Activity 7.2: Exploring Your Own Self-Efficacy

Activity 7.2: Exploring Your Own Self-Efficacy
 
In Frank Pajares’ (2005) chapter fifteen, “Self-Efficacy During Childhood and Adolescents,” he discusses Albert Bandura’s triadic reciprocal model, illustrating relationships between human behavior, personal and environmental factors, and how they affect learning. Pajare defines self- efficacy, as beliefs that “people hold about their capacity to succeed in their endeavors” (p. 339).

This is the story of my life as a student, from kindergarten through graduate schools. This is a sad story because my self-efficacy has remained weak from the time my entire family mocked me as I was learning how to read at age four, through this week, at age fifty-seven, when I anxiously met with my professor for reassurance. Many factors affected my weak self-efficacy. My family (environmental) included an intelligent and creative mother, father (engineer) and seven siblings, not an idiot in the bunch, accept me (personal), I believed, set high standards for academic achievement. The general rule (environmental) in my house was that yes, meant no and no, meant yes, every day was opposite day, sarcasm reigned. The problem was that little children do not understand sarcasm. Teased until we cried, called names, and mocked; you knew that if you were not one of the abusers, you would become the abused. It was all in fun, they said, until it was not. I remember the day exactly, in my parent’s bedroom, at age four, I was reading a book about the circus to my dad and the word I had trouble with was “trainer." He gave me the clue that it was a person who taught animals tricks, so I said with glee “Oh, a tricker!” My dad laughed so loud that family members came running to see what all the fun was about, so the laughter went on. My family continued to tease me about this until I was twenty-nine years old and I finally told my sister how much that hurt me and affected my “self-efficacy” (personal) my entire life. Then it stopped.

My self-esteem (personal) was so low because I believed I was stupid, but I was smart enough never to read again, aloud (behavioral), until in middle school when my school counselor pulled my parents in for a conference to share her concern for my weak reading abilities (personal). My choice was, I could receive tutoring, or I could read aloud to my little brothers. I chose the latter. Forced to change my behavior and start reading again, I chose the environmental factors to keep me safe from ridicule, I picked easy picture books, we read with no audience, and because I was older, again, no risk. I remember reading Little Black Sambo and Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby repeatedly; using funny voices with a southern drawl, and my little brothers loved it! I got my parents and the counselor off my back, and still never read anything but required texts, silently.

I shared a room with my two older sisters (environmental), Patty in the single bed, Lisa on the bottom bunk, and me on the top bunk. They loved to read, Patty with her Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Lisa with her Little House on the Prairie series. I have fond memories of Lisa reading aloud to me, since I refused to read, as I lay with my eyes closed imagining life with Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was not until junior year in high school when I took a class with Mr. Lasslo, "American Literature", that I discovered the love of books! We read and digested books that changed my life (environmental), Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, 1984, The Graduate, To Kill A Mockingbird, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and Animal Farm.

I was always an average student and had average test scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, because I was so stupid I could never finish the timed-tests, while my siblings scored in the ninety-ninth percentile every time. I was convinced I was stupid, so I did not put forth effort in school; fostering my “self-fulfilling prophecy” (p. 342). I do not know how I got into the University of Northern Iowa with low ACT scores, again, too slow and stupid (personal) to finished my tests. Once in college, I did okay the first semester until I met my future husband and stopped attending my daily, 8:00 am French class. Of course, I got five credit hours of D, I told myself because I was stupid (personal), not because I skipped class too often (behavioral). He left town, two hours away, for student teaching. Before he left, I had gotten a letter that said I was on probation, so I told my dad. He was, weirdly nice about it and gave me suggestions and encouragement. My boyfriend said something that changed my life and my study habits (behavioral). He said that I was lucky to have my parents pay for my education, since his did not; he had to work all through school. He said I should appreciate their gift and work hard. He was nearly a straight A student. The semester he was gone, I worked extremely hard and raised all of my course grades by at least one grade (behavioral)! It was tough, but by my senior year, I finally made the Dean’s list. I went home one day and there taped to the closet door in the front foyer, was a tiny newspaper clipping, with my name on the Dean’s list, highlighted in yellow!

It took me seven years, very part time, to get my master’s degree in elementary education from UK, while I stayed home to raise my kids. I got straight As, weird for someone so stupid. Now I am back in graduate school working on my Rank 1 teaching certification, in STEM education. I decided to enter this field of study, with no degrees, in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, because it was interesting, and it would improve my knowledge for teaching (behavioral/personal). So far, after completing five of ten classes, I have straight As, (knock on wood).  I still have my moments of doubt and plenty of anxiety, and sometimes need appraisals from others, my professor or my husband to “act as mirror reflections” (p. 364), to help me define myself, as an intelligent, confident, hard-working student, not that insecure four-year-old girl. Pajares reinforces how harmful verbal or nonverbal judgments can be to the self-confidence of young children, “these judgments often become the self-talk that youngsters repeat in their heads further down the road" (p. 349).

My father told me something about eight months before he died. I had spent the weekend with he and my mother in Illinois for his 90th birthday. As I was leaving, he said, “Well, I learned something about my daughter, she never gives up.” In spite of my lifelong doubts and insecurities, I have developed the character strengths, grit, determination, and resiliency, needed to persevere. “Self-efficacy cannot provide the skills required to succeed, but it can provide the effort and persistence required to obtain those skills and use them effectively” (Parjares, 2005, p. 345).