System Tasks and Parsons Sumblog 10

The four system tasks that Parsons had talked about in the text are adaptation, goal attainment, integration and pattern maintenance. Adaptation refers to making improvements to different aspects of our world. A great example that we talked about in class was needing to offer more English as a second language classes because we have more Hispanics living in the U.S. An example relating to Social Work that I can think of is having a larger number of nursing homes and places to take care of elderly people in our population. We needed to make changes and adapt to the rising number of older people in our nation and that is what we did. The next system task to explain is goal attainment. This refers to being specific with your goals and stating clearly what you want to achieve. For example, if you want to get an A in a class you need to show up to class, study and do well on the tests and complete all the homework and other out of class tasks that are assigned. An example of a goal that I had when I was a freshman in high school was to make the varsity baseball team. In order to make the team I worked hard in the offseason, attended all open gyms, kept my grades up, and every time I stepped on the field I worked as hard as I possibly could to succeed and be a team player. When we had a meeting for baseball my freshman year we had to write down what our goals were individually and as a team. I feel like this is a great example to show how goal attainment has to be clear so you know exactly what you want to achieve. I know what my goal was individually and as a team and it helped me work hard to get on the team and achieve the goal I ultimately wanted. Integration is simply talking about how we interact with people in our everyday lives. This deals with all people working together to achieve goals. An example from my personal life where this has occurred is also a baseball example. Our baseball team had a goal to win 20 of our 28 games and to make it to the sections my senior year of high school. This is a goal that can not be accomplished individually so it involves integration of everyone on our team coming together to achieve our goals. This is a small example of integration where people had to come together to achieve a common goal, but there are many more examples of integration on a larger scale. Integration occurs in almost all aspects of everyone's daily life and people working together is what gives us support and help to achieve goals and to make them possible. The last system task is latency. Latency as we talked about in class deals with having an area where we are able to deal with our frustrations. We need an outlet and place to deal with our frustrations so that we do not blow up in peoples faces when we are not happy with the way things are going. We know that it is not acceptable to blow up on a waitress if our food is not warm, but we may be frustrated. We have to find other methods of dealing with our stress and frustrations. Personally when I am frustrated and stressed out I go and work out and this is how I take out my frustrations. One other thing that we talked about with latency was how we value the American dream, but we are not really achieving it. The reason we aren't achieving the American dream is because it is not really something that is attainable for everyone in the U.S. In class we talked about how we have reached stagnation and that is why the American dream is something that is not attainable. Most people are likely to have the same social status as their parents as we talked about in class and that is why the American dream is not achievable. I personally really like Parsons system tasks and how much each of them builds off of each other. The way I really interpret Parsons system tasks is we first need to make adaptions and improve our systems, then we make clear goals of the things we wish to achieve either individually or as a group/organization/social system and then we integrate and work with others to achieve these goals. The latency part in my opinion kind of plays off of goal attainment. It sort of relates in my opinion because of the fact that we may make some goals that may not be attainable, like we talked about with the American dream. Then after individuals do not achieve the gals they wanted to achieve they may need an area where they can deal with their frustrations. Parsons system tasks is something that I often use in my own life and that is why I really like it and feel it is extremely relevant to individuals in our society. It can also help explain many things that are happening in peoples lives and the goals we have and wish to receive.

I chose this picture because it displays the integration part of the system tasks that Parsons theory contains. I also like this picture because it shows how the individuals are integrating together in order to attain a common goal of success.