Humanism in Education: Definition, Pros & Cons

Origins of Humanist Education

In the early 20^th Century (early 1900s), behaviorism and psychoanalysis were the dominant educational theories. Humanists thought both these theories had very negative perceptions of learners. These theories tried to diagnose and ‘fix’ learners.

In reaction, humanistic education emerged. Humanists argued that people should stop seeing learners as ‘defunct’ or ‘in deficit’. Instead, humanists focussed on how we could help learners bring out the best in themselves.

Another thing humanism rejected was the assumption that learners were easily controlled by rewards and punishments. Humanists thought this ‘behaviorist’ approach of rewards and punishments failed to see that humans are complex thinkers. We’re driven by many different factors, and one major one is of course our emotions: how we’re feeling.

You can’t just punish someone when they do something wrong. No, no, no!

To humanists, you need to explore the factors underpinning their bad behavior. Maybe they’re cold, hungry or feeling unsafe! If we fix the underlying problem, the person will probably start behaving more appropriately.

So, humanists emerged largely as a reaction to the negativity and simplicity of behaviorist beliefs about childhood. If you want to learn more about behaviorism, check our article on behaviorism out here.

Assumptions of Humanism

A humanist educator’s teaching strategy will have four philosophical pillars. These pillars will guide the teacher’s beliefs and, ultimately, how they teach.

The four pillars are:

• Humans have Free Will: We have free choice to do and think what we want;
• Emotions impact Learning: We need to be in a positive emotional state to achieve our best;
• Intrinsic Motivation is Best: We generally have an internal desire to become our best selves;
• Humans are Innately Good: Humans are good at the core.

Key Theorist: Abraham Maslow

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a famous pyramid that shows the fundamental things that people need in order to be fulfilled in their lives.

Maslow created the Hierarchy of Needs after examining the lives of a group of highly successful people including Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln and Elanor Roosevelt.

According to Maslow, each of these successful people had each of these needs fulfilled, which let them climb to the top of the pyramid and reach ‘self-actualization’ (a sense of fulfilment). Maslow thought only about 1% of all people reached self-actualization.

The hierarchy has two types of needs:

• Basic Needs: At the bottom of the pyramid are basic needs or what we sometimes call deficit needs or deprivation needs. When we don’t have these needs, we’re motivated to fulfil them by any means necessary.
• Growth Needs: Once we have our basic needs satisfied, we work on growth needs or what we sometimes call being needs or esteem needs. These are the needs that have to be met to reach self-actualization.

Maslow thinks all of us strive to meet the needs on his pyramid every day of our life, but only few of us make it all the way to the top. Supposedly, we can’t meet higher-up needs until we’ve successfully met the lower needs on the pyramid.

Here’s the hierarchy:

1. Physiological Needs (a basic need): Not to be confused with ‘psychological’, physiological needs are the things that we physically need to survive. These include: water, clothing, shelter, and food.
2. Safety, Protection and Security Needs (a basic need): We all need to be safe from harm in order to thrive in life. If we’re always looking over our shoulder to see if we’re going to get whacked, we’re less likely to concentrate on learning anything new!
3. Belongingness and Love (a basic need): Once we have successfully met our physical and safety needs, we can start working on developing relationships. All humans need positive relationships to be fulfilled. This might include having a sense that you’re included and belong in a classroom, that you’ve got a loving family to go home to, and that you have a group of friends to lean on in times of trouble.
4. Esteem (a growth need): ‘Esteem’ means to be thought well of. You need to think well of yourself (self-esteem) but also have others think well of you. If you have low opinions of yourself, you’ll set low standards for yourself and never be able to climb higher up the pyramid.
5. Self-actualization (a growth need): The need for self-actualization is the feeling that you want to become the best you can be, now that all your needs have been met. You can go on to pursue creative endeavours and succeed to the best of your abilities because you’re not busy fighting to have all your other needs fulfilled.

Examples of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in the Classroom

➡️ Physiological Needs in the Classroom

Physiological Needs in the Classroom

• Food – If a child comes to class hungry, they may not be in a fit state to study. To address this, teachers can implement Crunch n Sip time, start a Breakfast Club, or develop a partnership with a local food bank.
• Water – Teachers can encourage students to drink water before entering the classroom or encourage students to have a clear water bottle sitting on their desk.
• Clothing – I once had a student who started coming to class wearing a hoodie in the middle of the summer. Why? Because her mother had recently left the family and the father wasn’t coping. He hadn’t done the washing in weeks and my poor student didn’t have any shirts to wear. The solution? Our school parents’ committee had a clothing collection that the student could ruffle through to find a shirt she liked, while I contacted the appropriate liaison officer to get the dad some support.

➡️ Safety Needs in the Classroom

Safety Needs in the Classroom

• Safe from Guns – As an Australian-Canadian, I was shocked when an American Grade 1 teacher relayed how worried she was about gunmen entering her school. I knew it was a worry in an abstract sense for teachers in the US. But I’d never put myself in the shoes of a worried teacher who felt that it might happened to her students any day. I feel for the poor students who have to have this thought go through their minds while trying to study.
• Safe from Strangers – Most schools these days required all visitors to school grounds to head to the front office to get a nametag and sign-in. This is to ensure students feel safe and don’t have strangers walking in and out of their classrooms for no reason.
• Safe from Harm – Classrooms need to keep sharp or dangerous materials a safe distance from students. Cords that could trip students up and tables with splinters need to be replaced so students can concentrate on learning rather than being exposed to harm.

➡️ Belongingness Needs in the Classroom

Belongingness Needs in the Classroom

• Memberships – Inclusion of students in table groups in class, afterschool clubs and class research groups can help give them a sense of ownership over the classroom.
• Democratic Class Rules – Students who create their own classroom rules may feel a greater sense of belonging and ownership in the classroom.
• Display Walls – Having exemplary artworks or photos of students on the walls of the classroom can make students feel as if the classroom is a place where they are included and belong.
• Diversity in class books – Students who are of minority backgrounds may feel as if their identities are underrepresented in the classroom. Diverse protagonists in books and diverse representation in imagery around the classroom can help students feel as if their identity is included and respected.

➡️ Esteem Needs in the Classroom

Esteem Needs in the Classroom

• Celebration of Successes – When a student succeeds, feel free to publicly promote that success. When students see their peers spoken about positively, your example may rub-off. Be the leader in having high regard (‘esteem’) for your own students.
• Promotion of Self-Belief – Encourage students to believe in their own abilities to succeed. Teach students about growth mindsets which emphasize that success comes from effort. When students internalize this attitude, they will begin to see themselves as powerful and capable learners.
• High Expectations – Set high expectations for students and praise them only when something is praiseworthy. If you overdo praise, students will not respond well – so give praise genuinely!

Strengths and Limitations of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Here are the pros of Maslow’s Hierarchy:

• A focus on emotions – There are not many educational theories that take into account students’ emotional (‘affective’) states. Maslow’s hierarchy helps to address this flaw.
• Clear and understandable – I can see several flaws in Maslow’s hierarchy (see next point) but it’s a good starting point for stimulating discussion about the importance of emotions in learning.
• A positive outlook – the hierarchy sees students as all having positive potential and able to climb to the top.

Here are the cons of Maslow’s Hierarchy:

• Linear – It is evident that people can succeed and learn in very troubling, difficult situations. Students can succeed through poverty, war and hardship to rise to become doctors and artists. Maslow’s hierarchy doesn’t take into account the fact that some people can learn despite some of their basic needs not being fully met.
• Methodologically Limited – Maslow developed the hierarchy by looking at a small subset of successful people. The hierarchy is not statistically relevant and lacks a clear evidence base.

(Note: later in this article there is also a list of general strengths and limitations of humanist theory overall, which you can jump to by clicking here.)

Key Theorist: Carl Rogers

Carl Rogers was another highly influential humanist theorist.

Here’s an overview of Rogers’ key concepts:

• Actualizing Tendency: According to Rogers, we all have a tendency to strive toward personal growth. We all have ambitions to be better. Rogers called this an ‘actualizing tendency’, and used this concept to underpin his ideas about education.
• Freedom to learn: Rogers write the book Freedom to Learn which outlines how it is important for students to be freed from the constraints of a school curriculum in order that they can be free to explore things they are interested in. If we are freed to learn what we choose to learn (emphasis on free choice here!), we will learn things that our actualizing tendency (desire for self-improvement) lead us towards. This may mean we end up learning more, and learning things that are more important to us personally
• Unconditional positive regard: We have already seen from Maslow that humanists believe students need to have strong self-esteem (positive regard for themselves). Rogers believes that we can help students achieve stronger self-esteem by unconditionally seeing students in a positive light. Much like a parent who loves their child unconditionally, teachers have to see that their students are fundamentally good, even when they’re at their worst.
• Facilitation: Because humanists don’t believe there should be a set curriculum or learning outcomes, teachers become facilitators rather than authority figures. Teachers encourage students to seek new knowledge and provide the materials and support needed. This approach is very similar to the approach used in constructivist and sociocultural education.
• Intrinsic motivation: Rogers believes schools have historically repressed intrinsic motivation that we all had before we went to school. Here’s a great quote from Rogers:

“I become very irritated with the notion that students must be “motivated.” The young human being is intrinsically motivated to a high degree. Many elements of his environment constitute challenges for him. He is curious, eager to discover, eager to know, eager to solve problems. A sad part of most education is that by the time the child has spent a number of years in school this intrinsic motivation is pretty well dampened.” (Rogers, as cited in Schunk, 2012, p. 355).

Related Post: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation in the Classroom.

➡️ References and Further Reading

References and Further Reading

Bates, B. (2019). Learning Theories Simplified: …and how to apply them to teaching. London: Sage.

Crain, W. (2015). Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications: Concepts and Applications. London: Routledge.

Duchesne, S. & McMaugh, A. (2016). Educational Psychology for Learning and Teaching. Melbourne: Cengage Learning.

Khatib, M., Sarem, S. N., & Hamidi, H. (2013). Humanistic Education: Concerns, Implications and Applications. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 4(1), pp. 45 – 51.

Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective. Boston: Pearson Education.

Veugelers, W. (2011). Introduction: Linking autonomy and humanity. In: Veugelers, W. (Ed.). Education and Humanism: Linking Autonomy and Humanity (pp. 1 – 7). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.