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The humanistic paradigm in education

Roy Jos DeCarvalho

Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome , State University of New York , Utica, NY,

135043050
Published online: 16 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Roy Jos DeCarvalho (1991) The humanistic paradigm in education, The Humanistic Psychologist, 19:1,
88-104, DOI: 10.1080/08873267.1991.9986754
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The Humanistic Psychologist, VoL 19,No.l,pp. 88-104

1991 Division 32, American Psychologcal Association

FOUNDATIONS OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES^

The Humanistic Paradigm in Education

Roy Jos6 DeCarvalho
State University of New York

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Abstract
This essay revives the humanistic paradigm in education of
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers that in the 1960's fueled the
establishment of the humanistic movement in American
psychology. The essay discusses how Maslow and Rogers' views
on human nature, more specifically their understanding of the
growth hypothesis of Kurt Goldstein, apply to education. The
intellectual development of their humanistic thoughts on education, Maslow's concepts of expressive and intrinsic learning and
Rogers' student-centered education are also discussed. It is
argued that Maslow's and Rogers' critiques and advocacy of the
behavioristic and humanistic educational paradigms, respectively, are still meaningful in the 1990's, and that the continuing
crisis in American education ensues in part from the failure to
address Maslow and Rogers' concerns and introduce a
humanistic dimension to the educational system.
Some psychologists during the "golden age" of behaviorism of post
World War II, discontented with behaviorism's view of human nature
and method, drew upon a long traditional linking psychology with
humanities and, in a rebellious manner, institutionally founded
humanistic psychology. They regarded themselves as a "third force,"

1 Editor's Note: This article is the ninth in a continuing series examining the
humanistic foundations of each of the human sciences, in the hope that reflection
of the shared core issues will be beneficial to all.

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thus, alluding to the fact that they were an alternative to the dominant
behavioristic and psychoanalytical orientation in psychology. Some key
psychologists of the period, such as Gordon Allport, Rollo May, Henry
Murray, Gardner Murphy, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow, joined
the movement (DeCarvalho, 1990b).
Unknowingly, they also had an impact on other fields, education
primarily, that had fallen under the monopoly of behaviorism. As they
recognized this impact, they extended their agenda to education creating a humanistic paradigm in that field. In reference to education, two
humanistic psychologists stand out: Carl Rogers (1902-1987) who is
known for his student-centered approach, and Abraham Maslow
(1908-1970) who is known for his views on self-actualization and
humanistic education. A close study of their humanistic paradigm and
the problems in education they addressed is still as meaningful as it was
two decades ago. It is suggested that the continuous deterioration of
American education ensues in part from its failure to address Rogers
and Maslow's humanistic concerns.
Maslow (1959a, p. viii, 1959b, 1964, pp. 338,82,1971, p. 377) and
Rogers (1961b, 1964; Evans, 1975, p. 101) were certain that humans
need a value system, a system of understanding, or frame of orientation
that gives life meaning and reason. But unfortunately, they argued, we
live in an age where the ultimate disease is amorality, rootlessness,
emptiness, hopelessness, lack of something to believe, and be devoted
to. They blamed this modern uncertainty in value orientation on the
anachronism between rigid ethical systems of the past and the ethical
relativism of science. No longer unquestionably accepting the value of
systems of our upbringing, we find ourselves in the dilemma of having
to choose between various and at times even contradictory values. We
live in an age of valuelessness and this is obviously reflected in the
educational system (DeCarvalho, 1989,1991).
The conflict and confusion in American education, they argued,
results from the lack of values concerning the purpose and goal, e.g.,
the ultimate value, of the acquisition of knowledge (Maslow, 1964, p.
49; Rogers, 1961b, 1964; Evans, 1975, p. 101). In order to evade issues
of values in the curriculum, educators turned to what they mistakenly
believe is a value-free mechanistic and technological education. Both
Rogers and Maslow thus bitterly complained about the over technological and behavioristic emphasis in American education as if education is
merely technological training for the acquisition of skills that are
value-free or amoral. Instead of educating the whole child and facilitat-

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ing personal growth, educators rather train children in skills that make
them efficient and adjusted to a technological society which, although
unrecognized, is in itself also a value. Rogers and Maslow's answer to
this problem and their humanistic paradigm of education, ensues from
their views on human nature. They thought that the ultimate goal of
education was to facilitate the students' self-actualization and fulfillment of their full potential, e.g., to help them become (Maslow, 1961c,
1968a, 1968b, 1968c, 1963d, 1968e), or in Rogers' words "to be that self
which one truly is" (1957a, 1957b, 1961b, 1964; DeCarvalho, 1991).
The Development of Maslow's Views on Education
Maslow's college education was in the best behavioristic tradition
in Madison, Wisconsin. His M.A. thesis, an experimental study of the
effect of varying simple external conditions on learning, was also his first
education-related research. Soon after graduation, however, he.
departed from the behavioristic approach to study dominance among
college women and developed the needs hierarchy theory of human
motivation that made him famous. These studies, most of them
gathered in Motivation and Personality (1954a), advanced a humanistic
view of human nature that became an important pillar of the humanistic
movement in American psychology (Hoffman, 1988). His distinction in
Motivation between expressive and coping behavior, and views on
self-actualization became the bases of his later discussion of intrinsic
and expressive learning. While coping behavior is a mere response to
operant conditioning dealing with matters of basic survival, expressive
behavior is a spontaneous expression of a person's basic character
leading to the actualization of inner potential.
In the 1960's, Maslow wrote on creativity and the significance of
teaching students to utilize their creativity. He argued that teaching
creativity through art should become the paradigm for all other fields
of education. Most of these works were compiled in Farther Reaches of
Human Nature (1971) published posthumously. The Farther Reaches
also contained a section on the values, goals and implications of
humanistic education. Drawing on the early distinction between expressive and coping behavior, he wrote on intrinsic learning as the
humanistic paradigm of education. Arguing that educators should form
an alliance with the organismic forces conducive to the fulfillment of
the students' potential and growth toward self-actualization, he
criticized extrinsic learning and coping behavior, blaming these core
concepts of the behavioristic paradigm for the failures of education.

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The Development of Rogers' Views on Education

By 1952, Rogers was pessimistic about his teaching and education
in general. Losing interest in education, he believed that it was impossible to really teach anything to anyone (Rogers, 1957d, 1959). Seven
years later, in 1959, he was more optimistic; he published an article
entitled "The Significant Learning: In Psychotherapy and in Education," applying the process of learning in psychotherapy to education
(Rogers, 1967a, 1967b). During the next eight years, he expanded and
refined the ideas advanced in this article.
At the age of sixty-two, disappointed with the educational system
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rogers joined the Western
Behavioral Sciences Institute in LaJolla, California, and during the next
three years, (1965-1968) he tried out his education program in practice.
He proposed a plan adaptable to any educational system interested in
innovative change. Several educational systems answered Rogers' call
and when grants from different sources were available, Rogers chose
the Immaculate Heart College that comprised several high schools and
many elementary schools in the Los Angeles area. Three years later,
Rogers proudly claimed having initiated self-directed change in a large
educational system; the college had been successfully working under
Rogers' plan independent of personal contact with Rogers or his group
for two years (Rogers, 1976c, 1968,1974a).
Believing that he had accomplished a revolution in education,
Rogers collected reports of educators who tried to practice his ideas. In
1969, he compiled some of these reports vaFreedom to Learn A View
ofWhat Education Mitftf Become (1969), a book that became the bible
of humanistic education. Selling 40,000 copies in the first year of
publication, Freedom to Leant showed how educators could be personal, innovative, and facilitative of learning even within an antiquated
system. After freedom to Learn, Rogers continued to write for teachers'
periodicals on personal growth, ideas and feelings about teaching,
questions he would ask himself if he was a teacher, and the future of
education. He told them that they were not teachers, but human
facilitators (Rogers, 1971a, 1971b, 1972b, 1974c).
Views on Human Nature
Maslow and Rogers thought that it was impossible for an educator,
teacher or psychologist to be objective and not to have a view of human
nature (DeCarvalho, 1990b). A well articulated view of human nature

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The Humanistic Psychologist, 19, Spring 1991

was, in their understanding, the most important value in education. Any

educational system deserving the name entails a view of human nature,
they argued. Every educator has, whether consciously stated or not, an
understanding of people. The issue, they thought, is not whether to
have a philosophy of education but whether to have one that is conscious or unconscious. The unconscious understandings or theories of
human nature are particularly dangerous since they guide the collection
of data and research more profoundly than laboriously acquired empirical knowledge. Rogers (1955, p. 248, 1961a, p. 391) and Maslow
(1955, p. 6-12,1956, pp. 17-33,1962a, chap. 1, pp. 189-214; Rick, 1971,
pp. 22-32) argued, in other words, that there are prior personal subjective views of human nature and choices of the purpose or value of
education. It is important that these values be stated and clarified since
they cannot be tested, evaluated or denied by scientific means. (Rogers
& Skinner, 1956; Evans, 1975, p. 101). In their case, they, indeed,
dedicated much effort to the delineation of a view of human nature.
The cornerstone of Maslow and Rogers' views on human nature
and consequently their naturalistic system of ethics and humanistic
paradigm in education was the growth hypothesis. Maslow explained
that an "instinctoid" inner core of human nature contains potentialities
pressing for actualization. Similarly, Rogers stated that the human
organism has a directional and actualizing tendency towards the fulfillment of inner potential. Both were inspired by Kurt Goldstein, the
Jewish-German psychiatrist World War II emigre who first coined the
term self-actualization to denote the reorganizational capability of the
organism after injury (DeCarvalho, 1990a). Goldstein argued that an
injured organism reorganizes itself into a new unit that incorporates the
damages. Maslow and Rogers acknowledged to have adopted the
concept of self-actualization from Goldstein, although they used it
more broadly. In his version of Goldstein's growth hypothesis, Maslow
(1954a, pp. 107-122,146-154,183,379,1961a) argued that persons have
basic needs, emotions, and capacities that are neutral, pre-moral, positive and good. If they guide our lives, we grow healthier and happier;
but if we deny or suppress them, sickness is virtually a certainty, In this
view, there are higher and lower needs arranged in levels of potency,
where the fulfillment of less potent needs relies upon the gratification
of the more potent ones. The higher aspects of human nature, in other
words, rest upon the fulfillment of the lower nature.
Physiological needs related to basic survival, such as food, shelter,
safety and security, belong to the lower aspects of human nature and

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dominate the organism at the elementary leveL When satisfied, however, the next higher need emerges and organizes personality differently. Belonging, affection, love, respect and self-esteem belong to the next
level, self-actualization to another, and spiritual and transcendental
needs constitute a last category. A healthy person is, according to
Maslow, one who develops and actualizes his or her full potentialities
and capacities by gratifying the ascending hierarchy of needs; Maslow
called them self-actualizers because they sought to fulfill inner potential When a persistent active basic need, however, is not satisfied the
person is not free to grow and fulfill the higher needs, and is, thus, said
to be ill (Maslow, 1948,1955, pp. 1-9,1966, pp. 119-127). All needs,
including the higher needs, are as "instinctoid" or physiological as, for
example, the need for vitamins. Deprivation of safety, love, truth, joy,
and justice generates a pathological state similar to the deprivation of
vitamin C (Maslow, 1949, p. 179,1955, pp. 1-30,1961b, 1962, p. 206;
Frick, 1971, pp. 32; Roberts, 1973).
Rogers' version of the growth hypothesis shares much in common
with Maslow's self-actualization (c Rogers, 1956,1978). Rogers (1951,
pp. 139,141,522,1961b, 1964, p. 166) thought that infants have a clear
set of values. Infants choose experiences that maintain, induce growth,
and actualize their organismic potential and reject what is contrary to
their well-being. Since the values that guide their actualization lie
strictly within their organism, they are thus naturalistic and objective.
But, Rogers argued, as infants grow their efficient valuing process is lost
and slowly transformed into rigid artificial and organismically inefficient
value systems. Their naive conception that what feels good is good is
distorted by the assimilation of the evaluation of adults, who make them
feel sorry, fearful, and guilty about their values in exchange for love. In
this process, they loose the wisdom of organismic awareness and incorporate the values set by the immediate human environment The values
carried along with the love, esteem, and approval from adults forces
them to distrust the experiencing of their own organism's guiding value
system. They relinquish their trust of organismic wisdom.
The belief that the individual has the capacity for self-understanding and reorganization in satisfying ways if they are only provided
the necessary and sufficient conditions for personality change was the
foundation of Rogers' client-centered therapy (Rogers, 1942,1943, p.
285). Given an appropriate growth inducing environment in which one
is unconditionally accepted, one learns the causes of behavior and new
ways of perceiving and reacting to these causes. Once the denied

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attitudes and behavior become conscious and accepted, the self assimilates them and reorganizes itself, consequently, altering the entire
personality structure and behavior (Rogers, 1948,1951, p. 71,1961a, p.
87). If given freedom to become what one truly is, one naturally
actualizes one's true identity, which, Rogers argued, could only positively enhance one's nature and existence (Rogers, 1947, P-113,1950b,
p. 236,1951, pp. 75,149,157,530). Each one of us has a capacity for
self-understanding and to initiate change in the direction of psychological growth and maturity, providing only that we are genuinely free and
treated with worth and significance. In this sense, he argued, the
therapist merely makes an alliance with the person's organismic forces
for growth and self-actualization (Rogers, 1950a, 1963,1972a, p. 108).
Critique of Behaviorism
Rogers and Maslow carried a persistent and at times bitter debate
with behaviorists on the nature and scope of the social sciences. When
they turned to education, they also criticized behaviorism. Behaviorists,
such as Skinner, thought that advances in the study and control of
behavior would make education a new "branch of technological
science." In "The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching" (1954),
Skinner stated that certain techniques of reinforcement shape the
behavior of an organism at the will of the experimenter. The precision
of control is proportional to the precision of the manipulation of
complex techniques of reinforcement consisting of carefully designed
multiple schedule of reinforcement followed by changing contingencies. Education for democracy and for life were trivial pursuits that soon
would be replaced by the principles of scientific technological education
(Skinner, 1954,1961). Moreover, the advances in scientific technological education, he argued, made human teachers outdated. He thus
described in some detail the designing and marketing of teaching
machines. In other words, Skinner was arguing for the dehumanization
of education. Indeed, his social Utopia, Wdlden Two (1948), pictured a
civilization whose members had been brought up by a complex control
of machinery and a cast of expert social technicians.
Rogers (1957d, 1959,1969) and Maslow (1968a, 1968d, 1969)were
not only critical of Skinner's behavioristic educational philosophy, but
also blamed such a philosophy for the failures of American education.
They thought that behaviorism lacked systematic and valid concepts of
human behavior and learning, aiming to cultivate enforced desired
behavior, as if people were pigeons or laboratory rats. The consequence

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was that education becamea mere impinging of a chosen technological,

mechanistic and valueless curriculum so the individual might not follow
his or her own mistaken way.
In contrast, Rogers and Maslow held the growth hypothesis understanding of human nature and believed that true learning is possible
only when it is intrinsic, experiential, significant or meaningfuL When
one learns something, one is describing a process of discovery that is
real and an integral part of the character structure. A good illustration
is a child who, in his free will, goes to the library in order to satisfy his
curiosity about earthworms or sex. The essence of this type of learning
is its personal intrinsic meaning. When one has a need to learn and is
free to choose what to learn, the knowledge acquired becomes meaningful and a source of satisfaction. Self-initiated knowledge has the
quality of personal involvement The purpose of education, thus, argued Rogers (1959, 1967a, 1976, 1977) and Maslow (1954a, p. I l l ,
1961b, p. 8,1968d, 1968e), was not external conditioning and enforcement of learning habits, as Skinner had argued, but rather to stimulate
curiosity, the inner need to discover and explore, facilitate personal
involvement and, of course, also to supply the necessary resources.
The most important value and goal of education according to
Maslow (1954a, p. 111. 1961b, p. 8,,1968d) and Rogers' (1957d, 1959,
1967a) humanistic paradigm is to facilitate the students' discovery and
actualization of their nature, vocation, what they are good for, and what
they enjoy doing. The learning resulting from this need has subjective
meaning and results in expressive and creative behavior that is personally satisfying. In this sense, the goal of education is to make an alliance
with the student's natural wonder and to facilitate the process of
learning. This type of learning changes a person from within, enabling
psychological health and growth towards the actualization of their
human potential. Intrinsic learning and self-discovery, they argued, are
related concepts in the sense that the latter enables students to look
inward and from inner knowledge derive their own subjective values
(Maslow, 1968e; Rogers, 1959,1964,1967a). Education becomes a vital
mean of discovery of identity, training in authenticity and self-fulfillment A good example is the discovery of one's professional vocation.
When found, the ensuing acquired learning has personal meaning that
becomes an integral part of personality and independent of reinforcing
stimulus. Maslow (1964; Frick, 1971, p. 33) and Rogers (1967a, 1978)
concluded that it is important that the educational system induces
students to explore their organismic potential and, by forming an

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alliance with it, properly train them in their self-chosen professional or

scholarly field. An educational system based on these principles, they
argued, will turn out much more creative people.

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Maslow's Intrinsic Learning

Maslow thought that American education failed because it focused
on extrinsic and coping behavior rather than expressive behavior and
intrinsic learning (Maslow, 1968a, 1969). His later distinction between
extrinsic and intrinsic learning followed his understanding of expressive
and coping behavior first argued within terms of the need-hierarchy
theoryofmotivation.Maslow(1943,p. 103,1949,1954b, p. 291) blamed
behaviorists for studying exclusively coping behavior, which, he argued,
was the least significant part of personality. Coping behavior is functional, instrumental, adaptive, and the product of an interaction of the
character-structure with the world. Coping behavior is learned or
acquired in order to deal with specific environmental situations, and
dies out if not rewarded or continuously bombarded with stimulus.
Since the extrinsic knowledge ensuing from coping behavior is forcefully implanted by operant conditioning or indoctrination, it is never an
integral part of personality and thus not perceived as meaningful. The
conditioning must be reinforced continuously or the learning disappears. This type of learning focuses on techniques that are interchangeable and results in automatic habits such as driving or swimming. It is
a useful learning, but meaningless for the growth and actualization of
the inner character structure. Problem solving, for example, ensues
from a memorized response rather than from understanding the problem and reacting creatively. In fact, understanding is inimical to behavioral operant conditioning. When people understand that they are
victims of conditioning, they rebel and dispose of the enforced learning.
Earning a degree, reward for scholarly achievement, and other similar
practices are by-products of extrinsic education.
Extrinsic learning and coping behavior, he argued, have became
the bases and failures of contemporary American Education (Maslow,
1968d). Students not only drop out of school because they find little
personal meaning in the process of learning, but also rebel against the
system in order to assert their identity. The solution, he suggested, was
to shift the educational system to the paradigm of intrinsic learning and
expressive behavior. Expressive behavior, such as artistic creation, play,
wonder, and love, is a reflection of personality (Maslow, 1949). Since it
is non-functional and persists without reward, it is an epiphenomenon

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of inner character-structure. Expressive behavior resulting from intrinsic learning has meaningful personal value and remains an integral part
of the self even when external stimuli ceases.
Comparing the two types in their ability to predict behavior,
Maslow (1966, pp. 40-44) compared external scientific control of the
behavioristic type with the internal self-knowledge posited by humanistic psychology. He argued that people resent and rebel against external
scientific control, but they accept the increase of self-knowledge that
allows them to control their own behavior. Self-knowledge of the
humanistic type has thus much more personal meaning and predictive
power.
A related and significant goal of education, according to Maslow
(1963, pp. 57-61,1965), is to teach students skills that are vital in all
fields of learning and professional activities, such as creativity. Any
educational system deserving the name should cultivate creativity in
students. Creativity is an inspired, expressive behavior, it comes in
flashes and furor, it is a product of fascination and inventiveness, of
inner exploration, and self-discovery. Creativity requires the ability to
listen and follow inner impulses or voices telling what is right and wrong.
Only a system based on intrinsic learning wUl develop the students'
ability to reach their creativity when confronted with problems.
Creativity can neither be taught by operant conditioning nor it will
ensue as a product of method. Method is a technique whereby noncreative people create. Arts and music education, as against critical
thinking and method, for example, offer intuitive glimpses into inner
values and should be the paradigm for all fields of eduction whereby
students' learn to express themselves creatively (Maslow, 1963, pp.
57-61, 1965, 1968a, 1968d). Once intrinsically acquainted with their
creativity, students learn how to reach for and release it in their
self-chosen vocational fields. l i k e creativity there are other skills necessary in all fields of learning. Experts in any field should be comfortable
and enjoy change, be able to improvise and face with confidence,
strength and courage situations that emerge without forewarning.
We should not, however, argued Maslow (1969,1970),devaluate
specific professional skills and knowledge of the various disciplines. It
is not enough just to be creative and intrinsically willing to become a
civil engineer. Concrete knowledge of engineering, mathematics and
physics is also a prerequisite. Hie ideal, thus, was to integrate intrinsic
learning and the traditional extrinsic learning such as training for
professional skills or education for competence in any field. The main

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difference is whether this knowledge is sought out of personal need and

meaning or as a response to rewarding and punishing stimuli.
Knowledge gathered out of personal meaning translates into a lasting
expressive behavior that is independent of reinforcing external stimuli
Rogers' Student-Centered Learning
Rogers' views on education were an outgrowth of his clientcentered therapy, more precisely, the concept of "significant learning"
(Rogers, 1951, 1957c, 1959). Significant learning in client-centered
therapy penetrates the whole character structure of the individual,
deeply changing the individual's mode of being. When this type of
learning occurs in psychotherapy, one's self-image improves; one accepts one's own feelings and way of being, adopts realistic goals and
mature behavior, and develops a better awareness of inner and outer
worlds. Rogers postulated that the therapist must providefivenecessary
and sufficient conditions, so that significant learning occurs. The first
condition is the congruence of the therapist's relationship with the
client. By congruence, Rogers meant awareness and expression of what
the therapist is experiencing in the relationship. In other words, the
therapist is perceived as an integrated and authentic person, not a
facade or role. The second condition is the therapist's free expression
and acceptance of his or her own immediate feelings. The third condi tion is the therapist's expression of a warm care for the client ss a person
in his or her own right, thus, providing a secure climate of unconditional
positive regard. By "unconditional positive regard," Rogers meant the
therapist's acceptance of the client's expression of negative or "bad"
and positive or "good" feelings without evaluating these feelings. In this
sense, the client is given permission to express and find meaning in his
or her own feelings. The fourth condition states that the therapist must
experience an accurate empathic understanding of the client's private
world~his or her anger, fear and confusion, as if these were the
therapist's own feelings. This condition in turn enables the therapist to
reflect back to the client his or her understanding of what is already
known, thus, awakening the client to the meanings he or she is scarcely
aware of. The fifth and final condition is the ability of the therapist to
communicate to the client his or her own congruence, acceptance and
empathy. When these five conditions are met, significant learning
induces a constructive process of personality change and growth. The
reason, wrote Rogers, is that when the organism is integrated and

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allowed free and authentic expression, it releases a "self-actualizing

tendency" to grow and fulfill all its potential.
When Rogers (1957c, 1971a, 1972b, 1974b) applied this reasoning
to education, he argued that if significant learning is to occur in the
classroom, the teacher, like the therapist, must create a facilitating
climate that meets the same five conditions. Rogers also pointed out
that in education, like in therapy, it is essential that the student is
curious, explorative, in touch with the problem, and conscious that its
solution has personal significance. If the student lives through the
problem and the five necessary and sufficient conditions are met, an
astonishing amount of significant learning takes place.
The first implication of Rogers' psychotherapy to education is the
realness of the teacher (Rogers, 1967a, 1976,1977). The teacher is not
supposed to be a mere "faceless embodiment of a curricular requirement," or a "sterile pipe" of knowledge transmission, but rather a
congruent person, authentic in the classroom, who accepts and
manifests his or her feelings. Secondly, the teacher must warmly accept,
understand and empathize with the student in his or her own terms;
and, among other things, the teacher must unconditionally accept the
student's feelings of fear and discouragement which are always present
when learning something new. Thirdly, the instructional resources must
be readily available, but never forced upon the student The teacher
should let the students know that his or her personal knowledge is
available to them in whatever form they want, whether in a lecture
format or as a resource-finder. The student will not perceive the
learning experience as the teachers expectations, commands, impositions or requirements. The task of the teacher is merely to facilitate the
student's satisfaction of his or her own intellectual curiosity.
Conclusion
Although most educators in the late 1950's and 1960's read
Skinner's Walden Two (1948) and other education related writings,
Skinner's impact on education was insignificant The radical behavioristic educational program was, in general terms, regarded as a Utopia,
indeed, a fearful Utopia for some. The teaching-machines and the cast
of social technicians failed to relate to the human aspects of education.
It was absurd to treat children as behaving organisms whose education
was to follow the lines of control and prediction of behavior of rats,
pigeons and apes. But in an age that over estimated the social applications of science, the scientism appeal of behaviorism and concrete

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results in extreme cases as occupational therapy and behavioral disabilities were powerful arguments against teachers talk about the
human aspects of education. Torn between the scientific credibility of
behaviorism and the human aspects of the classroom when the 1960's
countercultural revolution was under way, educators were ready for an
alternative philosophy.
Not surprisingly, by the 1970's Rogers' and Maslow's humanistic
paradigm of education was well established. Most educators today have
a notion of Rogerian student-centered education and Maslow's intrinsic learning and expressive behavior. Both Rogers and Maslow
reawakened educators to the need of humanizing education and, in
doing so, they helped to dismantle the monopoly enjoyed by behaviorism in the American social sciences of mid-20th Century.
The growth hypothesis of Kurt Goldstein was a source of inspiration for Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, whose studies on self-actualization served as a breeding ground for the establishment of the
humanistic movement in American psychology. Their versions of the
growth hypothesis also dictated their understanding of human nature,
naturalistic ethics and the humanistic paradigm in education.
Their views on education stemmed from a basic trust of the
worthiness of human nature. They argued that when people are authentic, experience their inner worlds, and function freely from internal and
external barrier, they value and choose (from an organismic point of
view) what is good for them. "To be that self which one truly is," a phrase
Rogers borrowed from Kierkegaard and synonymous with the seeking
of authenticity, was the highest value in Rogers and Maslow's naturalistic system of ethics. In Maslow's words, authenticity was "truthfulness
to one's own nature."
Although two decades old, Maslow and Rogers' humanistic message is still valid for the 1990's. The success of any educational system
depends on its ability to involve students in the process of learning and
perceive meaning in the acquisition of knowledge. Without the
student's wonder, curiosity and personal need to learn, good teachers
and well-funded schools will fail Students are not merely rat-like
response organisms that learn technological knowledge and skills in
response to rewarding stimuli. According to Maslow and Rogers, they
rather learn only when they seek to actualize their inner human potential The teacher should thus make an alliance with the student's natural
curiosity and organismic forces pressing for growth, and facilitate the
process of self-discovery, so they may find which vocation and skills they

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101

are intrinsically good for. Once this alliance has been made it is also the
educator's responsibility to make extrinsic knowledge available and
teach specific skills. Teachers themselves should serve as role models of
people who are authentic, curious, explorative and perplexed by the
wonders of their disciplines.
According to Maslow and Rogers, the reason of the crisis in
American education is in the behavioristic extrinsic learning and coping
behavior paradigm. The solution, they argued, is a shift to a paradigm
that is student-centered, trusts and empowers the child with choice,
value and dignity. Perhaps, education in the United States continues to
deteriorate since Maslow and Rogers first proposed the humanistic
paradigm in education three decades ago, because it failed to introduce
a more humanistic dimension to teaching and learning.

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Roy DeCarvalho received his Ph.D. in history of science from the University
of Wisconsin, and is currently an assistant professor in the Institute of Technology at the Utica/Rome campus of the State University of New York. He is
a frequent contributor of articles on the history of humanistic psychology, and
has recently completed two books: The Founders of Humanistic Psychology
(Praeger) and The Growth Hypothesis in Psychology: The Humanistic Psychology of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers (Mellen Research University Press).
This essay was supported by a New York State/United University Professions
Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Affirmative Action Leave Award. Address
correspondence to: Roy DeCarvalho, SUNY-Institute of Technology at
Utica/Rome, Utica, NY 13504-3050.