Blind Side Metaframeworks

Introduction

I have a great fondness for The Blind Side. Before it was a film, it was the first novel I read completely in one sitting. Michael Oher’s story, explained in more detail in the book, compelled me like no other non-fiction piece of literature. Years later, as a football coach, I experienced my own version of The Blind Side. I have a former offensive lineman that was brought up in the foster system, pushed through the public education system, moved in with a suburban white family, and played football in the Southeastern Conference. His plight is very similar to Oher’s, and gives me a deeper understanding and appreciation for his struggles and accomplishments.

The film is based on the true story of Michael Oher and his development. We see the effects of growing up in drug-riddled poverty and with no real attachment to family. We then what happens when an early adolescent from that background is brought to a wealthy, white family and school for no reason other than his natural size and athletic ability. Young Michael Oher represents tens of thousands of minority males that are being devalued by society, pushed through the education system, and given preferential treatment only if they can play a game and earn wealthy people even more money.

This paper will provide a developmental Metaframeworks assessment of Oher. It will also try to explain Michael Oher’s human development through Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory and describe the psychosocial crisis of group identity vs isolation that he is undergoing. The focus of this analysis will be on what is seen throughout the film, but it will also include understandings based on previous life experiences that are touched upon in the movie. 

Developmental Metaframeworks

Metaframeworks look at how an individual develops concurrently with their family system. Depending on your frame of reference, Michael Oher had many families, or none. This search for identity becomes his great personal challenge. Metaframeworks, and different levels of the biopsychosocial model, can be used to analyze how Oher came to this circumstance, and to identify the challenges ahead of him.

When it comes to biological development, Michael’s growth was likely stunted by a cognitive disability. Michael Oher was labeled as having a learning disability (though that may have been due to academic and athletic eligibility concerns), and had a low IQ. This may have made his struggles in life even more challenging to understand. It certainly impacted his ability to succeed, or even meet low standards, in school. Before he got to Wingate, Oher had attended 11 different schools in nine years. By his freshman year of high school, his grade point average was 0.6. For whatever reason, Oher was not diagnosed until his junior year of high school. This is an obvious contributor to his struggles in