NOT just Poverty: The conversation to improve education must include the needs of our students
I have
heard from administrators, and I personally believe, that we cannot control
what happens outside of our school, therefore do what we can in our classrooms
to help the children. But we must acknowledge what is happening in our society
to the children if schools are to truly educate the children. Once it is
acknowledged, it must be a part of the joint efforts to improve public schools.
The rhetoric I hear nation-wide about ‘fixing failing schools’ will not work
without it being a part of the solution. Also, the term ‘community involvement’
takes on a more encompassing and holistic meaning. Our culture and society has
changed. More and more children come to schools hungry, unloved, neglected,
abused, homeless, and others-wise not having basic needs met so how can we
expect them to learn? Schools that are ‘failing’ by whatever measures used are symptomatic
of a reality that there are concentrations or students without their basic
needs being met. To meet the needs of our students, schools have slowly added
services to help meet the needs of the children so they can learn (more
elsewhere about how schools may be shifting to community social services
organizations).
For me, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs clearly frames many
of the problems public education is experiencing today.
1. Biological and Physiological needs
- air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sleep
2. Safety
needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability
3. Social needs
- Belongingness and Love, work group, family, affection, relationships
4. Esteem
needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance,
prestige, managerial responsibility
5. Cognitive
needs - knowledge, EDUCATION, conceptual understanding
6.
Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment,
seeking personal growth and peak experiences
7.
Transcendence needs - helping others to achieve self-actualization.
What are
some of the obstacles to learning? In short, an obstacle to learning is anything
that interferes with any step in the process. To review, those include:
• Physical
issues that distract from attention, like insufficient sleep, hunger, poor
nutrition, lack of exercise;
• Safety
issues that stimulate increased anxiety and fear, like bullying, school
shootings, over-stimulation, drug use, deaths of classmates
• Emotional
issues that sideline motivation, like family dysfunction, parental death and
divorce, anxiety and depression
•
Neurological issues that interfere with the “normal” neuronal connections, like
dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, attention deficit disorder
Notice that
formal education is at Level 5 on the Maslow pyramid, and that all of the
obstacles noted above relate to challenges occurring at Levels 1 through 4.
According to Maslow’s theory, in an optimal environment, needs must be
fulfilled in order. Just as we can’t learn to read until we have learned the
alphabet, it is only when the biological, safety, social, and esteem needs of a
child at levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 are satisfied that he or she can fully advance
to the cognitive needs of Level 5—the only needs public education has always
been designed to assist our children in fulfilling.
How many of
the obstacles listed above are under a given teacher, principal, or superintendent’s
control? Truthfully, none. Is it reasonable to expect our schools to be able to
deal with the explosion of new information and skills and somehow overcome the
onslaught of social, emotional, economic, and neurological challenges that make
the creation of environments conducive to learning exponentially harder today?
Is that goal realistic? Attainable?
No.
Teachers can only do so much by themselves. We need a new paradigm, one in
which all stakeholders (parents, teachers, children, community) and critics
(media, elected officials, parents) become aware of and acknowledge inherent
challenges teachers face on a daily basis in providing environments conducive
to learning. As more children come to schools without their basic needs being
met, and their trying to help the children experience meet some of the basics
needs so they can learn - Teachers are exhausted. On top of the exhaustion, if
we fail to support and respect teachers, we will send the only professionals
who have what it takes to achieve the outcomes we demand of public education
running for the doors. And then where will we be? (more in another chapter)
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Excerpt from “STOP BLAMING + START TALKING: Developing a Dialogue for Getting Public Education Back on Track” pages 40 – 42.
Paperback and eBook available at: http://www.teachertimmullen.com/the_book.html
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