Assignment: A.

Maslow
Amanda Turner
ECI 550
October 7, 2014
Abraham Maslow was the child of uneducated Jewish immigrants from Russia.
After marrying his first cousin, Bertha they moved to Wisconsin where he began
attending The University of Wisconsin. Here he became very interested in psychology.
Maslow began to involve himself in many different studies of the mind, sexuality, and
human behaviors in general. While working with and studying monkeys, Maslow began
to notice that meeting ones needs is very important but some needs take precedence
over others. He noticed that if the monkeys were hungry or thirsty they would take care
of that need before they would play with the others, relax, etc. This led him to the
realization and eventual ideology of the hierarchy of needs.
Maslows hierarchy of needs describes his observations by delineating human
needs into a set of priorities. At the base of the hierarchy is the most essential set of
needs, physiological. These needs are the basic things that humans need to survive.
Things like water, food, sleep, air, etc. If a human does not have these needs they will
work to meet these first before any other need can be focused on because they cannot
survive without them. After these needs are met a person can then begin to meet their
safety needs. These are needs for structure and stability in life. When a person feels
safe then they are able to focus on building relationships with the people around them.
This stage is called love and belonging because at this level people feel the need to
have friends, a significant other, and family. Once a person develops healthy
relationships with others they can then look into themselves more and start to develop
self-esteem. This is both the need for respect and recognition from others as well as
building confidence in yourself. Finally, the highest need, and the one rarely met by
people is called self-actualization. This is the need for total balance in life. This need
cannot be met until all the lower ones are and even then this need may never be
realized as the needs below may continue to take precedence as things in life happen.
As a teacher, understanding this hierarchy is very important in order to be
successful in the classroom. Students come to our classrooms with all sorts of needs
and as their teachers, it is our jobs to decide what those needs are so we can meet
them. Maslow has taught us that needs must be met in a certain order. He discovered
that cognition cannot take place until students have met their physiological needs,
safety needs, belonging needs, and esteem needs. This directly affects our classrooms.
Students that may come off as lazy or act as if they dont care about school might not
be having their needs met and literally cannot turn their attention to their education
because they are so consumed with meeting their need to gain the respect of their
peers and themselves, belong to a friend group, have a safe place to go to sleep, or
worried about where their next meal is coming from. Educators need to be cognizant of

Maslows theory so that they can be more understanding and successful with the
students that come into their classrooms each day.