Tutorial 2

By providing examples explain how Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs relates to a student's motivation to study well     

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs states that a child’s basic needs must be fulfilled before the higher level needs become more important. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs are divided into two types, one is the deficit needs and the other is the being needs. Deficit needs include Physiological need, Safety and Security need, and love and belonging needs. Figure below shows the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

 

According to Maslow, a child needs to be satisfied with the basic or physiological needs first, such as breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep, and the like.  Eg. A child without food or on an empty stomach will not concentrate on what is being taught in class. A child’s basic need which is to be fed is not fulfilled in order to gain motivation in class to study or learn. Likewise if a child is satisfied with the basic needs but not the safety needs such as health, employment, family and  the like, will also be less motivated compared to the ones who are. Eg. A child who gets the psychological need but is being abused at home and is afraid of the home environment will feel the same way in school if it repeats in the school as well. This could also lead to less motivation in class. On the other hand, a child who feels safe at school and is not abused either physically or verbally will feel more comfortable and motivated to learn in class.  Similarly, if a student’s safety needs are met but the need of belonging and love is not satisfied he/she would feel left out and will be less motivated in class. However, assuring them and giving the love and care they need by the teacher and peers can help to gain the students motivation back.

The other important type of need is being need. Being need is again divided into three parts which contains Cognitive, Aesthetic and Self actualization needs. Being needs are only essential after a person’s deficit needs are largely met. These three types relate to each other in order to motivate the students to study well. However it is also stated that being needs are not satisfied to the fullest. For example a thirst of wealth will make the person need more of the same kind, and this thirst goes on with no end. If a child in school has met all the deficit needs, the other needs starts to become important. For eg: A student who is filled with love and care from their parents and teachers will want to belong in the cognitive need/ self esteem group, where he/she will be respected and confident, to be a unique individual. The students, who are accepted by the crowd and gain respect, start to need to be identified as beautiful and recognized in the group which is categorized as the Aesthetic need. The last need of a person would be the self- actualization needs, where people get the most amount of satisfaction needed. A student who has reached the self- actualization need is very rare. It is difficult for the teachers to understand the student needs. Though some of the students are annoying most of these students show humanity and sound ethical sense. Teachers believe at this level students reach their best.The last stage of hierarchy of need is the Transcendence need, At this stage student go to a different level where students start to help and contribute to others. 

Explain why morality is a concern for students at school. Provide examples.

As children move from Kindergarten to higher levels, they develop physically and cognitively. They develop in their logical and abstract thinking, as Piaget's theory of cognitive development highlights. Likewise students face different issues socially as stated  in Erikson's eight psychosocial crises of development. Also students develop different personal motives as highlighted by Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Furthermore, students develop their morality or ethical beliefs as they grow. They develop a sense of justice (as described by Kohlberg) and care for other people (as described by Gilligan). All these issues students go through point to the fact that development is not a simple process for the students.

Morality is the belief or understanding of what is good and right compared to what is bad or wrong. Moral beliefs change as a person grows older. This change is known as moral development (Seifert & Sutton, 2009). Moral beliefs and moral behaviours are not the same, as a person who knows what is good or bad might not act accordingly. Moral choices are extremely important in a classroom/school setting.

Students today face a lot of behavioural and emotional problems due to lack of morality. For example, lying, drug abuse, theft, suicide, gang fights, murder, unwanted pregnancies are some of these issues. Student life itself is a hard time for students and when these problems have to be dealt with on top of that, school life is hindered. Therefore, students have to think about and work on developing the moral values that will help them build a better future for themselves. As students spend most of their time in the school, schools can play a critical role in instilling and enhancing these values in students. Schools need to focus more on conducting value/moral development programs for their students. The other most important group of people who can bring a positive change in students morality are the parents, the peers and society in general.  

Children face a lot of incidents in school as the student groups are very diverse and in such cases, it becomes difficult to decide what is a fair choice for all students. What is fair for one might not be fair for the other. In such cases, both morality of justice (fairness and equality) and morality of care (caring for others) become important. Both these types of morality are important for both students and teachers. 

Students have to work under different situations in schools. For eg. they work in groups where they need to think as a group and work for the benefit of all the group members. Here, they need to think beyond themselves and think about other's feelings and care for others which needs a different level of moral reasoning. Therefore, encouraging these types of activities will certainly help students to develop their morality.