For a long time, I was actively working with my team of teachers on Bloom’s taxonomy and how to build our students’ higher order thinking skills from their lower level cognitive skills. Recently, I attended a workshop in which I heard Ms. Aarti Rajaratnam talk about how we must first satisfy 4 levels before we can even begin to expect our students to reach the thinking level. The primary level was to do with the brain stem: breathing, heart rate, sleep, hunger, etc., When I heard her talk about these levels beginning with this basic physiological needs, it reminded me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that I had come across during my time at University. I revisited this & I thought to myself, “Oh, we have to do Maslow before we do Bloom.” And when I delved into this, I came across these phrases “Maslow before Bloom”, “We must Maslow before our children can Bloom”, etc. There is even a book written about it by Dr. Bryan Pearlman. It was a relieving realization to know that many had pondered and researched on this topic before me!

Then, I had a discussion with our teachers on zoom about Maslow & only about 2 out of our 40 teachers were familiar with his pyramid. After going through it in detail, we broke into breakout rooms & our teachers brainstormed what we are already doing at each level & what more we ought to do. I was very surprised with the number of things we were already doing right, not to satisfy Maslow, but because it’s the right thing to do. Here’s the list of things already implemented in our schools:

PHYSIOLOGICAL:

• Awareness programs for gut health & healthy toilet habits for teachers, parents & students
• Stool & Urine chart pasted in all restrooms to show healthy excretory indicators
• No restrictions for kids to drink water or use restrooms throughout the school day
• Teachers to ask all kids if they had breakfast every morning (if not, we’d arrange something for them to eat)
• Insist on healthy eating
• No junk food at school
• Encourage parents & students to pack lunches appropriately (quantity & quality).
• 2 minute Ohm in the morning for calming our body & mind. The entire school would be at a stand still and is one of the most beautiful part of our school day!
• Including sleeping time & waking up time in the diary for kids to fill in everyday so that they learn to track their sleep habits.

SAFETY:

• ZERO tolerance for teasing/bullying in the classroom.
• Teachers mindful of how they react/respond to a student’s answers or their mistakes.
• Create a classroom atmosphere that is safe & accepting of everyone.
• Failure/Mistakes are okay & it is vital for learning.
• Mentor Visits & Weekly phone calls: what is their home environment like? Does the child have a stable, loving family or is he/she from a broken home? How secure does a child feel? (we also check if a child’s physiological needs are being met).
• Structure in the classroom & there are clearly stated consequences for unacceptable behavior (& we strive to be consistent with these).
• Positive reinforcement.
• No fear of the teacher. No physical threats or punishments. Positive discipline strategies.

LOVE & BELONGING:

• Teachers are constantly self-checking on these questions:
  • Do all children have friends?
  • Does each student feel loved by the teacher & their peers?
  • Do they feel like they are valued & belong in the classroom?
• Greeting students every morning & having conversations unrelated to academics
• KNOW each student; their likes, dislikes, strengths & weaknesses (this info is maintained & updated in our STUDENT PROFILE for easy reference).
• Classrooms are created to feel like a family. Acceptance of one another. Collaboration instead of competition.
• We teachers are empathetic, loving, non-judgemental, positive, caring, patient
• Peer tutoring – younger kids have an “anna” or “akka” who help them & support them on their learning journey.

ESTEEM:

• Growth Mindset – we consistently talk about this in our assemblies & have posters around the school
• Specific Praise – teachers give targeted appreciation of that specific action or behavior.
• Instilling intrinsic motivation & reducing external rewards
• Setting individual goals & helping make plans for students to achieve it (there is space in their school diary to do so).
• Creating space in the class for students to give constructive feedback to each other about the positives & room for improvement
• Individualized learning, Joyful learning, Holistic learning
• Daily acts of kindness, reflective journaling (what makes me happy, what am I grateful for, what are my strengths & weaknesses & what am I doing to improve on these). These are things our students think about & journal in their diary everyday.

SELF-ACTUALIZATION:

• We encourage our students to work at their fullest potential & utilize their strengths
• Set high expectations for every student. Not same expectations
• Meaningful learning (All of our learning focuses on real-world application and takes the learning beyond the textbooks)
• Lesson plan: multiple different components such as art, physical activity, creativity, moral values, etc are integrated into our lesson plans.
• We facilitate self-directed learning, self-expressive & creative projects
• We all work together as one big Aurobindo Family and are POSITIVE, PASSIONATE & PRINCIPLED in all that we do & say!