Psychology and Education: Humanistic

Humanism is a psychological approach that emphasizes the study of the whole person. Humanistic psychologists look at human behavior not only through the eyes of the observer, but through the eyes of the person doing the behaving. Humanistic psychologists believe that an individual's behavior is connected to their inner feelings and self concept.

From Maslow's perspective, the drive to learn is intrinsic. The purpose of learning is to bring about self-actualization, and the goals of educators should include this process. Learning contributes to psychological health. Maslow proposed other goals of learning, including discovery of one's vocation or destiny; knowledge of values; realization of life as precious, acquisition of peak experiences, sense of accomplishment, satisfaction of psychological needs, awareness of beauty and wonder in life, impulse control, developing choice, and grappling with the critical existential problems of life.

learner-centered teaching

1951

In many work and social activities, teams of individuals must pull together to get tasks accomplished. Working together means cooperation. It also means taking the talents of individuals and pooling these together to get the job done. This is the basis for the theory behind Cooperative Learning (CL). CL is a teaching strategy where teams of two or more work together on learning tasks.

Humanistic principles were first applied to education by A. S Neill at Summerhill, a school in England where students were given the freedom to study and attend lessons when they chose. According to reports made by the British Ministry of education, students were energetic, responsible, and took the initiative in their studies. Despite these results, several parents chose to remove their children after the age of 13 because they believed the academic preparation they received was inadequate. In the United States, Rogers' and Maslow's work enabled the growth of the humanistic movement and eventually the open education program, based on the principles of humanistic education, which became popular in the 1970s (Penny, et al., no date).

A.S Neill

Research shows only slight positive effects in non-academic areas such as self-esteem and attitude toward school and slightly negative effects on academic achievement (Penny, et.al, no date). -Critics of humanistic psychology claim its concepts are too vague and too dependent on subjective data such as what an individual may be experiencing. -Conclusions and research based on such data are therefore considered unreliable, hard to verify, unobjective, and unscientific

student-centered

Students in open classrooms have the freedom to choose whatthey will study and are encouraged to engage in discovery and researchactivities. Typically, students study subject areas that are intergrated acrossthe curriculum. Students work individually or in small groups and are free tomove about the classroom.

Teachers also have a different role in open classrooms. Rather than tellingstudents what they need to know, they act as facilitators who guide students intheir work and de-emphasize grades and standardized tests.

Freedom of choice in what subjects students will study ability to move freely around the classroom access to wide variety of learning materials emphasis on individual and small group instruction relationship with the teacher as a facilitator rather than a lecturer evaluation about academic achievement that is meaningful to the student

Careful preparation of materials, worksheets, questions, resource materials, etc

1 Unlike 'Learning styles' approach, requires no major restructuring of the school day. 2 Fosters co-operation among students of different abilities, ethnic backgrounds, ages and sexes. 3. learning with a group, bolsters social skills

assigned groups but you are responsible for teaching each other, quizzed separately in the end, positive reinforcement in the end -you are a group working towards a goal

working together and then coming back as a class