HUMANISTIC SCHOOL OF THOUGHT (Week 3)

Hello everyone.

This week, I will be focusing on the Humanistic school of thought that I have learned in class. This school of thought is all about understanding and respecting the needs and abilities of students in the classroom. This is extremely important as teachers need to know how and what their students are like so that lessons can be planned and taught effectively along with good feedback from the students themselves.

Figure 2.1. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The Humanistic school of thought is based on the Hierarchy of Needs by Abraham Maslow as seen in Figure 1.2. This school believes in appreciating the affective domain of students and prioritizes the feelings of students and teaches them to accept themselves and others. This leads to the students being able to feel unique and worthwhile. There are mainly four important points that ensure the accomplishment of this school, which are inviting school success, values clarification, moral education and multi-ethnic education. The approach to teaching and learning will also be included in this post.

a) Inviting School Success

The application of this point is seen when teachers communicate to students and shows them that they are actually responsible, able and valuable human beings even though they may have weaknesses. Constant words of appreciation, a pat on the back or giving literal rewards such as star points are a few ways to increase the sense of worth in students which in turn invites them to want to learn the lesson. In some cases the students may not like the subject but just because the teacher acknowledges his work, he will try harder to please the teacher which makes him learn indirectly.

Thus teachers must take the initiative to get to know about the students' background, interests and dislikes. This creates an impression among students that the teacher cares about their well being genuinely instead of always focusing on their grades in class. As a consequence, they will push themselves to be better people. Teachers can ask students to write essays about themselves or play an interactive game where students get to know each other and then pass the information to other friends in the classroom. In this way, everyone gets to communicate and strengthen friendship bonds as well.

b) Values Clarification 

It is quite important to be able to clarify values while learning takes place. As we know, the National Education Philosophy presses on holistic human capital, so it is necessary that we as teachers integrate relevant values into lessons so that students can understand the content and understand its value in their life.

For example in a Maths class, students learn basic addition and subtraction. After that, they also go on to learn about money usage. In this they are able to see how they need to add or subtract money to pay for things bought at shops or to get the correct balance money. Perhaps the teacher can do a short sketch to show the value of addition and subtraction in money usage. As students will be using money in their life, they will be able to understand the importance. This is also a part of authentic learning.

Teachers must work towards implementing techniques that allows students to identify correct information, see its value in their life and understand why they are doing it and finally act on it after weighing the consequences of the action done. Students are very much encouraged to share and explain their experience and how they relate the content to their action.

c) Moral Education

Figure 2.2. Moral Values

This is also an important factor that must be combined with lessons. These days, we see a decline in appropriate behavior and discipline. Students of this era feel that it is normal and acceptable to have an attitude that is not bothered about anything much unless it affects them deeply. This mentality has to be changed as they are the future leaders of tomorrow and they must be able to empathize the situation and feelings of others so that unity is present and healthy relationships can be fostered.

Teachers should focus on developing responsible behavior in their students that will be in them despite of being in or out of the school environment. This is also to ensure that there is an upcoming generation that can be entwined with a higher standard of living, which in turn lifts the status of Malaysia in the global view.

d) Multi-Ethnic Education

This is very much applicable in our country thanks to our pluralistic society. In subjects like in Moral Education (Pendidikan Moral) and Civics and Nationality (Sivik dan Kewarganegaraan), teachers can explain the differences and similarities of the various cultures. 

As for students; involvement here, they can be asked to share their own experiences about festivals celebrated and its origin. In this way, students will definitely get excited as they would want to open up about whatever they have gone through personally, resulting in personal satisfaction. Confidence is also built and knowledge is a definite gain. This is beneficial in terms of helping the students to naturally develop using situations that they go through in daily life.

Humanistic Approach to Teaching and Learning Process

a) Project Method

This method focuses on encouraging students to pursue their own learning interests. To me, this is a good way to have them grasp content as the interest will drive them to push the information the their long term memory. They would surely do a certain activity to help them remember the relevance of the learnt content in their life. If the student is not interested in the lesson planed, the teacher can tailor make the planned lesson into something that can attract the student even for a short period of time. Once the connection has been established, the student will begin to see its relevance to his interest and therefore effective teaching and learning takes place.

b) Cooperative learning

This method promotes social and emotional growth as students share, accept and respect each others thoughts and feelings whilst learning in groups. This is another way for teachers to help quiet students to talk and engage with their friends in the classroom. Group discussions and presentations builds confidence and proper rapport between them. Through this they will also learn how to think critically and creatively before they offer ideas so that they do not embarrass themselves.

Figure 2.3. Emotional Intelligence Statistics

                               

In conclusion, as we can see in the picture above, emotional intelligence is directly proportional to performance outcome. We teachers need to make sure that students are able to clear the emotional block by motivating, listening and offering counselling to them. It is essential that we anecdote changes in behavior so that we know what the student is going through and how we may be able to help them.

Freedom to express their thoughts and feelings without any hindrance is important as this may be their only way to voice out. Thus as teachers it is important that we observe every said word and action done so that we can track and come to the rescue should they move away from the right track.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Have an edifying day ahead.