The Blind Side by John Lee Hancock - Movie Review Example

Personal development Name Institution Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Data Collection 4 Analysis 5 Recommendations 8 Conclusion 10 References 11 Introduction Personal development includes activities, such as self- awareness improvement, improving self-knowledge and skill improvement. It may not only be limited to self-help but also the concept of formal and informal activities for developing others in roles, such as teacher, guide, counselor, manager, life coach or mentor. Moreover, personal development can include building one's self-esteem, talent and strength development, improving self-potential and fulfillment of aspirations. It also includes developing other people through being a teacher or a mentor, either through a personal competency or through a professional service, such as providing training, assessment or coaching (Thompson & Thompson, 2013). The topic, Personal development, was selected since it helps individuals to understand themselves better, as well as assists one to create goals and have a life purpose. Moreover, personal development guides one to manage and spend their time effectively, thus enhancing their ability to handle stress, adversity and change. Personal development also helps one to manage their finances wisely while teaching one in building their relationships with people. Furthermore, it enables one to live a balanced life while giving them an opportunity to take care of their health. Lastly, the topic, personal development was of choice since it directly applies on the movie, ``The Blind Side,’’ where a homeless teen is taken in by a well-to-do family and offered a second chance in life. He grows to become a star athlete projected to be the first pick at the NFL draft. Michael Oher was living on the streets when he was welcomed into the home of a conservative suburban family, but over time, he matured into a talented athlete. Therefore, this paper discusses the topic, personal development, in relation to the movies, by providing the data collection method, analyzing the available information and lastly providing the recommendations. Data Collection Since it is a movie, observation method will be used for data collection. The characteristics that will be targeted are those that enhances ones development or those that the other people do to enhance ones development. The validity of the movie is intended to show the degree to which the story will reach the audience. Content validity of the movie provides the adequacy of the content under study. Reliability of the movie will show how accurate and consistent the story of Michael's development continues from childhood to adulthood. The sensitivity of the movie will show the capability of detecting changes or difference as they occur through-out the story line of the movie. Objectivity of the movie will give the audience freedom from bias to decide whether to believe what is being talked about in the movie. Interest from both side of the audience and director of the movie will provide the subject and main story line that the audience will enjoy and experience the effects of watching the movie. Observation is one of the oldest research methods to gather data. It is both physical & mental activity. Observation is selective, purposive and not casual. Non-participant observation will be used because we will only observing and noting what will be happening in the movie. We will be also be looking for interviews in the movie because they provide a good working phase that enables the gathering of information needed. Analysis Michael's story starts with him having no home and coming from an unstable family with a drug-addict mother and a runaway father. Due to those circumstances, he is taken to foster care while still young. Unluckily, he moves around foster homes while the people who live with him neglect him. Luckily, he is enrolled into a Christian school by a coach who was impressed by his body size. It is in the same school that kids from the Tuohy family go. Eventually, Michael is befriended by Tuohy Jae, the youngest Tuohy. One instance of personal development is shown when Mr. Tuohy offers to pay for his meals when he finds out that Mike has no cash for food, and is dependent on half-empty dishes of snacks. This shows the poor state at which Michael is in and how starts from scratch in life. Leigh Anne Tuohy with her husband Sean and children Jae and Collins picks up Michael and invite him to their house for the night. Nevertheless, when he attempts to leave at sunrise, Leigh Anne persuades him to stay for dinner and soon she gives him a room and bed. Another instance of personal development is seen when Leigh Anne starts to enquire about Michael's records, together with his career aptitude test grades to help him. From the records, she discovers that the only encouraging score was on defensive instincts. Leigh Anne uses it to enlighten him how to play in the field where he was not able to understand the game and its guidelines. From that moment, Michael begins to perform well and be beneficial to his team. Leigh Anne accepts Michael to the family by inviting him to their photograph of the year. This shows the personal development of acceptance towards Michael. When Leigh Anne's friends Beth, Elaine and Sherry laugh about her "project in the projects," she intervenes by saying that if they do not admire what she does, she will discontinue their friendship. Personal development can also be seen when the Tuohys hire a tutor, Miss Sue, to help Michael improve his grades so that he can play at the university level. In the course of their Geography lesson, she comments about the University of Tennessee entombing dead people's body parts beneath their football field - which Michael trusts thoughtlessly – because she, like Mrs. Tuohy wishes him to play for Ole Miss. While he had inclined toward playing for Tennessee, this incident makes him sign on with Old Miss. Moreover, personal development is shown when Leigh Anne wishes to have a direct chat with Michael's mother to permit her to adopt Michael. Although she appears cold in the beginning, the mother eventually wishes Michael the best. She predicts that Leigh Anne will discover someday that he has gone for good without giving prior notification because social services had branded him "a runner." Finally, personal development is seen when Jae Tuohy discusses with the instructors and talks on behalf of Michael and himself when many universities wish Michael to play on their teams. When Michael's grades improve, he selects the university where Sean had played for, and where Leigh Anne had been a cheerer. Not all goes well eventually because the NCAA investigates whether Michael is being manipulated by the Tuohy's for their personal gain and the gain of their charitable cause. Mr. Tuohy convinces Ms. Thompson that they are sincere because their family would be ruined personally regarding friends, socially and politically if they mistook the case of Michael. The film concludes by saying that Michael will make it and develop into a professional player later on. Jae is seen leading the players onto the game pitch with Michael before all local games. Recommendations From the definition, personality is the self-motivated organization in an individual that defines his conduct. This highlights individuality and, therefore, assumes an idiographic view. The idiographic view takes up that each has an exclusive emotional structure and that some characters are found in only one single person. The nomothetic view, on the other hand, highlights the comparison among persons. This perspective sees characters as having the same psychosomatic meaning in everyone. For one to attain personal development, they have to make sure that the interaction between them and the environment in their early childhood is not hindered by the behaviour of their parents. Parental behavior is important to normal and abnormal growth. According to Freud, personality encompasses numerous factors; instinctual drives (food, sex, and aggression), insensible processes and early childhood sway by the parents. Personality and mental health difficulties in adulthood can frequently be traced back to the early years of childhood. People are motivated to pursue choices by accepting the Instinctual drives' desires (Sigmund, 2015). Environmental and parental familiarities during childhood affect a person's character during old age. For example, during the first two years of life the newborn who is ignored or who is over-fed might become an orally-fixated person (Geyskens, 2005).The personality changes to arbitrate between the unrealistic Instinctual Drive and the real external world. A person can develop his personality if they adopt a steady behaviour that determines their approach. Behaviour should stay reliable across all circumstances because it influences one behaves irrespective of the state. This means that behaviors should stay reliable across circumstances and over time, but may vary between persons. It is acknowledged that persons vary in their characters due to genetic variances. These concepts are sometimes known as psychometric concepts since they highlight on gauging personality by using psychometric trials. A person’s personality depends on three scopes of personality according to Eysenck. The three scopes can enhance personal development according to him. They include extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. According to him, the two scopes of neuroticism (stable vs. unstable) and introversion-extroversion associate to form a variety of personality traits. Extroverts are friendly and yearn for enthusiasm and adjustment, and thus can become uninterested easily. They tend to be cheerful, hopeful and imprudent. Introverts are reserved, organize their actions and regulate their feelings. They tend to be thoughtful, reliable and cynical. Neurotics / unstable's have a habit of being uneasy, disturbing and temperamental. They are overly sensitive and find it challenging to calm down once saddened. Stables are emotionally peaceful, unreactive and calm (Wright, 2013). Eysenck later added a third dimension - Psychoticism – For instance, lacking in empathy, cruel, a loner, aggressive and troublesome. Eysenck associated the personality of a person to the working of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Personality is reliant on the stability between excitation and inhibition process of the nervous system. Neurotic persons have an ANS that reacts rapidly to stress. Adorno said that if a person is to achieve personal development, they must not have an authoritarian personality. This is because those with an authoritarian personality have a habit of being aggressive to those who are of lower ranks, but respectful of people with high ranks, fairly inflexible in their sentiments and opinions and conventional, maintaining traditional ethics(Kline, 2013). In conclusion, Adorno said that individuals with authoritarian personalities were more probable to group people into "us" and "them" groups, sighting their group as bigger. Conclusion Any development whether economic, political, biological, organizational or personal entails an outline for one to know whether adjustment has happened. In personal development, a person regularly functions as the primary evaluator of growth or deterioration. The frameworks include goals or benchmarks that define end-points, strategies and assessment of progress. The extent to which people can develop depends on certain needs being met. All persons have the need to see themselves as competent, autonomous and limitless for a room of growth. The movie depicts on how far Michael has come from the circumstances of his youth to becoming a famous football star. Though the odds were stacked against him, Michael had burning desire deep within his soul to break out of his homelessness into the world of opportunity. Reflecting on how he transformed from being a homeless child, to playing in the NFL, he had set for himself goals to break out of the cycle of poverty, addiction, and hopelessness that hindered his family for so long. This is shown while growing up in the projects and running from children services and foster care now and then. Eventually, he grasped onto football that helped him to get out of the madness and worked hard to make his dream into a reality. Other influential people around him came out as positive role models and good friends who shared same values to achieve his dream. It is believed that for one to attain personal development, they have to make sure that the interaction between them and the environment in their early childhood is not hindered by the behavior of their parents. The growth of a child depends on Parental behavior. A adopting a steady behavior assists one in developing his or her personality. Therefore, behavior should stay reliable across all circumstances because it influences one’s habits irrespective of the state. References Geyskens, T. (2005). Our original scenes. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=DtbIrHV9Bj8C&pg=PA11&dq=Three+essays+on+the+theory+of+sexuality&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK6cmj5NDJAhUL8RQKHQh2A_MQ6AEIODAF#v=onepage&q=Three%20essays%20on%20the%20theory%20of%20sexuality&f=false Kline, P. (2013). Personality: The Psychometric View. New York and London: Routledge. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=YYG0AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA76&dq=The+Authoritarian+personality&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=The%20Authoritarian%20personality&f=false Sigmund, F. (2015). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New york: Dover Publications Inc. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=XBoeBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=beyond+the+pleasure+principle&hl=en&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwiN3svP5dDJAhVHuBQKHTmMCV4Q6AEIHjAB#v=onepage&q=beyond%20the%20pleasure%20principle&f=false Thompson, R., & Thompson, J. (2013). Personal and Social Development (5th ed.). NCS Pearson, Inc. Retrieved from http://ccs.infospace.com/ClickHandler.ashx?ld=20151210&app=1&c=speeddial2&s=speeddial&rc=speeddial2&dc=&euip=197.254.35.202&pvaid=062a94266a8f45019f0025bbe63ef797&dt=Desktop&fct.uid=11daa5ce91f8461dbca7231f3d10b6cf&en=F9yKYkSQXFl2SJeJVGYXC%2fw3u4MZxkmX%2ffTGUOuvTjRj3%2fUqv7Qddg%3d%3d&du=images.pearsonclinical.com%2fimages%2fAssets%2fWSS_5%2fResearch...&ru=http%3a%2f%2fimages.pearsonclinical.com%2fimages%2fAssets%2fWSS_5%2fResearch_Summary_Personal_Social_Dev_FNL.pdf&ap=6&coi=771&cop=main-title&npp=6&p=0&pp=0&ep=6&mid=9&hash=F5164FE89D011F6DB35A0F3DDC007158 Wps.prenhall.com. (2015). Personal, Social, and Emotional Development. Retrieved from http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_eggen_education_6/0,8057,884892-,00.html Wright, W. (2013). Born That Way: Genes, Behavior, Personality. New York and London: Routledge. https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=17GsyGdYjJ4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Personality,+genetics,+and+behavior&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd4rea59DJAhXB7BQKHVpXDCYQ6AEIKTAB#v=onepage&q=Personality%2C%20genetics%2C%20and%20behavior&f=false Read More