My first day teaching at SMU

What a relief…..  I’ve finally started teaching.  I’ve got some volunteer teaching hours on the Diploma in Foundation Studies in Art and Design at Swansea Met.  The staff members are great; very welcoming and helpful so I think everything will be fine.  The students are cool; they seem hard working, focused and talented.  I’ve just spent the morning with them and two main things occurred to me.  Firstly, I was really impressed with the quality of the student’s work in terms of creativity and the processes and techniques used.  Secondly, I was struck by the nature of the students in terms of both their behaviour and attitude.  In my previous position most of the students I worked with had not achieved well educationally and many had unstable, challenging home lives and difficult relationships.  Due to this at times learning was not a priority for these students.  This is in contrast to the students on the Foundation Diploma course who are already successful learners, the majority of them have passed A Levels, so have a positive view of themselves as being able to achieve on a course of study.  They also appear to have more settled home lives and successful relationships.

These thoughts made me think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1954).

“Maslow, whose work is closely related to humanistic psychology saw ‘self-actualization’ as what drives people to learn; that is the need to make full use of one’s talents, become creative and achieve one’s potential is what motivates us. Self-actualization is an ultimate human goal and need, but before that need can be fulfilled a set of other needs must be met” (Armitage et al, 2007: 66).

On the Foundation Learning programme a minority of the students may not even have had their most basic needs met (hunger and thirst), some may not have achieved the next level (physical and psychological well-being) while others may not have achieved the next level (love and belonging).  I think students on the Foundation Diploma course do have a sense of love and belonging and some also have self-esteem.  If you are don’t feel secure then learning may not seem important, even though it may be a way to move up a level or two.  Understanding what motivates, or holds students back, is useful as it can inform your teaching strategies and your approach.

However, there are a number of issues with the Maslow model when it is applied to real-life situations.  For example, as each person is unique so individuals seem to respond to several needs and not just one and this may change over time.

References

Armitage, A., Byant, R., Dunnill, R., Hayes, D., Hudson, A., Kent, J., Lawes, S. & Renwick, M. (2007) Teaching and Training in Post-Compulsory Education, 3^rd Ed, Maidenhead: Open University Press.