- Student development
possible, even if it was clearly not lived perfectly. Since personal history can no longer be altered at the end of life, it
is important to make peace with what actually happened and to forgive oneself and others for mistakes that may
have been made. The alternative is despair, or depression from believing not only that one’s life was lived badly, but
also that there is no longer any hope of correcting past mistakes.
Even though Erikson conceives of these crises as primarily concerns of adulthood, there are precursors of them
during the school years. Intimacy, for example, is a concern of many children and youth in that they often desire,
but do not always find, lasting relationships with others (Beidel, 2005; Zimbardo & Radl, 1999). Personal isolation
is a particular risk for students with disabilities, as well as for students whose cultural or racial backgrounds differ
from classmates’ or the teacher’s. Generativity—feeling helpful to others and to the young—is needed not only by
many adults, but also by many children and youth; when given the opportunity as part of their school program, they
frequently welcome a chance to be of authentic service to others as part of their school programs (Eyler & Giles,
1999; Kay, 2003). Integrity—taking responsibility for your personal past, “warts and all”, is often a felt need for
anyone, young or old, who has lived long enough to have a past on which to look. Even children and youth have a
past in this sense, though their pasts are of course shorter than persons who are older.
Abraham Maslow: a hierarchy of motives and needs
Abraham Maslow's theory frames personal needs or motives as a hierarchy, meaning that basic or “lower-level”
needs have to be satisfied before higher-level needs become important or motivating (1976, 1987). Compared to the
stage models of Piaget and Erikson, Maslow’s hierarchy is only loosely “developmental”, in that Maslow was not
concerned with tracking universal, irreversible changes across the lifespan. Maslow's stages are universal, but they
are not irreversible; earlier stages sometimes reappear later in life, in which case they must be satisfied again before
later stages can redevelop. Like the theories of Piaget and Erikson, Maslow’s is a rather broad “story”, one that has
less to say about the effects of a person’s culture, language, or economic level, than about what we all have in
common.
In its original version, Maslow’s theory distinguishes two types of needs, called deficit needs and being
needs (or sometimes deficiency needs and growth needs). Table 8 summarizes the two levels and their sublevels.
Deficit needs are prior to being needs, not in the sense of happening earlier in life, but in that deficit needs must be
satisfied before being needs can be addressed. As pointed out, deficit needs can reappear at any age, depending on
circumstances. If that happens, they must be satisfied again before a person’s attention can shift back to “higher”
needs. Among students, in fact, deficit needs are likely to return chronically to those whose families lack economic
or social resources or who live with the stresses associated with poverty (Payne, 2005).
Table 8: Maslow's hierarchy of motives and needsDeficit NeedsPhysiological needsSafety and security needsLove and belonging needs
Cognitive needs