Ed Foundations Module B
In looking at Jane’s scenario I found several areas that could be examined further in regards to helping us understand issues surrounding human development. Jane’s students are different from many of our students in suburban areas.
Travelling from isolated regions for around an hour every morning to get to school means that her students may have left home without breakfast, or have had breakfast hours before school even starts. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs clearly details the importance of physiological needs such as food, water and oxygen for human beings and brain development. Maslow has noted that, if the ‘organism is …dominated by the physiological needs, all other needs may become simply non-existent or be pushed into the background.’ (Maslow, 1943: 373) If Jane’s students are coming to school with no breakfast and waiting hours until lunch, they are less likely to be ‘switched on’ in class. In other words, they will be unable to move up the hierarchy of needs to achieve self-esteem and self-actualisation, which a humanistic approach to teaching would deem as key factors to learning. It has also been shown that ‘children experiencing hunger are more likely to be hyperactive, absent and tardy, in addition to having behavioral and attention problems more often than other children.’ (Murphy et. al, 1998: 37) This could be why Jane’s students are disengaged and difficult to control.
In light of this, Jane may need to consider implementing a breakfast program in her school, for which, being in a rural/ low socio-economic area, she may receive government funding. Research shows that ‘providing breakfast to students at school improves their concentration, alertness, comprehension, memory, and learning.’ (Food and Research Action Centre, 2010: 1) However, we need to consider what Jane's students want and need from her. It is possible that Jane's rural student's don't want her to set up a breakfast program because they feel isolated at school already. But they do need to be provided with good nutrition in order to learn and be less disruptive in class. The program may also be met with hostitlity from the local parents, in which case Jane needs to consider who is accountable to, her students or their parents.
Though, the divide Jane sees between the rural students and those who live in town could actually be bridged with the breakfast program. By providing the brain with the nutrients it needs to support learning and social interaction, the rural students may be more likely to mingle with their peers from town in the morning, where they may have been too tired and less motivated to do so before.
Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development suggests that students learn through social interactions with their community. Vygotsky writes that, ‘…all the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.’ (Vygotsky, 1978: 57) So Jane will also need to promote this social interaction between the different groups of students in her classroom as well. This could materialise as group work tasks or whole class discussions, for example. Jane needs to recognise that helping nourish her student’s brains both physically and socially, in class and through other initiatives, could help solve her problems with disengagement and misbehaviour in class.
Resources
A. H. Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation”, Psychological Review, 50 (1943): 370-396.
L.S. Vygotsky, Mind in Society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1978) as cited in "Social Development Theory (L. Vygotsky)", http://tip.psychology.org/vygotsky.html, accessed 17/4/2011
Food Research and Action Centre, "Breakfast for Learning: Scientific research on the link between children’s nutrition and academic performance", 2010, frac.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/breakfastforlearning1.pdf
Murphy JM, Wehler CA, Pagano ME, Little M, Kleinman RF, Jellinek MS. “Relationship Between Hunger and Psychosocial Functioning in Low-Income American Children”, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, (1998): 163-170.
Churchill et. al, Teaching: Making a Difference, John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd: Milton QLD, 2011