RUNNING HEAD Literature Review

National University
Capstone
Monique Lide
RUNNING HEAD Literature Review

According to deepermind.com, “Maslow identified the following need levels:

1. Self Actualization
2. Ego Needs
3. Social Needs
4. Security Needs
5. Body Needs”

I agree with Maslow need levels and I find this in direct correlation with my

classroom. I work in a title one school where 100 percent of the kids receive free

breakfast and lunch. I have seen first hand the concern for body needs, such as food,

clothing, shoes, lack of sleep. Students are very much focused on the need to eat

before they can have focus on any lesson being taught in the classroom. So his levels

make direct sense.

Students come to school hungry and until that need is met, they cannot focus on

what’s going on in the classroom. According to changekidslives.org they use Maslow

needs in question formation which directly reflects what goes on in my classroom.

Changekidslives.org states “​Are any students entering our classroom without their

Physiological​ needs met? Is this student getting all of their basic physical needs met?

These basic needs include food, water, sleep, oxygen, and warmth. If all students have

these needs met, the next stage is ​Safety​. How safe and secure does this student feel

in their home? What about in our school, and specifically in our classroom?”
RUNNING HEAD Literature Review

After the need for food, sleep, clothing (which are often times dirty, to small or

have holes in them) are met, than they focus on a sense of security. For example, Most

students want to sit by my desk or somewhere close to me. They are focused on the

days I would tell them we are having a substitute versus the days I’m there in the

classroom. I have come to the point where I do not tell the students they are getting a

sub until about 20 mins before the bell rings for dismissal so their worry of security is

short. They are used not used to change in faces, they prefer the same teacher every

day otherwise, they do not have that sense of security. Once there sense of security is

stable, than they become little social butterflies. Let me note, they also need to have a

sense of security within the classroom and their peers, before they become social

butterflies.

According to Classroom20.com “​Classroom’s have to be places built upon the

fundamental tenet that each student will experience success. Teacher’s must create

classrooms where success is contagious and an ongoing event. We teach to the top

and try to pull everyone up. We shouldn’t. We should join the principles of special

educators and teach to the bottom, letting everyone ride that wave as they wish.

Thus, there isn’t enough self-esteem. Too often, classrooms are rooms where people

are sorted. This one left, this one right. Classrooms should not be “concentration”

camps – they should be places where children feel experience the elation of achieving

something and tasting their potential. They find this on the sports fields and in gyms and

music rooms - ask yourself why they don’t find it in the regular classroom?
RUNNING HEAD Literature Review

If a child leaves your classroom without tasting the delicious food of success. If you

haven’t reminded the students of what they’ve accomplished and achieved”

I found this very powerful, this is in direct relation to self esteem and self

actualization of Maslow.

Classrooms work in the same pyramid as Maslow's needs and if we achieve these

levels in our classrooms, than we will achieve success.

Classroom20.com
Changekidslives.org
deepermind.com