I teach at an at-risk school that exists in a grey area somewhere between truancy court and jail. Students float in and out of our classes from lives filled with problems much more pressing than the long term concept of a diploma. Often, to them, their problems are more pressing than the short term concept of sitting in a classroom for an hour, and they just get up and walk away. If I’m lucky they walk out without causing a scene. Some days they do their best to take half the class with them.

As you can imagine, convincing these students of the importance of multiplying radicals in algebra 2 (there is some importance, right?) is a bit challenging. My argument typically goes something like “Well, you will probably never do this exact math in your future lives, but what we’re really trying to build is the ability to think logically and follow a process with an attention to details. Plus, if you focus and try right now, you may get a diploma in 2-5 years, and then over the following 40 years you’ll earn much more than people who didn’t get a diploma.”

“I’m hungry” responds a student who doesn’t always get much food at home.

“Yes, but feeding you isn’t a state standard, and simplifying radicals is,” I answer mentally and never aloud. “So let’s ignore that hunger to build a very small part of an abstract version of your distant future”.

“I know. But we don’t have lunch for another three hours, and there’s a lot to get done before then,” I answer out loud. “Who can explain what a squared number is?” Around that time some students start talking about the fight they were in, or started, or watched their mom get into, over the weekend. No one’s interested in radicals now.

The thing is, I can’t blame the students for their lack of engagement. A basic understanding of human beings teaches us that their problems of hunger and safety really are fundamentally more important to them then the more abstract academic facts I’m teaching, or even the sense of social belonging I’m trying to foster.

TSFires teaches Maslow’s hierarchy as a simple way to both admit that students have very different needs, that not all those needs are met by differentiating or using pedagogical best practice, and that some needs always supersede others.

The graphic simplicity of his pyramid shows quite clearly the needs of safety and belonging are foundational layers that must be created or provided before moving up. This is the idea that until a student has food, water, and a sense of physical safety, they simply will not be engaged in higher levels of academic learning. The pyramid also reassures us that humans do have a natural need for understanding and academic facts. But we must recognize that that need only forms after the previous layers have been built.

The pyramid also reminds us that once the layers up to and including intellectual understanding have been met, there are still additional layers to go. If we stop developing our students at the academic level we are neglecting their more advanced needs. Humans have a desire not only to understand, but also to know and create beauty, to seek self-actualization.

As we and our fellow teachers starting fires move through our lessons we use Maslow’s pyramid to remind us that the needs of our students are the needs of humans, that they need to built in order, and that they do not stop and start with the desire for academic learning.

Now, back to the student who is hungry in your classroom. The simplest response to this should be that schools, that teachers, could provide nutritious food to their students whenever the need arises. We know this isn’t always true. Different spending rules, district food service rules, and simply budgetary constraints make it so we can’t always do that. At my school some teachers provide granola bars from their own money, just as many teachers do with supplies. But that’s not always possible either.

The more complex, less ideal solution is to teach students to overcome those needs through mindfulness. What? Meditation and all that? Sort of. Many of you may have been following some of the recent use of mindfulness across the educational world. The basic idea is that meditation, focusing activities, self reflection, and any sort of mindfulness helps create self awareness. Self awareness gives students the ability to recognize their hunger or fear, know what it is, and choose not to let their temporary state control them.

Mindfulness is obviously not a solution for hunger. And students who actually are struggling for enough food each day will not solve that with self awareness. But while we cannot guarantee that our students will have food or safety every day, we can give them a mental tool kit that lets them overcome those temporary states long enough to move up the pyramid to be engaged by our academic content.

Maslow’s hierarchy is just one of many tools we cover in our six-week master class. Teachers Starting Fires know that each student has great potential, both below and above academic mastery. Helping students build a solid foundation, become engaged in academic learning, and move upwards towards self actualization is part of every TSFires lesson.

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