning. What grows in it initially? What seeds are the soil susceptible to? The surrounding people can intentionally or naturally throw their seeds into the soul of a child: words, patterns of behavior, memorable actions, but what grows as a result depends not only on the seeds. If a seed falls on good soil, it germinates; if the soil is not intended for these seeds, the word does not find a response and stalls.
. A gardener is someone who deliberately and consciously engages in the cultivation and formation of a garden (ecosystem). Next to any child there is a gardener or gardeners: external ecosystems that consciously and purposefully monitor the (education) of the child and the seeds that are thrown into it. First of all, these are parents and school teachers, but sometimes the yard and school environment, TV and even the Internet have a more serious educational or anti-educational impact — when a child sticks to the Internet, and there someone conducts various kinds of special educational events.
Over time, many people become gardeners to themselves, starting to engage in self-education and self-improvement, in other terminology, they carry out not passive, but active personal growth, however, it is impossible to say in advance from what seed such a special personality grows — from the original or brought from outside. A person acquires his second nature, a fusion of his biological principle and cultural development.
If a girl at a young age allowed herself complete freedom of elemental emotions and practiced this with her soul every day for two decades, her unbridled emotionality became her natural, second nature. If another girl was once impressed by the beauty of her movements and for many years honed the beauty and nobility of her movements at the ballet school every day, then the nobility of her movements and royal posture also became her second nature.