Humanistic School of Thought (Week 3)

Hi, everyone. It has been a hectic day after all. Let me introduce to you the 2nd school of thought which is Humanistic. What is humanistic? A you can see in the word itself it's about human or shall i say ourselves. Humanistic school of thought focus on social and emotional learning. It's about the understanding on how we develop feelings, attitudes and value about oneself and others. Through this school of thought, student will feel better about themselves and also others. Teachers need to accept each student as an unique person and understand their feelings and ideas. There are mainly two persons who we need to remember when it comes to humanistic school of thought. They are Abraham Maslow(Hierarchy of Needs) and Carl Rogers(Freedom).

There are several beliefs of the humanistic school of thought:

1. Having good feelings about oneself is essential to positive personal development and may enhance academic achievement.
2. Having good feelings about others is also essential to healthy development.
3. The school should be made to fit the child rather than the child made to fit the school (Neil, 1969).
4. The school and classroom environment must help youth satisfy such essential human needs (Maslow, 1998).
5. Accept learners as they are (Rogers & Russell,2002).
6. Place yourself "in the shoes" of learners in order to see and understand a learning situation from the students' perspective (Combs,1965).
7. Use techniques that help learners better understand their feelings and values.
8. Knowing how to learn is more important than acquiring knowledge.

The humanistic approaches to teaching and learning:

1. Project method - kids pursue their own learning interest.

2. Cooperative learning - kids share, accept, & respect each others ideas ("all for one, one for all").

3. Inviting school success (agreement) - get teachers to communicate to learners by knowing learners' name, have individual contact with each learner, show some respect (give and earn), be honest with learners and themselves, not take a student's rejection personally (be more professional rather than take it personally) and respect themselves as teachers.

4. Values clarification - technics of how teachers make the student feel and value.

5. Moral education - education of constructing (character, values, citizenship), being more responsible both in and out of school.

6. Multi-ethnic education(study about value of other cultures) - know their culture as well as other cultures (ideas, customs, skills, arts and so on). This education helps the students to avoid culture shock when they are out of the school environment.

That's all for today. Hope that humanistic school of thought makes you realize whatever you have studied previously in school does have it's meaning and importance. Thank you for spending a part of your precious time to read this post. Have a nice day.