REFLECTION: HUMANISM

I have learned that humanistic approach gives importance to the inner world of the learner.
Both learner’s feelings and thoughts are important. Therefore as a future teacher I need to
know what my students think about the lesson or what they feel about it. We talked about Erik
Erikson. He suggests that everyone pass through eight stages throughout their lives. These
stages are trust vs mistrust, autonomy vs doubt, initiative vs guilt, industry vs inferiority,
identity vs role confusion, intimacy vs isolation, stagnation vs generavity and lastly integrity
vs despair. If the person couldn’t pass one of these stages without challenges, then the other
challenges can occur. As a future teacher we need to bear all these stages in mind. İf the child
is in the industry vs inferiority stage, then we should let them do things on their own.
Secondly we talked about Abraham Maslow. His categories of needs –deficiency and being
needs makes us realise that every learner’s needs should be met in order them to actively
participate the lesson. Then we talked about Carl Rogers, the father of humanistic approach.
He thinks that the subject should be relevant to the learners. Humanism is mostly based on
psychology rather than linguistics. Therefore, the comfort, independence, creativity and self
reliance are important elements of humanism. And lastly we talked about the messages of
humanism. It is all about learners. We need to involve them, make them responsible for their
own learning. We should give them opportunities to develop their own strategies.
I need to focus on the epigenetic principles of Erik Erikson because I always confuse their
sequence.