Enlightened Teaching: Elevating Through Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Enlightened Teaching

Enlightened Teaching: Elevating Through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Copyright © 2017 Joyce C. Cooper

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in cases of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Purchase only authorized editions of this book.

Please contact the publisher to purchase this book and companion materials for educational purposes, sales promotion, and business at:

Enlightened Publishing 4 You, LLC

819 Finley Court

Rock Hill, SC 29730

Due to the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses and links listed in Further Readings may be invalid since the publication of this book. The thoughts expressed in this book are based on the research and teaching experience of the author.

The author of this book does not attempt to dispense counseling or medical advice in any form. Individuals are explicitly encouraged to seek counseling and medical advice from a licensed professional to diagnose and treat any type of symptoms being experienced. The intent of the author is to convey an educational philosophy that can support, in conjunction with other practices, the physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological wellbeing of children and those who work with children.

Artwork: Jocelyn Cooper

Photo of author: Lamont and Tiffany Simpson

Individuals mentioned in the case studies are not the actual names of students whom the author has encountered during the course of her teaching profession. Rather they are fictitious names chosen by the author. Although the situations are actual accounts of experiences, they may be a compilation of situations based on several encounters with individuals throughout the author’s personal and professional life.

ISBN: 978-0-9991177-0-5 (HB)

ISBN: 978-0-9991177-1-2 (PB)

ISBN: 978-0-9991177-2-9 (EB)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017945525

To my children, Angelica and AJ

and

All the students who have graced my life

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Noble Truths in Education * Five Principles of Enlightened Teaching

Part I: The Path to Enlightened Teaching

Developing Mindfulness

The Spiritual Side of Us All

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Conscious Teaching

Chakra System * Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking

The Painted Picture

Advancing Towards Understanding

Students with Emotional Wounds

Erikson’s Stages of Emotional Development

The Ordinary Student

Expanding in Compassion

Prospering with Discipline

Executive Functioning * Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Thriving with Guidance

Part II: The Game

Working with Multiple Intelligences

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Pyramid Game Plan

Case Studies

Part III: Transcendence

Moments of Peace

Afterthoughts

Acknowledgements

Further Readings

Index

Preface

For several years, I have felt that my students’ behavioral issues were more than defiance; I felt they were an outcry for help. My first year of exploring this issue was in a rural middle school when I was working on my master’s degree. One of my duties was the bus depot where I greeted students as they exited their buses and entered the school building. I was appalled at how students were exiting their buses in a tense and argumentative mood. They were speaking negative words to their peers and sometimes inviting a physical confrontation. Additionally, they were bringing those high tempered spirits into my classroom, which were substantial disruptions to the learning environment.

I contacted several parents by telephone and visited homes to gain a better understanding of my students. I needed to know how to help them focus on their school work. I immediately noticed several factors that might have been impacting students’ behaviors. One factor was the number of people living in the home. This may have been directly related to why students seemed to be argumentative. Voices in many homes were at an elevated level to be heard over other noises. Another seemingly contributing factor was the way family members communicated in the home and with school personnel. Once again, what was viewed as belligerent behavior in the school environment was normal, human interaction in many homes. The other very important factor was the type of words students were hearing in their homes. Comments I observed used in the homes as everyday language to my students and their families were considered offensive and disrespectful in the learning environment.

A requirement in one of the courses was to conduct an action research project to improve the climate within our classrooms or schools. I decided to develop a program to determine how students’ behaviors could be modified for less inflamed tempers and increased positive speech to self and others. I decided on a methodology that included the following:

1.Greeting every student with a smile, Good Morning nod, and handshake as they exited their buses and entered the school building;

2.Students enrolled in my classes received the following:

a. A greet with the same gestures as they entered my class with the inclusion of being address by mister and miss followed by their last names;

b. Playing soothing music during the entire class period;

c. Beginning each class with an inspirational reading from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hanson and poems by Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes;

d. Eighth graders were required to dress professionally one day a week during my class time (prior to the implementation of dress codes); and

e. An open-door policy for parents to observe our classes and to be a part of our audience during project presentations.

Sure enough, the amount of student disruptions and negative comments towards their peers and about themselves significantly decreased in my classroom. Students smiled as they exited their buses because they thought my actions were comical. I welcomed their thoughts about my actions being comical because I was achieving my objective and getting students to lighten up a little.

A few years later, I changed middle schools and began working in an urban community. Students did not seem as negative towards each other as in the previous school where I worked. I noticed that parents’ interactions with school personnel were not belligerent and there seemed to be more of a partnership between the school and home. Parents’ communications with their children were of expectations of respect for themselves and school personnel and for high academic achievement. Home dynamics in the number of people occupying the residence was not multi-generational as in the previous community.

The following school year I began working in a more suburban community with a demographic mixture of the two previous school systems. I visited homes of students who were extremely disruptive