Does Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Does Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Essay Example This essay will examine the theory of humanism in child development with relation to learning and education. Humanism was first developed in the 1960s by prominent authors Maslow and Rogers. Many aspects of this approach are still relevant today. In particular, this essay will consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as well as whether this is followed in practice and what criticism and contrasting theories exist. This theory has been applied in many different applications since its development and continues to be well used into the present day. Theories of Development There are a number of different theories that examine the way in which children learn and develop in educational environments . Prominent among these are behaviourism, constructivism, cognitivism, theories of social interaction and humanistic theories. Behavioural theory is determinalistic, and believes that the learner is a passive entity that responds solely to changes in environmental stimuli. Under constructivis m, learning is viewed as an active process while cognitive theories do not consider learning to be a change in behaviour, but rather a process through which new information is acquired . Humanism is an approach to learning and education that has been present since the 1960s. It was developed as a contrast to approaches such as behaviourism and cognitivism, both of which are heavily determinalistic. Humanists believe that the way in which an individual behaves is related to who they are internally, their feelings and concept of self. The approach assumes that humans are essentially good, and that growth and fulfilment are a predominant human motive. Humanism has resulted in many scientific advances in the understanding of human behaviour, and in particular, advances in professional practice . Humanism was initially developed for education by two prominent authors in the 1960’s and subsequently became an established movement within American psychology. These authors were Carl R ogers and Abraham Maslow and their views are thought to be relevant in education today. It has been argued that the current problems experienced in education are largely related to a failure to address the concerns that the authors raised . Rogers argues that in the present time traditional schooling methods are failing as people need a higher level of expertise in today’s world than was needed in the past, and there is a greater need to understand how and why something occurs than ever before. He focuses on the idea of person-centred learning, where the process of learning is the most important factor and the outcome is secondary. At the time of writing, more than 95 percent of activities within schools were selected by teachers, and Rogers considers that students having input in the activities that are undertaken is an essential component of effective learning. . The idea of person-centred learning that Rogers forwarded has become an effective approach in psychotherapy and counselling and is used frequently in modern times. However, his approach has not been widely adopted in schools. Maslow forwarded the idea that human motivation is the result of people seeking to grow and looking for fulfilment or self-actualisation. He produced a