Humanism

About humanism

Humanism as a approach to education and learning paradigm was mostly developed during 1960s. Humanism in general starts from belief in human inherent goodness and views learning as a mean of self-actualization and development of personal potentials. Most important humanist authors that shaped this theory were Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow whose works were mostly orientated on understanding of personality.

Humanists emphasize importance responsibility for individuals actions, importance of present moment, worth of every individual and happiness through self-achievement as the ultimate living goal. Humanist approach of free will and inherent human goodness contrasts Freud's and biological approaches, which claim human behavior and cognition are determined by experience and prior events.

One of Maslow's contributions widely accepted even far beyond borders of humanism is the hierarchy of needs in which he tried to formulate the human motivation framework. Hierarchy of needs approaches human motivation in terms of different kind of needs that have to be satisfied in order to move to the higher level of needs. Those levels include psychology, safety, society, esteem and self-actualization needs and need to be satisfied in the mentioned order.

Humanist perspectives on learning suggest learning is a natural desire and an important part of self-development and that learners should therefore have more control over the learning process. The role of learner includes processes such as observing and exploring, and the teacher should be a role-model encouraging the learner and provide him with reasons and motivation for every new part of the learning process.

Learning theories:

Experiential Learning (David Kolb)

Facilitation theory (Carl Rogers)

Other important theorists

John Holt, Malcolm Knowles, Paulo Freire

Critic

Although there are viewpoint and personality tests like William Stephenson's Q methodology or Q-Sort, one of first noticed disadvantages of humanist approach is the reduced capacity for experimental research.

Other disadvantages of humanism include lack of methods for treating of different mental health problems and disagreement on the basic humanist assumption of inherent human goodness.

Bibliography

Abraham Maslow - Father of Modern Management.

Humanistic approaches to learning.

Read more

Freire, P. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1972.

Holt, J. How Children Fail Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1970.

Rogers, C. R. Freedom to learn for the 80s New York: Free Press. 1980.

Maslow, A. Motivation and Personality (3rd edition) New York: Harper and Row. 1987.