Humanistic School Of Thought

What is Humanistic?

Promotes personal development which includes values clarification,moral,character education and multicultural education.

Humanistic psychology was instead focused on each individual's potential and stressed the importance of growth and self-actualization. The fundamental belief of humanistic psychology is that people are innately good and that mental and social problems result from deviations from this natural tendency.

Humanism also suggests that people possess personal agency and that they are motivated to use this free will to pursue things that will help them achieve their full potential as human beings. This need for fulfillment and personal growth is a key motivator of all behavior. People are continually looking for new ways to grow, to become better, to learn new things, and to experience psychological growth and self-actualization.

Beliefs in Humanistic School

 The humanistic school holds several core beliefs:

• Having good feelings about oneself is essential to positive personal development and may

Enhance academic achievement. Therefore, engender in students a sense of self-respect,

Self-worth, and efficacy, or having a feeling of control over one’s life and destiny.

• Having good feelings about others is also essential to healthy development. Thus, aspire

to help learners build respect for and accept others, even when their opinions and behavior may be different.

• The school should be made to fit the child rather than the child made to fit the school. Children learn best what they want to know when they are self-directed. Therefore, personalize education by giving learners considerable latitude in deciding what to do (learn) and how to do it. Relatedly, create an environment that provides choices and then help students make choices that seem wise to them.

• The school and classroom environment must help youth satisfy such essential human needs as personal safety and security, love, belonging, and achievement and autonomy, competence, and social relationships. Failure to meet these needs will be counterproductive to personal development and will have a negative impact on learning.

• Accept learners as they are, that is, with their unique behaviors, feelings, and opinions.

• Place yourself “in the shoes” of learners in order to see and understand a learning  situation from the students’ perspective.

• Use techniques that help learners better understand their feelings and values. Such techniques include active listening, invitational learning, and values clarification—all of which are discussed in the following section.

• Knowing how to learn is more important than acquiring knowledge.