Children

18 Feb 2016

Maslow’s Hierarchy – Critique Part Two

Teachwell Behaviour, Progressive Education, Social Class, Teaching and Learning Child-Centred, Children, Discipline, Early Years, Methods, Parents, Philosophy, Primary School, Teachers, Teaching Assistants, Theory 2

In the first part of this post, I reviewed the link between Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and behaviour management systems in schools, in the context of excuses made for poor behaviour. I critiqued the commonly used diagram when presenting Maslow’s ideas and it impacts on how we perceive Maslow’s theory.

I don’t dispute that Maslow identified important needs that humans have.

However, the way his theory has been and continues to be used as the basis for managing the behaviour of disruptive pupils, without critique, review or evaluation, is unethical. (The same goes for Bowlby’s attachment theory, but that is another post altogether).

Maslow’s sample was deliberately chosen from two particular groups. He studied people who he thought were ‘exemplary’ (such as Albert Einstein) and then chose a sample from ” the healthiest 1% of the student population”.

So not children then, much less children suffering from neglect, abuse or mental health problems.

He deliberately did not want to study those who had mental health problems as”the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”

I don’t think that Maslow could have been further removed from the study of the children his ideas are most applied to.

In their book ‘Urban Myths about Learning and Education’, `De Bruyckere, Kirschner and Hulshof highlight:

Maslow added two more layers to his hierarchy (knowing and understanding, aesthetics). Anyone who knows why we only encounter the earlier not the later version of his hierarchy in education, please feel free to leave a comment below.
In 1962, Maslow expressed surprise why his theory had not been repeated, tested, analysed or criticised. In his words, he felt that people had “just used it, swallowed it whole, with only the most minor modifications”. That is a pretty damning criticism of anyone who promotes a simplistic diagnostic use of his theory. It would seem the education establishment in the UK and elsewhere is oblivious to this. How uncritically is Maslow being presented and taught if this criticism is unknown to teachers in comparison to the diagram? I have yet to encounter such a self-critique of a model in political science (my initial area of study) which I was not made aware of. Theories and ideas are not meant to be accepted uncritically, and it is yet another contradiction in the education system, that those banging on about critical thinking in education, seem to be doing the least. Especially when it comes to Maslow!!
What detailed investigations there have been, did not provide empirical evidence for Maslow’s theory.

As Bruyckere, et al point out,

“Maslow thought that people would use his findings to conduct further experiments of their own, but that did not happen before his death in 1970. Why? Because sometimes we are too lazy to check whether something is right – or not. This kind of laziness can be dangerous.”

I couldn’t agree more, especially when well-intentioned educationalists preach it from the pulpits, teachers accept it as received wisdom and behaviour support teams/consultants/programmes, etc. peddle it out to support their ideas on behaviour management systems. To say Maslow has been influential is an understatement.

The following ideas are what I consider to be the greatest hindrance in supporting children, who like myself, come from families where they have witnessed or experienced abusive behaviour and relationships.

Needs are experienced in a hierarchical order.
Lower order needs must be met before higher order needs.
Morality is a higher order need and emotional needs must be met first.
Two levels of needs can not be experienced or met at the same time.
Deficiencies at lower levels prevent individuals from meeting higher order needs.
Personal growth and fulfilment is rare and is fixed at the top of the apex of needs regardless of one’s experiences in life.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but they form the basis of my critique of the ‘excuses’ approach to behaviour management in the third part of this series of blogs.

Bibliography:

De Bruyckere, Kirschner and Hulshof (2015). Urban Myths about Learning and Education.

Hofstede, G. (1984). “The cultural relativity of the quality of life concept.”

Maslow, A (1954). Motivation and personality.

Wahba, M. A.; Bridwell, L. G. (1976). “Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory”. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 15

14 Feb 2016

Maslow’s Hierarchy – Critique Part One

Teachwell Behaviour, Education Policy, Progressive Education, Teaching and Learning Child-Centred, Children, Discipline, Early Years, Methods, Parents, Philosophy, Primary School, Teachers, Teaching Assistants, Theory 6

I’ve been meditating on this all day. What is my problem with excuses? Why not just let a child off the hook if they have problems? Give them a break? Just understand that it is different for them because their home life is horrible and they just want to be safe and loved? If they aren’t fed and clothed then how can they be expected to behave? If they are witnessing abuse at home then how can we expect them to follow class rules?

It seems the main justification each time is that the child behaves poorly as a result of problems at home then they need to be able to express those negative emotions where they feel safe and we should understand that. We should also accept that the reasons for this and the fact that the child’s behaviour is unlikely to change while they are in the environment they are in. Instead, as teachers, we must look at our behaviour and see how we trigger the child’s emotions and act accordingly – the walking on egg shells approach.

Of course, the ‘there are excuses’ school are all about the emotion. Emotions before morality and spirituality is enshrined into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

This diagram that is widely used is not his visual representation of his ideas. It attaches weighting to the different needs that he doesn’t.

By FireflySixtySeven [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The fact is that this is an equally valid visual representation of his ideas:

As is this:

And this:

The red of the physiological does a great job of highlighting it’s importance – danger – needs attention, far more than the cool blue at the top. So what does it look like reversed?

All these diagrams demonstrate how the organisation and presentation of ideas affect how we interpret them. The diagram directly above is nothing like the commonly used one, yet it is not wrong!!!

It is not Maslow I have the issue with here but those that have manipulated the visualisation of his ideas. We can all play that game so maybe we need to look at his ideas more honestly, in light of what he says, rather than a simplified diagram.

13 Feb 2016

No Excuses = No Relationship

Teachwell Behaviour, Progressive Education, Teaching and Learning, Traditional Education Child-Centred, Children, Discipline, Methods, Primary School, Teachers, Theory 6

Yesterday, I went back to the last school I taught at full time. I will be helping to train some NQTs soon about the Computing Curriculum – how untraditional of me but hey ho – it’s not all about using the spatula method (flipping things).

I went to say hello to one of my old classes. It was lovely to see them again. I almost got crushed in the spontaneous group hug that ensued. I evidently should have spent more time on the health and safety aspects of group hugs, or more likely it’s just because they are two years older now. A few of them are even taller than me now!!

The most exciting thing for me, however, was the fact that one of the children, who had joined late in the year – around April, and who spoke no English, is chirping away now!! “Miss Gill I can speak English now.”,” You were my first teacher here.” There is something quite magical about an EAL child morphing into an English speaker, the accent, the phrases they have picked up without you realising it, the confidence and fluency.

Their current class teacher is a good friend, as well as one of my old year group partners, another no excuses man. He also knew how much I adored the class and vice versa. Bless the new young TA though, he wasn’t sure how to react to his table of children running off!

I have promised them that I will, when I go back in a few weeks, have made a short video using pictures of my visit to Greece last year. I thought of them often, especially while visiting the Parthenon, which that I had taught them all about. It was an absolute pleasure to teach the Ancient Greece unit with the focus on really acquiring knowledge and it is to the credit of the new curriculum that the history units can be taught with such rigour again.

Yesterday also made me realise that all the “you must be a heartless child-hating monster” spouted is harder to refute when one is not a full-time class teacher, unlike, for example, the Michaela teachers, Quirky Teacher, etc. I do try not to wear rose-tinted glasses when remembering the classes I have taught but I do worry about if I am when responding to such criticisms.

So it was a necessary, as well as a lovely, reminder of what my relationships with the children were actually like. The idea that no excuses, traditional, formal teachers have negative if any, relationship with the children they teach is simply not true.

The only negative relationships I’ve had in the schools I’ve worked in were with parents and other staff members, who made excuses for poor behaviour and were unsupportive.

The children? The overwhelming majority accepted I was strict, met my expectations, followed the rules or accepted the consequences if they didn’t, and learnt lots. There is always such a fixation on the initial setting of boundaries, enforcing consequences, etc from those who believe no excuses is wrong but what they appear blind to is how much easier it is over the course of the year. How much trust there is, respect there is, the greater ability and time to build positive relationships with children, because one is not dealing with constant disruptive behaviour of the low or serious kind.

It doesn’t matter if some people feel the need to demonise teachers like me. Right now, I don’t care. I’m going to make the video, show it to my old class, feel proud of the lovely children they still are and hope that they might one day make the journeys themselves to connect with what remains of the Ancient Civilisations.

Oh and hopefully not be crushed in a group hug!!