Student Needs and Maslow's Hierarchy
The emergence of online learning opens up possibilities for
schools to focus on other areas once neglected due to a lack of resources or time. In their book, Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools, Horn &
Staker (2015) bring up four activities that schools can now embrace. These include: Deeper Learning, Safe Care,
Wraparound Services, and Fun with Friends and Extracurricular Activities. While online learning can play a crucial role
in opening up future possibilities for schools, it’s not realistic to think everything
can happen at once. Districts needs to
analyze the needs of their demographics and students in order to properly act
and make appropriate changes.
When thinking about the order in which the four activities
should be taken into consideration, my immediate thought goes to Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow believed that
in order for an individual to meet their full potential, they must first satisfy
a series of needs. The hierarchy begins
with basic needs at the bottom, then psychological needs, and finally self-fulfillment
needs.
While Maslow originally designed the hierarchy to apply to
all aspects of an individual’s life, it also directly relates to children and
their learning within an educational setting, such as a classroom, which is demonstrated in the video below.
I believe each of the four activities presented by Horn & Staker (2015) fit into each of Maslow’s hierarchical categories.
Wraparound Services à Physiological Needs
Students receive important social services, such
as counseling, mentoring, health and food needs (Horn & Staker, 2015, p. 82-83).
Safe Care à Safety Needs
Fun with Friends and Extracurricular Activities à
Belongingness and Love Needs
Having a relationship with friends and allowing
those relationships to develop and grow (Horn & Staker, 2015, p. 83-84).
Deeper Learning à Esteem and
Self-Actualization Needs
Students apply “knowledge in deeper ways that
invite exploration and creativity, as well as help students master critical
thinking, collaboration, and communication skills in different domains” (Horn
& Staker, 2015, p. 81)
Therefore, I believe the rating below to be accurate from the
Most Critical component to the Least Critical.
|
Most Critical
|
|
|
|
|
|
Least Critical
|
|
Wraparound Services
|
à
|
Safe Care
|
à
|
Fun with Friends
and Extracurricular Activities
|
à
|
Deeper Learning
|
If following along with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, placing
Wraparound Services at the front of the list makes the most sense. Students’ most basic needs of health and food
must be met before they can be expected to properly sit in class and focus long
enough to take in new information. According to Tony Kline, author of the article, Applying Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs In Our Classrooms (n.d.), a way to support students’
physiological needs is by providing access to water and nutritious snacks in
the classroom. Aside from daily snacks,
some schools also provide students in need with free meals. For some children, this may be the only nutritious
food they receive each day. If a student
is healthy, fed, and hydrated they can begin to move further up on the scale to
the other needs, such as safety and social relationships.
The school at which I teach is fairly affluent and so
oftentimes it is not the basic needs of food and water that we are dealing
with. More often I hear of students
complaining of being tired (lack of sleep because they stayed up too late, and
in some cases, were taking care of siblings while parents were out with
friends), which also fits into this category.
I often allow students to eat a snack in class or if truly needed, take
a break to walk around and get their blood flowing to help wake them up. In more extreme cases, students have gone to
the nurse’s office to take a short nap in order to help their attention and
focus for the rest of the day. I see
this as being one of the largest drawbacks to the Wraparound Services component
– time taken out of a classroom to meet each individual’s needs. Students are missing out on valuable
instructional time when out of the classroom.
If continuing to use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a guide,
the least critical component would be Deeper Learning. Theoretically, once we can support a student’s
needs in each stage it is at that point they can operate at their full capacity
and potential, which would include thinking at a deeper, more critical level. The student examples I mentioned previously,
those who come to my ELA class hungry or tired, are not able to analyze a
character’s motives for an action they take, or discuss archetypal patterns in
literature until their earlier needs are met.
At any point a student may revert back to the basic needs
stage, but can always continue to move up the pyramid once all previous needs
are fulfilled.
Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2015). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kline, T. (n.d.). Applying Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs In Our Classrooms. Retrieved May 26,
2019, from http://www.changekidslives.org/actions-4
Roselle, S. (2018, February 24). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in the Classroom. Retrieved May 26, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7MUsC4iuqk
Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2015). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kline, T. (n.d.). Applying Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs In Our Classrooms. Retrieved May 26, 2019, from http://www.changekidslives.org/actions-4
Roselle, S. (2018, February 24). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in the Classroom. Retrieved May 26, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7MUsC4iuqk
Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2015). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kline, T. (n.d.). Applying Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs In Our Classrooms. Retrieved May 26, 2019, from http://www.changekidslives.org/actions-4
Roselle, S. (2018, February 24). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in the Classroom. Retrieved May 26, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7MUsC4iuqk
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