Tuesday, May 10, 2011

very simple stuff...

Today, I'll have very little time for the blog but just want to share what was circling in my thoughts during the night. "Creative self-actualization." What is it, how is it related to the hands? What is the difference between one engaged in service to others, and one caught twiddling thumbs in senseless, and meaningless acts? Which is the direction we have chosen for our children? What is the path we would hope they might travel and what are the rewards of that journey? Are there feelings that arise when someone is creatively engaged? To facilitate children's growth toward Self-Actualization could become one of the primary objectives of education. As we seem to be so incessantly concerned with things that can be measured through standardized testing, we seem to miss the point. What if we were to adopt self-actualization and the feelings that arise with it as a primary concern? The metaphor, "Child as Craftsman" recognizes the needs that each and every child has to develop skill and expertise at something.

Abraham Maslow, who proposed a hierarchy of needs with self-actualization being at the top, studied the healthiest 1% of college students, recognizing that to study only those who had neurotic symptoms would yield only a philosophy of illness rather than a philosophy of health and strength.

Make, fix, and create.


Anonymous said...

It's not easy to talk about self actualization even with students at the community college level, and we theoretically get the students who have some career direction in mind.


Doug Stowe said...

I talked with 7th and 8th grade students about it today, and they wished I'd just turned them loose on the lathe instead. But these kids need to start thinking about how they learn and what their objectives are.