Development of Self

About this chapter

This chapter builds the conceptual ground for one of the most-tested CDP themes in CTET Paper I — how a primary-age child comes to think about herself, the values she lives by, the attitudes she brings to school, what she perceives, and what motivates her to keep learning. It opens with concept formation and self-concept — that the self is the core of personality, shaped first by parents and siblings, then by peers, neighbourhood, school, and culture. It lists nine factors that affect self-concept (physical condition, body build, names and nicknames, school environment, social acceptance, success or failure, gender, intelligence, family relations and ordinal position) and the three 'A's of happiness — Acceptance, Affection, Achievement. It then moves to values (personal, social, moral, spiritual, cultural, universal) and the three discipline styles — authoritarian, permissive and democratic — that shape moral behaviour. The third large section is attitude — its three components (cognitive, feeling, behavioural) and the five effective teacher attitudes: caring and kindness, sharing responsibility, sensitively accepting diversity, fostering individualised instruction, and encouraging creativity. Perception, play (with Piaget and Vygotsky on play as the vehicle of learning and the zone of proximal development), and intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation — persistence, choice of challenge, dependency, emotion — close the chapter. CTET Paper I tests this through factor-recall, discipline-style identification, attitude-component matching, intrinsic-versus-extrinsic motivation scenarios, and teacher-role pedagogy items. The four tests — Practice 15, Quiz 15, Hard 15, Mastery 30 — cover all six themes at CTET depth.